Bryce, bettersit up, he said. They understood Tasers to be safe tools, but tools that were used on suspects who posed a threat to officers. Since then, he has trained at the Moody Health Center, become . With the support of readers, we publicize our results through letters to the editor, press releases, and petitions. Over the past couple weeks, we havetried to showthat the plague of police brutality is not only an existential threatto Black and Brown Americansbut that under a culture of Comply or Die coupled with aggressive over-policing, nobody is safe. About an hour later, a colleague called Matt; two FBI agents assigned to investigate police misconduct were already looking for him. How he dragged the near-unconscious boy away from the dashcam and then callously dropped him so that his face hit theconcrete sidewalk is sickening. Posted by 6 days ago. Dozens of visitors, including many of Matts colleagues from Kansas City, descended on the hospital to offer support. The police kept referencing an outstanding warrant, but unless there was a ticket Mattdidnt know about, Bryces license was valid and his car had been registered to Matt and Stacy for over three years. During the third week of March in 2015, Assistant U.S. Attorney David M. Ketchmark informed the Masters that Runnels was going to face a grand jury. The hearing lasted no more than 30minutes. Of course, no such luck for Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Sandra Brown(a pause to catch mybreath). Runnels told him to get up. He suffered brain damage and the road ahead will not be easy for him. When Matt and Stacy got home, Bryce came up to their room to talk. I knew, in my heart, that I didnt do anything wrong to him, he said. Timothy Runnels was arraigned Friday in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Missouri, on two counts apiece of deprivation of civil rights and of obstruction of justice in connection with the Sept. 14 confrontation with 17-year-old Bryce Masters of Independence, a Kansas City suburb where Runnels worked. Bryce Masters, 17, suffered a cardiac arrest after being Tasered in 2014. Copyright 2023 Former Independence, Mo., police officer Timothy Runnels was sentenced Wednesday to 4 years in prison for violating the constitutional rights of a minor who was in his custody. Matt asked what Stacy knew was an inevitable question, a question they needed to address. It was because they fought, or they were stressed, he remembered hearing in his training. Consider what the world of media would look like without The Intercept. According to a press release from the FBI, Runnels had deprived the minor of his civil rights by deliberately dropping the minor face first onto the ground while the minor was restrained and not posing a threat to Runnels or others. A court date was set for September 11, almost a year after Runnels tased Bryce. KANSAS CITY, MO Video released on Monday shows a new view of the moment a police officer used a taser on a teenager. Copyright 2023 He was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading in 2015 to one count of deprivation of rights. Lets take a look at the case of Bryce Masters, an 18-year-old white teen and the son of a Missouri cop. You are also welcome to join us onThe Porchover at the Black Kos Community group on Friday afternoons at 4 p.m. He was transported back to the moment when everything changed, and despite how hard his life had become, he thought he would do it all the same way again. A former Missouri police officer pleaded guilty on Friday to violating the constitutional rights of a 17-year-old motorist by deliberately dropping the restrained youth face-first on the ground after a traffic stop last year, federal prosecutors said. Matt began calling all the law enforcement contacts he could, trying to figure out what might have happened. . 2. Matt peppered the FBI agents with questions during that first meeting, but he didnt receive many answers. The video opened with a shot from the dashcam of Runnelss cruiser, the road rolling by, trees and sidewalks passing on both sides. According to the company, the preferred target area was changing for reasons that had more to do with the ineffectiveness of chest shots than any danger associated with them. A former Independence police officer who injured a teen driver during a 2014 traffic stop was sentenced Wednesday to four years in federal prison. I get a lot of sympathy from my black cop friends, like, this is what weve been saying about cops for a long, long time. But he doesnt trust the company selling them. TheDream Defendersdefend the Dream of Martin Luther King Jr. by "develop[ing]the next generation of radical leaders to realize and exercise our independent collective power; building alternative systems and organizing to disrupt the structures that oppress our communities." He realized they didnt know any better. That august body will now discuss and then vote on whether to adopt The Michael Brown Over-Police Rights Act (MBOPRA) at theLegislative Session of the NAACPs Annual Convention. Today, he sees law enforcement through the eyes of a victim. The answer didnt make sense to Matt. If he did wake up, there was a good chance he would never recover beyond a vegetative state. He had assumed he couldnt wake up on time, so his parents went without him. Taser International Inc. headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona. Independence, Missouri, is an aging suburb, the kind of place wealthy residents of Kansas City used to move to. The agents arrived quickly and started taking pictures of Bryces mouth. Timothy Runnels electrocuted the teen for 23 seconds during traffic stop, more than four times longer than cops are . Bryce was carrying a small amount of marijuana in a baggie. They put ice packs around his body to prevent his brain from swelling. He admits now that the cop in him was looking for a way to excuse another officers actions, even as he learned more about Runnels. Although Runnels was no longer a police officer, and the Masters were confident they had a civil case against the Independence Police Department, criminal charges seemed unlikely. The staff had to tie his arms down as he kept reaching for his breathing tube, trying to rip it out. The totality of his injury also made him reclusive. The more they discussed the question, the more sobering it became. report. Lexipol. It is my considered opinion that had this been a black Bryce, hewould be dead right now. But in more recent comments to a state investigator, Tolbert said that he drew the crime scene and Sanford only drew the bodies. I thought he shot him. His initial thought was that maybe, somehow, even though hed carried a Taser since 2004, hed simply missed something in training. Keeping these facts in mind, Matt thought back to his training, and Bryces case. Warning: This video contains graphic scenes of police violence. Cops do make bad decisions. Holy fuck, let off the goddamn trigger!. Bryce was still getting an MRI when a neurologist working on his case pulled Matt and Stacy into a private room and explained that she had calculated Bryces Glasgow Coma Score, a point system designed to gauge the severity of a brain injury. Meanwhile, Independence police officials were intent on controlling the story. I thought he shot him. Matt and Stacy were upset, but they believed the worst was over. theintercept.com Tased in the Chest for 23 Seconds, Dead for 8 Minutes, Now Facing a Lifetime of Recovery He didnt remember the fight. Runnels wrote that he observed the vehicle to have darkly tinted windows, and that after Bryce partially rolled down his window, he detected an odor of marijuana coming from inside the vehicle. Runnels maintained that there was a warrant associated with the license plate, but FBI agents told Mattthat the plate number would have provided details for a woman, with a different car, from a different county. As part of his guilty plea, Runnels admitted that, while he . He graduated from said college in 2002. He and Stacy had been assured by the FBI that what Runnels did crossed the line. A twenty-three second jolt of 50,000 watts ended his life for a short time resulting in irreparable brain damage. But in conversation after conversation, his fellow officers either doubted or were also surprised by Dr. Augustins theory. Call their office. He has worked on SWAT teams and has been part of Kansas Citys police narcotics unit, taking point on an estimated 1,000 search warrants during one three-year span. First responders revived him, but he suffered hypoxia or oxygen deficiency to the brain. Runnels, who was fired from the Independence Police Department after his encounter with Masters, pleaded guilty in 2015 to a single deprivation of rights charge and was sentenced to four years in prison. As he looked Bryce over, Matt casually floated his positional asphyxia theory. Some of Bryces memories are made and erased overnight, and sometimes more frequently. Officer Timothy Runnels stopped Bryce Masters, 17, in the Kansas City suburb of Independence, Missouri, on Sept. 14, 2014 because Masters was driving a car owned by a woman with an outstanding. Why risk getting hurt? A tweet from the department later that night, at 7:28 p.m., read, Carstop on Southside for warrant assoc. We will be needing your help. Police officers are not above the law and will be held accountable when they violate the civil rights of the citizens they are sworn to protect and serve.. A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. He knows there are manydeserving cases, especially involving minority victims, that never see the inside of a courtroom. A snapping thud filled the room the sound of Bryces 175-pound frame hitting the pavement as his teeth crashed together and his jaw dislocated. Site content may be used for any purpose without explicit permission unless otherwise specified. Bryces brain was deprived of oxygen for six to eight minutes while he was in cardiac arrest. For Matt, the most damning evidence came from within Taser International itself. He screamed at Stacy. We hope that todays sentence will allow Bryce to begin to focus on his future. His colleagues chuckled as suspects screamed and cops stood heroically at a distance, pumping them with electricity. Then he pulled him out of the car, handcuffed him, and drug him around the car. A federal judge ordered that the. A screen grab from a bystander video of Bryce Masters lying on the ground after being tased by Officer Timothy Runnels, Sept. 14, 2014. Yeah, they had a heart attack, but the Taser didnt cause it. NINTH GRADE HONOR ROLL: Elliott Anthony, Carter Bainter, Caleb Bennett, Peyton Black, Allena Blanton, Jesse Bryant, Kennidi Burkhart, Cameron Casto, Jacob Cline, Averey Cockerill, Nathan Cockerill, Jordan Cordell, Meghan Cory, Jake Daniels, Makenna Davis, Sara Dawson, Jonathan Donson, Michael . Worse, they were afraid his emotional vulnerability would cause him to take his own life. Matt retained his friend and former police officer Daniel Haus as the family attorney, and hecalled the FBI to request an investigation. Although sentencing guidelines called for a term of eight to 10 years, prosecutors recommended a sentence of no more than four years as part of the plea agreement. Organize a group to go to a meeting with your congressperson. "Kos" and "Daily Kos" are registered trademarks of Kos Media, LLC. The Taser did this. Warning: This video contains graphic scenes of police violence. It is not recognized by the American Medical Association or the American Psychological Association, nor is itlisted in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Taser puncture marks on Bryce Masterss chest and torso, Sept. 15, 2014. All rights reserved. Tasers told everybody, If youve got to put your hands on somebody, why? He was fired from the Independence Police Department after the encounter. Bryce wasnt fighting anybody.. "Well, you better learn how to fight before you start challenging people," Martin reportedly told him at the time. Everyone was at a loss, not just over the gravity of Bryces medical distress, but over what had sparked the use of force to begin with. Bryces only mistake in this situation was following his parents advice to ask questions, particularly to ask why if stopped by law enforcement. He would sleep for a bit, forget again, then look in the mirror. He was dead, said Matt. When Stacy and Matt Masters began having children, they moved across the border to Kansas City so Matt could keep his job as an officer with the Kansas City Police Department. His mom and dad held his hand. I knew, whenever I woke up, that I didnt feel right, he said. His memory had improved a bit. Runnels faces a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 for his conviction for violating the minor's civil rights. The FBI told him to be patient and that an agent would contact him sometime in the next few days. As part of his guilty plea, Runnels admitted that while he was employed as an officer of the Independence Police Department, he deprived the minor of his civil rights by deliberately dropping the minor face first onto the ground while the minor was restrained and not posing a threat to Runnels or others. Lets not wait until you or your family members are the victims before you join the fight. While he was able to finish high school, he didnt have the motor skills for sports anymore, and his diminished ability to think critically made college unlikely. Contact your United States senatorandcontact your representative in the United States Congress. He took a shot right to the heart, and that sent him into cardiac arrest.. Runnels needed to be held accountable for his actions, and they were disappointed the government accepted a plea deal based on only one of the charges. Bryce dealt with the perception that he was somehow to blame on a daily basis. Then click "Follow," which will make all STDD diariesappear in "My Stream" of your Daily Kos page. I didnt need training to know that what he was doing was very, very wrong. Masters went into cardiac arrest after Runnels used a stun gun on him after the teen refused to get out of his car. As Stacy walked into Centerpoints trauma center, nurses ushered her to where Bryce was hooked up to a ventilator, still unconscious. Hes got his hand up on his car, his shades on, and hes looking pleased with himself, Stacy said. Its really bad, she said. It was emotional for both sides. Copyright 2023 Police1. Bryce let out a piercing scream. Why dont cops know all this? Certainly some did, but for all the years Matt had carried a Taser, he didnt know. Just shoot them with the Taser, and its over and done with.. Timothy Runnels, et al Case Summary On 06/17/2019 Bryce Masters filed a Civil Right - Other Civil Right lawsuit against Timothy Runnels ,. Stacy had put herself in the shoes of Runnelss family. Runnels, who was fired from the Independence Police Department after his encounter with Masters, pleaded guilty in 2015 to a single deprivation of rights charge and was sentenced to four years in. In the video, Runnels refers to Bryces August arrest, which was being contested by the Masters. These are only estimates, but the more you know, the more . Select the option or tab named Internet Options (Internet Explorer), Options (Firefox), Preferences (Safari) or Settings (Chrome). He knows there are manydeserving cases, especially involving minority victims, that never see the inside of a courtroom. He didnt understand why we wanted to go so early, and he threw a fit, Matt said. Frustrated, Runnels marched around the rear of the car to the drivers side and opened the door, telling Bryce to get out. The Intercept is an independent nonprofit news outlet. A former Independence police officer who injured a teen driver during a 2014 traffic stop was sentenced Wednesday to four years in federal prison. And, when they do, theres someone on the receiving end of that., In his sons case, an officer is paying for his bad decision. They sat on the right side, with Runnelss family and friends on the left. Stacy had no idea why his body was so contorted. The incident happened in September of 2014 when former Independence, Missouri, police officer Timothy Runnels, 32, pulled over Bryce Masters, which an investigation determined was without cause. See, I was somewhere around 8 or 9 years old when I saw my brother abusing one of our dogs. 2. As the boy went into cardiac arrest and technically died before paramedics resuscitated him, the aggressive cop was captured on video manhandling and stepping on the dying teens motionless body. He told Bryce that the officer shouldnt have gone into his pockets and the search was likely illegal. Long ago history and recent events informmy opinion. After handcuffing him, Runnels lifted the unconscious teen by his arms and dragged him several feet to a driveway before dropping him face-first onto the concrete, fracturing four teeth and causing abrasions on his face. Matt had been there before, a guy laughing in the room at the helpless contortions of Taser victims. The odds were still against them there was about a 50-50 chance that Bryce would emerge from the coma alive. Nineteen Republican governors chose to kill poor people by not expanding Medicaid. In another incident, a police cruiser blocked him in; a few nights later he was pulled over. He would get terrible headaches, he had trouble sleeping problems that persist. You see whats happening here, Matt told them. Bryces friend Curtis called Matt at about 3 p.m. that Sunday to let Matt know that Bryce had been stopped by the police outside his house, and that the officer looked like he was trying to get Bryce out of the car. All rights reserved. When Matt watches his son suffer, he sees the marriage of a police culture that is too eager to blindly justify force and a company shrewd enough to take advantage. Even the victim, 18-year-old Bryce Masters, had seen it only once. It was clear this was not a random stop; Runnels knew exactly who Bryce was. save. What happened to my teeth? he asked repeatedly. Bryce Masters used his mobile phone to record his encounter with Officer Timothy Runnels on September 14, 2014. At the age of 12, Ali discovered his talent for boxing through an odd twist of fate. Hes not breathing.Matt hung up and hit the gas. 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