Police Report and Officer Testimony

 

The initial police report was written in 2005 when the incident occurred and consisted of only a little over four pages that basically outlined what Detective Fred Austin and Detective Harbin observed when they arrived on the scene at the Chevron station and Wabash location on August 30, 2005. In this initial report there is no mention of anyone giving a statement on what or how things happened and no mention of anyone being positively identified as the person who shot Officer Thomas. It was not until the report was amended some time later where pages 5 – 21 were added that an account of what happened was logged and rather than that account starting with an eyewitness account from Officer Thomas or Officer Mitchell who were at the scene of the crime, instead it started on page 5 with a hearsay account from former Lt Robert Italiano stating what he claim Officer Mitchell told him; even though the investigating detective, Detective Austin, spoke with Thomas and Mitchell directly. Lt. Italiano’s account in the amended police report and his testimony in court claimed that Officer Mitchell told him Jamil Joyner is the perpetrator who shot Officer Thomas in the head. There is no official written report on record submitted by Lt. Italiano and he testified in court that he didn’t write one. Officer Mitchell’s account of what happened noted by Detective Austin in the amended police report starts on page 6 and didn’t identify anybody as the person who shot Officer Thomas. It only gave an account of what he said happened but he later testified in court that Sye Carter was the shooter at the trial against Carter and the trial against Joyner. During the trial against Joyner the state used Lt Italiano’s ‘hear-say’ testimony to impeach the eyewitness testimony of their own witness: Officer Mitchell. So in essence they used the testimony of what Lt Italiano said Officer Mitchell told him happened, to impeach the testimony of what Officer Mitchell himself said happened to win a conviction against Jamil Joyner. (view Officer Mitche's testimony here)

 

It is important to note that during the trial all other witnesses were ordered to remain outside the courtroom until after they testified so as to not sway their testimonies, but Italiano was in the courtroom the entire time and was actively involved in passing notes to the prosecution and participating in judge chamber discussions. This fact was captured during cross examination and is recorded in the transcript. It is also important to note that Robert Italiano is one of four officers who has been recently indicted in connection with the Henry Glover case where Glover was beaten and shot by police and they set his body set on fire inside a car they left on the levee to cover it up their crime. Italiano was charged with lying during a Federal Investigation and falsifying  official reports in connection with this cover up:

nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2010/06/five_nopd_officers_indicted_in.html 

 

The Guns Retrieved from the Arrest Scene

A total of four guns were retrieved at the arrest scene a .45 caliber, a 9MM, a .38 caliber and a 12 gauge shot gun:   

• The .45 caliber is the weapon that has been declared to be the one used to shoot Officer Thomas; although nothing in the police report substantiates this claim.  In fact, according to page 18 of the police report no bullet fragments from Officer Thomas’ wound were recovered at the hospital where he was treated.   The .45 caliber is also the gun the report alleges was in Joyner’s waistband at the time of the arrest. Five finger prints were lifted from this gun and none of those prints matched any of the ‘suspects’; including Joyner. The only connection in the original police report between Joyner and the .45 caliber that was ‘declared’ to be the weapon used to shoot Officer Thomas is Detective Colmenero’s observation it laying on the ground a few feet from Joyner’s right foot when Colmenro arrived on the scene. Colmenro did not observe or mention that this gun was on Joyner’s person or in his possession. It wasn’t until the report was amended that the gun was actually connected to him as being in his possession, not just lying next to his foot. Joyner doesn’t own that gun, he doesn’t know where it came from and says he didn’t have a gun on his physical person when he exited the white BMW as Officer Joerger claimed. Walker, Carter, Montanez Thomas and Erma Harris all said there were no guns in the cabin of the car when they got in and when they got out of it. If guns and/or ammunition was in there, they all said the police put it there. When 5 fully grown adults fit into the cabin of a small BMW 325i there is not room for anything else. The trace on the .45 caliber returned the following: “Traced to a Federal Fire Arms Licensee to whom no record exist.

• According to the police report and the testimony of Jefferson Parish Officer Thomassie, the 9MM and .38 caliber were retrieved from an unrelated location (a shed on Amazon St) and placed into the trunk of the white BMW at the scene of the arrest on Wabash Street by Officer Thomassie; there is no evidence that they were at the scene of the crime. No bullet or bullet casings from the scene of the crime were matched to either of these guns so for all intents and purposes they have nothing to do with this case at all. Still these guns were paraded in court as though there were connected with this case to prejudice the jury and support the state’s ‘menace to society’ characterization of young gun toting thugs that they pinned on Joyner. 

• The only gun retrieved from the scene that was positively linked to Joyner is a 12 gauge shotgun they found in the trunk of the white BMW; there is no evidence that it was ever at the scene of the crime. That gun was purchased in January 2004 by Joyner and is LEGALLY registered and is traceable to him. After his store had been robbed several times and after he reached legal age, Joyner bought that gun for himself as a 21st birthday present (his birth date is January 5, 1983). Joyner took a class to learn how to correctly fire that type weapon before he purchased it in 2004, and according to the ballistics testing report, the first shot fired from it occurred during ballistics testing – Joyner had it for a year and half and never fired a shot from it.

 

 

Officer Thomas and Officer Mitchell’s guns (total of four) were not all retrieved from the scene and properly assigned an ASI Number as part of standard procedures. It was not until December of 2005 that Detective Harbin even asked Officer Mitchell for his personal Tec-9 gun that was used to shoot Vincent Walker in the shoulder, more than 3 months later, and Mitchell’s response was he gave it to his brother, Officer Clarence Mitchell. Detective Harbin noted in his report that when he retrieved the gun from Clarence Mitchell, the gun was ‘not functioning’. But ballistic was able to confirm that his Tec-9 fired 5 rounds at the Chevron station. Officer Thomas’ guns were never retrieved or tested and remain missing. When detectives were questioned on the whereabouts of Officer Thomas’ personal weapon (assault rifle), no one seems to know where they are. When asked why they didn’t collect and take them into evidence one claimed NOPD didn’t have a proper place to store them during the aftermath of Katrina; yet they found storage space for the four aforementioned guns, including two that were not related to this case, and everything else they collected and took into evidence.

 

Officer Kevin Thomas' Account of what Happened

Officer Thomas’ account of what happened noted in the amended section of the police report on page 19 was taken in December of 2005. He claims to remember a young person that resisted being patted down but when he was asked to identify who shot him he said he ‘didn’t believe he could identify the suspects as he didn’t remember being shot’. He didn’t provide any description of anyone the thought might have done it; not even the young one he claimed resisted being patted down. Other than this account, no official police report (verbal or written) was submitted by Officer Thomas until January of 2010 in Judge Alacorn’s chamber during the trial against Jamil Joyner just before he took the witness stand to testify.

 

Officer Thomas testified that he lined up all four suspects side by side about two feet apart and searched them from right to left in the following order: Montanez Thomas, Vincent Walker Sye Carter, with Jamil Joyner being furthest to his left and the last to be searched. He testified that he thought Officer Mitchell was outside the Chevron station standing right next to him during this search but Officer Mitchell was actually inside the Chevron station according to the account of Mitchell and all others present. Officer Thomas went on to testify that Joyner ‘gave him static’ during this encounter and while he was in front of Carter, Joyner shot him in the head for no apparent reason. He testified once he heard the shot he turned to Joyner, saw him come down with a gun and ran off. Although Officer Thomas gave no identifying characteristics of gun he says he saw in Joyner’s hand the gun that was declared as the weapon that shot him was the .45 caliber.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the angle of his wound. More important, if Joyner, who is about 5’8 – 5’9 with a reach of at least 2 feet, was standing only two feet away from Officer Thomas then the shot would have basically been point blank. With a .45 caliber weapon its likely Officer Thomas’ head would have been blown off and blood splatter would have been everywhere, including on Joyner. Officer Thomas was wearing a NOPD baseball cap at the time, not a hard hat.

 

The prosecutors brought the clothes Joyner was wearing the day of the incident into the courtroom as evidence of him being a menace to society or a thug (a white T-Shirt and Army Fatigues), and there was no evidence of blood splats anywhere on it. Officer Thomas was so focused on helping the prosecution win a conviction against Joyner that he didn't remember his struggle with Walker over his personal weapon. In fact, he labeled Walker as the peacemaker who was trying to keep the situation from escalating; everyone else present said it was Joyner who was functioning as the peacemaker.

 

Concerning Officer Thomas’ account of events it’s important to note the following:

• Walker, Carter and Joyner all stated in separate conversations that they were never lined up or searched by Officer Thomas or Officer Mitchell at the Chevron station the day of the incident. They all said in separt conversations that it was Officer Thomas who was beligerant with them the time the approached him at the Chevron station as noted on page 2 above.

• Three and one half years prior to testifying in court, Officer Thomas was quoted in a video interview that aired on CNN’s Anderson 360 July 5, 2006 giving an unofficial account of what happened saying, “I turned him around and pat him down. I guess as I was -- he turned back around, I guess that's the way he had the chance to pull it out and he had a chance to shoot me”. It was apparent during this 2006 interview (less than 1 year after the incident) that Officer Thomas either didn’t have a clear recollection of the details of the events as they unfolded or he was making it up as he went along (see full transcript at the following link:  transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0607/05/acd.02.html.

• Officer Thomas also said in the same CNN interview noted in paragraph b) above that the bullet traveled in a direction that would be impossible for Joyner, who he testified was standing two feet in front of him towards the left, to accomplish: “It went in through my ear because the bullet torn off the top portion of my ear. It came through and came out through the front.”So he changed his story when he testified in court saying the bullet entered the front and exited the side. Incidently the ‘Probable Cause Affidavit’ submitted by Jefferson Parish on August 30, 2005, the actual day the incident occured, also noted that Officer Thomas was shot in the back of the head, not the front.

• People in an intense struggle, especially one involving a life or death situation, don’t usally remain steady enough for someone else to shoot one and not hit the other. That being said it is highly likely and more logical that Officer Mitchell accidentally shot Officer Thomas when he shot Vincent Walker in his shoulder, during his struggle with Officer Thomas over his assault rifle. The bullet wound they both suffered went straight through leaving no bullet casings to identify exactly which specific gun(s) shot each of them. But because they were involved in a struggle when Officer Mitchell shot Walker, it could have angled behind Officer Thomas’ ear and out his forehead before going through Walker’s shoulder. Incidently both of them (Officer Thomas and Walker) were quoted as saying they didn’t remember being shot. Its important to note that the bullet(s) or bullet casing(s) that shot both men was/were never positively identified (view police report here).    

• If Officer Thomas already knew or even believed that Joyner was the one who shot him, apparently he and the DA’s office prosecutors withheld that information at the time Sye Carter was being tried for the same crime.

       

Prior to Katrina and this incident Officer Thomas was a known hot head and has even been in trouble with the NOPD because of decisions he’s made; almost getting fired. It has even been discovered that Officer Thomas’ employment history with the NOPD is riddled with trouble he caused during his tenure with the NOPD related to a bad attitude, trouble with other officers and illegal or stolen weapons. The officer’s attitude toward and as described by the four men who approached him that day at the Chevron station is consistent with Officer Thomas’ history and the attitude and arrogance he displayed while testifying on the witness stand. But as a result of his being shot ‘in the line of duty’, Officer Thomas has been labeled a hero and has received awards and benefit fund raisers have been setup on his behalf. These benefits and his pension depends on this being a case of him being shot in the line of duty rather than him being involved in criminal misconduct of any kind while in the line of duty. This is certainly probable cause to conspire with prosecutors to ensure a conviction against whichever one of the four they could make a case against that would stick; regardless of guilt. The link below is to the January 14, 2010 article in NOLA.com covering the story on Joyner’s conviction. Read the blog comments at the bottom from some of the people who seem to have had personal knowledge of Officer Kevin Thomas’ character prior to Katrina. Interestingly enough, although NOLA.com has many stories with ongoing citizen comment/posts that cover weeks, for one as important as this one, NOLA.com stopped allowing citizens to post their comments after only three (3) posts the same day within hours of it being published.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2010/01/two_men_stand_trial_for_post-k.html

 

 

In contrast, the attitude that Officer Thomas testified Joyner demonstrated the day of the incident is completely inconsistent and utterly opposite of Joyner’s attitude as demonstrated through his work history and noted in the numerous character references received from people who encountered him throughout his life both personally and professionally. The character traits that were consistently mentioned by several different people describing Joyner are things like: mild mannered, level headed, good spirited, etc. Even Walker and Carter, who were at the scene of the crime, described Joyner as the one who tried to calm the situation that day. The DA’s office has yet to present probable cause as to why Joyner, or any of the men involved, would shoot or shoot at Officer Thomas or Officer Mitchell. In court they threw up the smoke screen of ‘confusion around Katrina looting and their manufactured menace to society characterization they pinned on Joyner, because of his age and the willingness in this country to believe that a young black man is capable of doing such a thing, but still no sound probable cause. On looting, the men were originally charged with looting but those charges were dropped because there was no evidence to support it since there is no account that any of the men ever went into the Chevron station or evidence of them carrying out items without permission from the store owners or officers posted there on duty.  Unlawful Detention

 

Although Joyner was held in the custody of New Orleans Police Department for a year prior to his trial, he was not arraigned until minutes prior to the ‘appointed jury’ entering the courtroom on January 11, 2010; a trial date and jurors had already been selected. In fact, Judge Alacorn asked that the jury be held in the jury room while he formerly arraigned Joyner as witnesses sat in the courtroom and watched. That year, coupled with the nearly 1 ½ years he was held in detention following the initial arrest on August 30, 2010 without being charged, Joyner was unlawfully detained by NOPD in connection with this ordeal for approximately 2 ½ years prior to being formally arraigned. By that time the arraignment was not a matter of judicial right, it was merely an exercise in formality.