Karma Shower for Austin Morris

[XLFD]

Most parents learn that the best way to get their children to do something is to lecture them repeatedly against doing it.  Most police learn that the best way to get subjects experiencing a mental breakdown to do something is to warn them repeatedly against doing it.  This is a true story of one of those events where a local police officer learns that latter lesson, much to his shock and dismay.

Ludington Police Department Officer Austin Morris serves as the school resource officer (SRO) for the Ludington School District.  Readers of the Ludington Torch may recognize him as the lead character in The Unwarranted Perjury of Austin Morris, which described an incident where Morris misused the Law Enforcement Information Network (LEIN), and then lied repeatedly on not only his police report but on a sworn warrant affidavit over several substantive topics, which describes the crime of Perjury, with a capital pee.

One might wonder why the school and the LPD allows this officer to remain employed in his position of trust, seeing that he objectively did lie on a sworn affidavit, but consider that the local fire department hired a twenty-something year old firefighter, Austin Billings, knowing that he had been convicted on about eight serious felonies over the course of his young life, then immediately paired him up with your children without your knowledge during last year's "Shop with a Hero" event.  Our civic leaders think its great to put untrustworthy characters in direct interaction with our kids, but our common sense tells us that is not a good mix and a bit crazy.

Which leads in to our story, which starts when Ludington resident Patrick Miller was feeling a bit crazy and called 911 in order to go to the hospital and get evaluated.  Officer Morris and fellow LPD Officer Jared Versluis were among those who showed up.  After talking with Patrick and a woman who confirmed that Patrick was having a mental breakdown of sorts and should be evaluated, the officers offered to take Patrick to the hospital's ER for evaluation, but he declined their offer because he wanted to ride in the ambulance.  

The incident could have been over once they escorted Patrick to the waiting ambulance that took him to the hospital, but Patrick seems to have reconsidered his need for an evaluation on the way.  Once the ambulance gets to Spectrum Hospital, Patrick wanders off in the direction of Ludington Avenue; another 911 call is made and the officers are dispatched to find Patrick, who locate him south of Ludington Avenue on Jackson.   

                      Officer Morris looks on while Patrick Miller converses with Officer Versluis (Versluis' bodycam)

A confused and befuddled Patrick is cajoled by both officers to get in Morris' vehicle and head back to the hospital for a needed evaluation he originally requested, they escort him past hospital security into Room 22.  The officers remain to inhibit flight, while Patrick is ordered to take off his sweatpants, socks and shoes and put on scrub pants and socks.  During this time, Officer Versluis is given a urine sample bottle and is asked to help them get a urine sample from Patrick, as they are afraid that in his current state, he may throw it at them.  

So when Patrick is done with changing, he is given the bottle, instructed what to do into it, and directed into the nearby bathroom.  Officer Morris at this point, warns Patrick (10:15):  "If you throw that on me, I'm going to lose it.", and ten seconds later:  "Do not throw it.  Fill it up."

Patrick comes out of the bathroom about a minute later with a cup full of orangish urine loosely covered by a cap, looking a bit out of it.  The officers instruct him to put the cap on the bottle and to not throw it.  As Officer Versluis reaches hesitantly towards Patrick's hand to retrieve the bottle...

              LPD Officer Versluis fearfully looks at an uncapped urine sample bottle moments before it's thrown at Officer Morris

Patrick's hand, as if having a will of its own, flicks the urine bottle over at Officer Morris, reportedly striking his face and chest with the drained cupful of Patrick's golden fluid.  This action is not well received by the officers as they immediately take him down to the ground and handcuff him.  In the process, Patrick sustains a nasty cut on his side.  In the police report, Morris would say this was caused by the latch on the door frame of the room, though in the videos, it doesn't look as if that was the case, nor did Versluis confirm that diagnosis. 

Sergeant Mike Fort is called to the hospital shortly thereafter and yells at Patrick that (18:45):  "You don't throw piss at my officers!".  Ironically, the night before, the city council agreed to settle with a woman victim of domestic violence who filed a federal lawsuit against Fort for distress caused when Fort apparently didn't believe that she was so scared that she pissed her pants, and allegedly ran his hand up and down her clothed genital area multiple times and sniffed his hand.   

Under Sergeant Fort's command, the officers would lead Patrick Miller in handcuffs through the halls of the hospital and outside into the waiting police vehicle in his underwear when his sweatpants and the scrub pants he was wearing ten and five minutes before were available, which would have allowed him to be led out with some dignity.  The LPD would realize that doing so was an invasion of his personal privacy as they would cover up his underwear-clad body throughout this humiliating trek, but you can occasionally see that he's not wearing any pants:

                               A confused Patrick Miller at the end of his forced underwear parade walk

Leading people through public areas in their underwear after an arrest has been made and when pants are readily available has been the ground for many lawsuits against police agencies.  If Patrick Miller gets quality legal representation they could make an excellent case against the LPD for this, along with a potential case for a brutal arrest where the officers never indicated why they were assaulting and arresting Patrick until after he was in handcuffs and bleeding from the cut on his side.

The times noted above for relevant events occur on Versluis' body cam footage below, the same events happen from a different perspective on Morris bodycam almost exactly a minute later, as that was the difference when they re-turned their bodycams on. 

Additionally, Patrick Miller is not alleged in the police report (in both officer's accounts) to have assaulted or resisted anybody other than Officer Morpiss by throwing the urine at him, yet he is being charged by the prosecutor with two counts of assaulting/resisting/obstructing

It's rather sad when you have to create an additional felony charge against a man who seems to have been mentally incompetent and self-admittedly in need of help when he made a bad decision on May 10th.  He wasn't the only one to make bad decisions that day since there appears to be an unlawful use of force, an unlawful arrest, and the forcing of a humiliating perp walk in underwear committed by totally sane police officers.

[Willy]

I understand why the officers made sure he got to the hospital. They responded to a call from a citizen and followed thru on that call. However, when Miller was safely in the care of the hospital staff why did the police remain? Their job, at that point, was done. I did not watch the video so I might have missed something that compelled the officers to stay. It surely seems as though Ludington's police officers are in need of additional training or a revised set of procedures. This is another botched opportunity for law enforcement. They could have proven that they are capable of handling an everyday situation without escalating that situation into a lawsuit.