Fired Charlotte Police Officer Had Past Reports Of Violence
A Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Officer charged Wednesday with sexually assaulting two women in his patrol car had previously been accused of domestic violence, and in 2005 was ordered not to own or carry a firearm, according to court documents.
Court records show that two women previously accused Marcus Ramon Jackson of attacking and threatening them, before he became a police officer. Judges granted both women restraining orders, forbidding Jackson from contacting or going near them. One judge prohibited Jackson from carrying a firearm during the two weeks of the restraining order.
He wasn't convicted of any crimes in those cases.
CMPD hired Jackson in September 2008, and assigned him to patrol the Eastway Division in east Charlotte.
Police said they conducted a criminal and civil background check on Jackson, and were aware of a domestic complaint from 2003.
A court found him not guilty of violating a restraining order and his arrest record was expunged, police said. Until Thursday, CMPD was unaware of the 2005 incident.
Jackson, who is being held on $360,000 bond, made his first appearance in court by video Thursday. He asked the judge to unsecure his bond so he could get out of jail without putting up any money.
"Is there any way you can uplift the secured bond for sake of being near loved ones?" he asked.
"I'm sorry, sir, I can't do that," Mecklenburg District Judge Tom Moore replied.
A woman who told reporters she was Jackson's mother left the courtroom with three men after the hearing. "We don't have nothing to say - nothing at all...," one of the men told an Observer reporter.
On Wednesday, Jackson, 25, was arrested after two young women told investigators he had pulled them over on traffic stops and sexually assaulted them. He was on duty in a marked patrol car at the time, according to police.
The first incident allegedly occurred on Dec. 18 but wasn't reported until Monday. Police Chief Rodney Monroe said Jackson - wearing his uniform and driving his police cruiser - pulled over a 17-year-old girl, forced her into his car, drove to another location and forced her to commit sex acts.
CMPD began its investigation after a relative of the girl called police Monday.
As detectives investigated the allegations, Monroe said, a 21-year-old woman reported Tuesday night that she too had been assaulted by Jackson under similar circumstances. That assault, she said, occurred on Monday.
Police would not say what time on Monday they received the first complaint, or how much time passed before the second attack occurred.
"We worked the investigation around the clock with our Internal Affairs Division and Sexual Assault Unit," said police spokesman Capt. Brian Cunningham. "Within 24 hours of identifying Mr. Jackson as the suspect, evidence was collected, he was interviewed and arrested, and his employment was terminated. ... We believe that we acted in a swift and appropriate manner."
Arrest warrants obtained Thursday provide some details of the crimes Jackson is accused of committing.
Jackson offered not to write one of the victims a ticket in exchange for her performing oral sex on him, according to one of the warrants. Jackson and the victim did engage in the sex act, the warrant says.
Court documents reveal that Jackson's past included two allegedly violent episodes in Mecklenburg County. The first was in 2003 when Jackson, then 19 and a student at UNC Charlotte, was dating a 15-year-old Harding High School student.
The girl's mother sought a restraining order against him in May 2003. "The defendant threatened my daughter by telling her 'she was going to get hers and catch one,'" the mother wrote.
Jackson tried to hit the teen with a car and pushed her into a locker, according to the mother's complaint. He was later summoned to court after being accused of violating a restraining order, but was found not guilty in August 2003.
In 2005, Jackson was working at Off Broadway Shoes on South Boulevard and still studying at UNCC when his 21-year-old girlfriend sought a restraining order against him.
"The defendant grabbed me by the face several times, screaming and yelling...," the girlfriend wrote in her complaint. "The defendant hit me in the back of the head, slapped my face, pushed me down in the floor, forcing (me) in (a) walk-in closet."
The judge ordered Jackson to stay away from the victim and not own or carry any firearms. But no criminal charges were brought.
On Wednesday, Chief Monroe said "it would be naïve" to believe Jackson hadn't assaulted other women while on duty, and asked anyone who believes they were victimized by him to contact police.
Police spokesman Cunningham said Thursday no other women had come forward.
"We continue to look into Mr. Jackson's past traffic stops, in-car video, and citizen contact data for potential issues," he said. "This is part of our ongoing investigation."
North Carolina Officer Charged With On-Duty Sex Crimes
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Officer Marcus Jackson, 25, was charged with sexual battery, second-degree sex offense, extortion, kidnapping, indecent exposure and two counts of felonious restraint. He was being held in lieu of bond totaling $360,000 ahead of a court hearing Thursday, according to jail records. The records did not indicate whether he had an attorney, and a jail spokesman did not immediately return a call seeking information.
Jackson was immediately fired after his arrest Wednesday night, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Rodney Monroe said.
"To have one of our own involved in such a despicable act is not only a violation of the public trust, but a complete dishonor to this officer and every officer that wears this badge," Monroe said. "We work very hard to gain and maintain the public's trust, and this knocks us backward."
The case began after a relative reported Monday that a 17-year-old girl said she was ordered into Jackson's car on Dec. 18, driven to another location, and assaulted. The girl said the officer had been wearing his uniform and driving his marked patrol car.
On Tuesday, a 21-year-old woman told detectives she'd been assaulted under similar circumstances the previous night, Monroe said.
Both of the reported incidents happened between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. in east Charlotte, where Jackson was on duty.
"It is profoundly disappointing when one of our police officers engages in such heinous conduct," Mayor Anthony Foxx said in a statement. "It obscures the fact that the vast majority of our officers are dedicated, hardworking people."
Monroe added that "it would be naive" to think others had not been assaulted by Jackson, according to a report Thursday in the Charlotte Observer.
The police chief reportedly released Jackson's photo at a news conference in the hopes that other potential victims will come forward.
Royce Mitchell Fired From Charlotte City Job
Royce Anthony Mitchell, named as a “person of interest” in the shooting death of 15-year-old Tiffany Wright on Monday, has been fired from his job with the City of Charlotte, city officials said Wednesday.
Mitchell, who has been charged with statutory rape and indecent liberties with a minor, had worked in the Charlotte Department of Transportation.
Kim McMillan of the City of Charlotte said Wednesday morning that “after administrative review, the City of Charlotte has terminated the employment of Royce Mitchell for falsifying his employment application, which is in violation of city policy.”
Mitchell, who was hired by the city in 2007, earned $25,808 annually with the street maintenance department, McMillan said.
McMillan did not say in what way Mitchell falsified his employment application, but city officials said Wednesday that as a result of the Mitchell case, they plan to expand background checks to include a search of federal offenses around the country. Mitchell served time in a federal prison on drug charges.
Until now, city officials' criminal background checks have included local and state records, and federal records in the Justice Department's Western North Carolina District.
Wright, who was eight months pregnant, was shot in the head Monday morning while waiting for a school bus.
Police are trying to determine if Mitchell was the father of the baby, who was delivered by doctors and is still alive.
Judge Denies a Motion To Re-open Mitchell Case
Royce Mitchell, sentenced last month to 2 1/2 years in prison after a judge ruled that he'd likely had sex with his 15-year-old adopted sister, lost a chance Tuesday to prove his innocence and win his freedom.
U.S. District Judge Bob Conrad denied a motion to reopen the case so Mitchell and his defense lawyers could present additional evidence.
Defense attorney Claire Rauscher had informed the judge that police considered 17-year-old Adrian Powell a suspect in the Sept. 14 murder of Tiffany Wright and that the former West Meck football player could be the father of her baby.
The defense lawyer argued that prosecutors had not disclosed that information to the defense, and that Mitchell's supervised release hearing should be reopened because of the newly discovered evidence.
But Federal Judge Bob Conrad, in denying the defense request, said the additional information about police suspicion surrounding Powell is not material.
"Powell's potential paternity has no bearing on whether the defendant violated his supervised release terms by also having sex with Wright...," the judge wrote in his 8-page ruling. "Police suspicion of Powell's potential paternity or status as a murder suspect also fails to establish a reason to reopen the hearing."
Federal Prosecutors had urged the judge not to re-open Mitchell's hearing.
The purpose of last month's hearing was to determine whether or not Mitchell had sex with Tiffany, they argued, and the investigation of another suspect in Tiffany's murder, who may be the father of her baby, has no bearing on whether Mitchell had sex with the teenager.
Rauscher told the Observer that Mitchell would appeal the judge's Tuesday ruling and last month's sentencing.
Mitchell, 36, was charged with statutory rape and taking indecent liberties with Tiffany. He was arrested after the pregnant teenager was shot to death waiting for her school bus.
But prosecutors dismissed the charges in October after a DNA test showed that Mitchell was not the father of Tiffany's baby.
Even so, federal prosecutors moved to send Mitchell back to prison after he was accused of violating the terms of his 2007 release from federal prison. Mitchell had been sentenced in 2002 to five years and 10 months in prison after pleading guilty to his role in a drug trafficking conspiracy. He was placed on four years of supervision when he got out of prison.
During last month's two-day hearing, Conrad heard Tiffany's voice on a tape recording telling a police investigator that she'd had sex twice with Mitchell. She said Mitchell had not forced or threatened her to have sex but had later pressured her to have an abortion.
Powell testified that he'd had sex with Tiffany but couldn't be the baby's father because he wore a condom.
Mitchell vehemently denied the sex allegations. "I did not have sex with Tiffany ...," he told the judge before being sentenced. "This is definitely a nightmare for me and my family."
Police had called Mitchell a "person of interest" in Tiffany's slaying.
But last month, a state homicide prosecutor obtained a judge's order for Powell to provide a DNA sample to determine if he's the father of Tiffany's baby. The order says there are reasonable grounds to suspect that Powell committed the murder.
Powell had a sexual relationship with Tiffany and had deleted all telephone calls and text messages with the victim after being advised to do so by a Charlotte-Mecklenburg schoolteacher, a court document said.
Powell said that on the day of Tiffany's murder he was in class at 7:15 a.m., but CMS records and teacher interviews revealed that he was late to class, according to the court document. "The suspect withdrew from school and moved to Buffalo, N.Y., after initial contact with police," the document said.
Forbes List Of America's Most Dangerous Cities...Charlotte Is No. 14!
To determine our list, we used Charlotte's Violent Crime statistics from the FBI's latest uniform crime report, issued in 2008. The violent crime category is composed of four offenses: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
We evaluated U.S. metropolitan statistical areas--geographic entities defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget for use by federal agencies in collecting, tabulating and publishing federal statistics--with more than 500,000 residents.
No. 14 Charlotte, N.C.
(Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord, N.C.-S.C. metropolitan statistical area)
Population: 1,635,133
Violent Crimes per 100,000: 721
Tiffany's Adoptive Brother Mitchell To Stay In Jail
Royce Mitchell will remain in jail until a future hearing to decide if he broke a prison-release agreement that required him to stay out of trouble, a federal judge ruled this morning
Charlotte-Mecklenburg police call Mitchell a “person of interest” in the Sept. 14 shooting death of Tiffany Wright, a pregnant Hawthorne High junior.
On the day of Tiffany's death, police arrested Mitchell on a charge of statutory rape and taking indecent liberties with Tiffany. The sex charges were dropped last week after a DNA test showed Mitchell was not the father of her baby.
But a federal warrant has kept Mitchell in Mecklenburg jail. It alleges he violated a federal post-release agreement following a five-year prison term for his role in a drug trafficking conspiracy in Buffalo.
The alleged violation is the fact that he was charged with the sex crimes, even though they were dropped by the state.
Mitchell, 36, is a potential danger to the community and a flight risk because of his past criminal history and the lower burden of proof required to convict him of violating the agreement, U.S. Magistrate Judge David Cayer ruled.
Mitchell’s defense attorney, Claire Rauscher, argued that he should be released under electronic monitoring because he had a job lined up as a truck driver and a landscaper and could stay with a cousin. She also noted that Mecklenburg District Attorney Peter Gilchrist dropped the sex charges against Mitchell.
“It’s extraordinarily relevant as to what the (local) prosecutor’s take is in this case,” Rauscher said. “Peter Gilchrist didn’t say it was a weak case; he said it was a no case.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kimlani Ford outlined Mitchell’s past criminal history, which included “slashing a man with a razor knife at a rock concert” in 1996. “He is clearly a danger to the community,” she said.
Four supporters of Mitchell attended the hearing, including a Mr. Jones, who was referred to in court as a “Masonic brother” to Mitchell. “He’s a friend of mine," said Jones who would not give his full name. "You’re supposed to support your friends."
The other supporters, including the cousin, would not speak to the press.
A date for the next hearing has not been set.
View Larger Map
Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, Charlotte Observer, Fox News, Forbes, WIVB, Youtube, Google Maps
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment