The city of Charleston will pay an $80,000 settlement to a Black woman who police arrested and allegedly injured outside a Family Dollar on Charleston’s West Side in October 2019.
City council members approved the terms of the settlement during a meeting on Monday, after attorneys for Freda Gilmore and the city agreed to settle last week, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported.
“This settlement gives Freda an opportunity to pick up these pieces and move forward, to start over again,” said Gilmore’s attorney Michael Cary in an interview with West Virginia Public Broadcasting Tuesday afternoon.
Cary said he also reached a confidential settlement for Gilmore with Family Dollar. The store’s security guard was involved in Gilmore’s arrest.
Patrol officer Carlie McCoy was responding to an altercation between two people outside the Family Dollar on Oct. 14, 2019. McCoy said in a police report that night that Gilmore was involved in the fight. McCoy further alleged that Gilmore was uncooperative, refusing to remove her hands from her pockets and attempting to walk away from McCoy.
McCoy already had Gilmore on the ground when patrol officer Joshua Mena arrived at the scene and approached them, following McCoy’s requests for backup. He said in his own supplemental statement that he had attempted to strike Gilmore with his knee.
Mena acknowledged issuing several more fist blows to Gilmore’s face when she was on the ground, which he said were to “gain pain compliance.”
Gilmore, who Cary and her family say has special needs, stayed at the South Central Regional Jail in Charleston for less than a week before her release. The city of Charleston is agreeing, through the settlement, to dismiss the two misdemeanor charges against her, for obstructing an officer and animal cruelty.
During her arrest, McCoy said she found a dead small dog in Gilmore’s pockets, which officers said died from parvo. Gilmore told the Gazette-Mail in January she had found the sick dog earlier and it wasn’t hers, but she wanted to help it.
An internal review from the Charleston Police Department found the actions of Mena and McCoy fit the city’s decades-old use of force policy, last updated in 2003. Both officers remain on staff.
Videos of the arrest from bystanders posted to Facebook sparked public outcry and requests for a new investigation last fall. Charleston Mayor Amy Goodwin said in November the city referred the incident to the FBI for review, but there have been no updates and the Charleston Police Department’s policy remains unchanged.
Earlier this year, the Kanawha County Commission also agreed to pay a $275,000 settlement to a white family in Dunbar, who alleged that the sheriff’s department and local police illegally and forcibly entered their home early in the morning on March 12, 2016, in search of a suspect who attorneys say the family had nothing to do with.
According to the Crites’ family lawsuit, filed in March 2018, officers didn’t have a warrant. They entered the Crites home with firearms, they didn’t identify themselves, and they damaged the stairs leading up to the Crites’ attic, their front door and their garage door.
Cary filed a separate suit against the Smithers Police Department in Kanawha and Fayette counties for an incident in 2019, during which an officer allegedly threw two women to the ground and injured both, as he was trying to arrest one of the women for missing a hearing in Fayette County magistrate court. Attorneys for that officer, C.L. Osborne, denied most of the complaint’s allegations of violence in a response filed on Feb. 14.
West Virginians across the state came together in protest over the weekend, joining thousands across the country demanding action after the killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, both at the hands of police.
People gathered in Huntington, Charleston, Morgantown, Parkersburg, Fairmont, Beckley and elsewhere, from the Eastern Panhandle to the southern coalfields. There was even a “virtual rally” Sunday on Facebook for those who wanted to participate but maintain social distancing.
In Charleston, hundreds of people, many wearing face masks, gathered outside City Hall and the police department Sunday afternoon, chanting, “I can’t breathe,” Floyd’s last words that also called up the 2014 death of Eric Garner, a black man who died in a police chokehold in New York City.
“[The police] have this mentality of ‘us against them,’” said Mike, one black protestor in Charleston, who declined to provide a last name. “They have to realize, we’re the taxpayers. We employ them. Their job is to protect and serve, not to intimidate and murder,” he said.
Credit Emily Allen / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Protestors gathered outside Charleston City Hall, where the police department is located, Sunday afternoon.
“There should’ve been 10 times as many people out here today,” said Jennifer Moore, a white woman from Charleston. “Where are they at? White people can’t keep sitting at home, saying ‘Oh, that’s terrible. That’s awful,’ and then that be the end of it.”
The crowd continued to grow as a few hundred people stayed chanting outside City Hall for hours, leaving at one point to march around the block.
Floyd, a 46-year-old bouncer and security guard, died outside a Minneapolis community store on Monday, May 25, after a police officer pushed his knee into Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes. Taylor was a 26-year-old medical worker in Louisville, Kentucky, who police shot in March in her own apartment.
Although the rallies were organized in response to police violence elsewhere, West Virginia has had its share of alleged discrimination and abuse from law enforcement. Last fall, the Charleston Police Department’s policy for use of force came under fire after a young black woman was hospitalized following her arrest by two police officers.
The woman, Freda Gilmore, sued the city in December. The case is still pending in federal court, with trial set for January 2021.
Charleston Police Chief James Hunt said Monday he understands “the community has a reason to be mad.”
“I along with the officers… know that that officer in Minneapolis was in the wrong. We support what our protestors are behind, and we let our protestors know that,” said Hunt, who was not chief at the time of the use-of-force incident. “If they have ideas or grievances directed toward the Charleston police department, I’ll gladly listen.”
Black Lives Matter West Virginia, which in 2017 led a protest outside the state Capitol following the deadly White Supremacy rally that year in Charlottesville, Va., has stated that the group is not coordinating its own events, but members are monitoring those throughout the state and sharing resources.
The organization said it’s collecting face masks and organizing funds for bond and mutual aid, in case the largely peaceful events result in arrests.
Protest organizers continue to receive threats of violence. Men armed with rifles and handguns were on the sidelines of a Parkersburg protest Sunday night, in an apparent counter protest. According to the Wood County Sheriff’s Office, there were no confrontations between the two groups. In Martinsburg, police say they’re investigating after shots were fired during a Sunday protest. One man with a gun showed up to the Charleston event on Sunday, but police escorted him away from the area.
Credit Corey Knollinger / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Crowds at the Wheeling protest Sunday evening were compact despite guidance from medical experts for the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
These gatherings come as most medical experts continue to advocate against large, in-person activities due to the coronavirus, especially as data shows how it disproportionately affects minority populations.
According to data Monday from the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, African Americans accounted for nearly 7 percent of the state’s positive cases, a community making up a little more than 4 percent of the state’s total population. Other minority groups made up 15 percent of the state’s positive cases.
Health officials also have reported black West Virginians are hospitalized more than whites for the coronavirus, and they experience symptoms more often.
In Wheeling, WVPB reporters noted little room for social distancing. A sidewalk protest swelled onto the street in front of the Wheeling police department and city building. Once the police closed the street where protests were occurring, some room was provided for social distancing for those that wanted it. But most of the crowd stayed compact, circling around various speakers who explained their experiences to the crowd.
One virtual rally between black leaders, elected officials, candidates for office and advocacy groups allowed more for social distancing.
Jerry Carr, Jr., of the Morgantown NAACP stated during that rally this was the first time he could recall not taking to the streets in protest.
“We cannot wait centuries to solve this problem,” Carr said. “What has to happen is immediate action. … Even the people who don’t think they’re impacted, they’re definitely feeling the effects of all this.”
Several more protests are set for this week, including an event in Morgantown on Tuesday.
Reporters Roxy Todd, Corey Knollinger and Glynis Board contributed to this report.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story included protests in Athens, Mercer County. There’s no evidence there were any rallies there over the weekend.
The Charleston Police Department has referred an incident involving two of its officers to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for independent review, according to an announcement from the mayor’s office on Thursday.
There’s no guarantee the FBI will take up the case, involving patrol officers Joshua Mena and Carlie McCoy, who have been scrutinized by some members of the Charleston community for the way they arrested Freda Gilmore, a black woman with special needs, earlier in October.
The incident went viral overnight after a woman standing nearby, Alisyn Proctor, posted a cell phone video of the arrest to Facebook. There, hundreds of people have viewed what appears to be McCoy on the ground with Gilmore, while Mena — who arrived on the scene after McCoy called for assistance — appears to be punching Gilmore.
Proctor also was arrested that night. Police say they charged her with a misdemeanor for disorderly conduct.
An internal investigation by the department’s Division of Professional Standards cleared Mena and McCoy of any wrongdoing a week and a half later. Police leadership have said Gilmore was resisting arrest, and both officers were complying with the department’s policy for permissible use of force.
During a press conference at City Hall Thursday afternoon, retired Charleston Police Officer Eric Smith tried to explain Mena and McCoy’s actions on the night of Gilmore’s arrest.
Smith, who said he used to work on crime statistics during his time with the police department, explained that when Mena arrived to help McCoy, Mena likely couldn’t tell just by looking at Gilmore her size or the fact she has special needs.
“But [then] you throw in the mental health issues,” Smith said, “People with mental health, they don’t tire as quickly. They don’t feel pain as much. … They’re wired a little different, right? So they will fight, further to exhaustion, than normal people.”
A recent study from researchers at Indiana University, Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia reports a growing number of people are wrongly correlating evidence of mental health illness with acts of violence. Several organizations, including the Harvard Medical School in 2011, have pointed out that most individuals with psychiatric disorders are not violent.
Two Press Conferences Merged Into One
Smith and local members of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) — reportedly the nation’s largest member-organization for sworn police officers — shared a joint press conference with Charleston Mayor Amy Shuler Goodwin on Thursday, during which she and a group of concerned religious leaders spoke first.
There originally were supposed to be two separate press conferences. Goodwin said she decided to combine the events shortly before their scheduled times, after a private meeting with the police and clergy.
Goodwin’s address on Thursday was in response to a letter she and the city council received on Nov. 5 from local clergy, which declared Mena and McCoy employed “excessive and unreasonable force” and that the internal review of that force was “inappropriate and inadequate.”
The letter went on to request all Charleston police officers receive training on proper use of force, cultural sensitivity, mental health awareness, emotional intelligence, crisis intervention.
“During our conversation we found we were probably a little closer than we were farther apart,” Goodwin said of the private meeting.
Rev. Marlon Collins, one of the clergy at the combined press conference, said his group talked hours before the conference about ways they could avoid making it seem like they were against the city police department.
“We did not want to make this a black-white issue. It had black and white elements to it, but we did not want to talk about it,” Collins said. He suggested the conversation had grown more intensely focused on race since the Oct. 14 arrest, due to miscommunication.
To Goodwin, she said the joint press conference on Thursday was an effort to express support both for the community and its police.
“To say to our police officers publicly, ‘You do 71,000 plus calls a year for our citizens’,” Goodwin said. “‘We owe a debt of gratitude to you. We appreciate you.’ But to our community? ‘Yes. We need to do better’.”
Goodwin’s highlighted some other initiatives she and the Charleston city council have agreed to, in addition to requesting help from the FBI.
That includes a review of the police department’s policies with help from current and former members of the police department, according to a press release from Goodwin’s office.
Goodwin also has reportedly discussed with Police Chief Opie Smith getting officers to take the “One Mind” pledge created by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, to improve how police interact with people affected by mental illness.
Still No Response On Other Requests
Goodwin’s letter from the clergy wasn’t the only set of requests Goodwin and the city have received from the Charleston community, related to Gilmore’s arrest and the subsequent investigation.
Also on Tuesday, Nov. 5, a coalition of community organizations issued a similar list of requests, which included revising the police department’s use-of-force policy, mandating police officers have working body cameras on them during all shifts and creating a mental health intervention team.
Credit Emily Allen / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Delegate Danielle Walker from Morgantown holds a sign calling for the city of Charleston to implement racial bias training on Tuesday, Nov. 5, outside a public forum at the local Emmanuel Baptist Church.
Takeiya Smith from the coalition said during the press conference on Thursday the narrative had been taken over by the police.
“How many times did you say, ‘We support the community’?” Smith said of the Goodwin and comments made at the event. “‘We support the protection of the community’? ‘We support our community members with mental health issues, we support black women’?”
Goodwin said the city plans to hold another meeting for all of the parties involved in this matter soon. Coalition-member Smith said her group plans to continue holding Goodwin accountable for her response to the incident.
‘Our Community Is Forever Opened Up’
As for the family of Freda Gilmore, attorney Michael Cary said they still intend to file a lawsuit against the city. Their timeline is unclear.
He says he also plans to request the dismissal of Gilmore’s two misdemeanor charges from that night.
“We’re not against the City of Charleston Police Department,” Cary said of himself and Freda Gilmore’s parents, Richard and Kimberly. “There are several good officers who have dedicated their lives to the city of Charleston to make this place better … we just have to make sure we come together as a community, to make sure we weed out the officers that aren’t living up to the standards.”
Following the city press conference Thursday afternoon, Kimberly Gilmore said referring the incident to the FBI was a “step in the right direction.”
“I think that our community is forever opened up, our eyes are opened up, and it’s going to be forever changed,” Kimberly Gilmore said. “Because with everything that’s taken place, each cop is going to think about that.”
The Gilmores did not attend the Thursday press conference. Their daughter is at home, her parents said, healing from head and facial injuries sustained from the arrest.
A decades-old policy regarding the Charleston Police Department’s permitted use of force was under fire Tuesday night as city leaders and their constituents gathered to discuss a recent and controversial incident involving two local officers.
The mayor’s office, the police department and area clergy held a community forum at the local Emmanuel Baptist Church to address an investigation police concluded in late October. Two officers were reviewed for the way they arrested 27-year-old Freda Gilmore earlier this month, a black woman with special needs.
Police said Gilmore had been resisting arrest.
The department’s Professional Standards Division determined the officers, mentioned at the forum as Joshua Mena and Carlie McCoy, had followed the department’s policy appropriately, and after almost a week of paid administrative leave the officers were allowed to return to their jobs on Friday, Oct. 25.
However, several community members and leaders who spoke Tuesday night continue to scrutinize the handling of the arrest, which was captured on video and shared hundreds of times across Facebook. In the video, one officer is holding Gilmore against the pavement, while another officer appears to be punching her.
“[T]here is no policy that could justify, in this particular instance … the behavior of the officer that administered the blows to that young woman laying flat on the ground, with an officer on her back,” said Ricardo Martin, president of the Charleston branch of the NAACP.
“If there is a policy [or] if there is a training video that you can hold up to that particular incident and the way it was handled, and say that this policy exonerates the misbehavior of that officer, we’re in trouble,” Martin added.
When some attendees requested to hear the policy for themselves, Police Chief Opie Smith described it as being “thirty-paged” and something he wished he had the words to explain.
Sgt. Jason Webb, who works with the department’s public services unit, mentioned the policy dates back to the 1980s.
“Our ‘use of force’ policy is based on a continuum,” Webb explained to attendees. “So let’s say someone is verbally harassing someone else, then there’s a proper use of force for that, alright? This incident fell under active resistance, which is somebody actively resisting being put into custody by the police officers. Unfortunately, at this time, a fist is considered, under use of force policy, [an] impact weapon.”
Gilmore’s father and stepmother were present for the forum Tuesday night, in addition to Alisyn Proctor, the woman who recorded the incident on her cellphone.
Proctor was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct the same evening as Gilmore, according to what police said at the forum.
“It’s just not right, the way my daughter was treated by a police officer,” said father Richard Gilmore. “Then they go do their own investigation, and then let the officers go back to work like it’s okay.”
Several people also complained about the police department’s internal investigation, saying the matter should’ve been examined by an external group and it lacked transparency. Forum attendees said they were disappointed the officers were allowed to return regardless of the policy, and that during the investigation the officers continued receiving pay for their time away.
Some attendees shared lists of requests with Mayor Amy Goodwin and Police Chief Smith. That includes a group of several pastors representing churches in the Charleston area, who are asking Goodwin and the city council to respond in writing within ten days.
“We respectfully request that the mayor immediately refer this case for independent review, by the Kanawha County Prosecutor and the FBI, for a thorough investigation and evaluation of the conduct of the patrolmen in question,” said Rev. Dr. Lloyd Allan Hill. “We request that the patrolmen McCoy and Mena be returned immediately to administrative leave, pending the results of that independent review, by the aforementioned agencies.”
A coalition to “#KeepUsSafeCharlestonWV” held a press conference in the church lobby roughly half an hour before the forum to share their requests, which include revising the police department’s “use of force” policy, mandating police officers to have working body cameras on them during all shifts and creating a mental health intervention team.
The coalition and the NAACP, one of the groups forming the coalition, called on the city multiple times Tuesday night to support the creation of citizen review boards to monitor police activities and discipline officers who are out of compliance.
“It’s something that they have started before, but there’s kind of been a fall off from that,” said Andrea Tyree, communications specialist for Healthy Kids and Families WV, another group in the coalition. “So we’re specifically asking them to continue releasing monthly data on their arrest demographics, and actually conduct the annual coalition-lead anti-racism trainings.”
