Attorney: Police actions in video 'beyond despicable'
SEABROOK — Michael Bergeron's attorney calls three Seabrook police officers' actions "beyond despicable" and their reports detailing a moment depicted in a viral YouTube video "blatant and repeated misrepresentation of fact."
Scott Gleason is the attorney representing Bergeron, a 23-year-old Seabrook resident who more than 130,000 people watched this week get thrown headfirst into the cell block wall of the Seabrook Police Department.
"Make no mistake about it: I don't see any other way than to prosecute them in any manner and means possible," Gleason said.
The video, which is more than four years old, was published online Monday, causing the suspension of three Seabrook officers — Keith Dietenhofer, Mark Richardson and Adam Laurent — on Tuesday. The state attorney general's office, U.S. attorney and Federal Bureau of Investigation have taken over a probe of the incident.
According to police reports filed by Laurent, Dietenhofer and officer David Hersey, who were working the night of Nov. 11, 2009, Bergeron was noncompliant and disruptive throughout the night while on "an emotional roller coaster."
He allegedly lunged at Hersey when exiting a police cruiser, threatened him in the booking room, spat in his cell and stuffed his shirt down the cell toilet in an effort to flood the station, all while shouting derisive comments at the police and questioning their sexuality.
In six pages of police reports, the officers detail every step of the night; however, nowhere does it mention Bergeron's head striking the wall.
In the moments before that incident, when three officers are escorting Bergeron down the hall, Gleason said it is obvious that the officers weren't threatened.
"It's very clear, obviously, by their own body language. You can tell there's no concern for a danger situation," he said. "Next thing you know, the poor son of a gun — my client — his face is being blasted into a wall."
The police report describes an officer placing Bergeron in an arm bar and him falling to the ground before scampering away on all fours. At that point, Laurent writes, "Due to Bergeron's prior spitting and failure to comply to anyone's order as he was on an emotional roller coaster I pepper sprayed him as he looked back at us in the hallway."
Gleason said the video depicts something completely different. He said that after Bergeron's face is "blasted" into the wall, he falls "unconscious or virtually unconscious" and is dragged into a corner and thrown to the ground.
"Then, for some ungodly reason, the second officer either maces or pepper sprays him," the attorney said.
The officers can then be seen smiling and laughing.
"They think it's funny," Gleason said. "He's beneath them, obviously writhing from the mace or the pepper spray and they thought it was funny. If that's not barbaric, I don't know what is."
Gleason, noting that he's been practicing law for 34 years, said he's never seen anything quite like this case.
"It's an absolute rarity to literally be looking at a video of what I believe to be clear and unmistakable criminal behavior and then to have somebody — anybody, a police officer or otherwise — writing a report about the event that just transpired and have it be so noticeably false," he said.
Police Chief Lee Bitomske and Deputy Chief Mike Gallagher were present at an emergency meeting of the Board of Selectmen on Wednesday and tried to shine light on a situation Bitomske said was a "dark cloud" over the entire department.
Bitomske, who wasn't the chief in 2009, said he and Gallagher saw the video for the first time this week.
Some of the 130,000 people who viewed the video in its first three days asked questions, including: How could the department's top officers not know about the existence of this tape?
Gallagher said it's easily possible that the officer retrieving the now-famous tape could have done so without noticing anything unusual.
The bottom floor of the Police Department, where the booking room and detention cells are located, is lined with cameras taking video around the clock, Gallagher said. The film is kept for about 90 days.
In the case where a copy is requested, an officer punches in the date and time and burns the recording to a DVD. Gallagher said that in this case, that would have been Sgt. Jason Allen, who got the responsibility because of his technical savvy.
Gallagher said that at a glance, the video could look like normal operations, with an officer escorting a suspect down the hallway.
"If it's moving quickly, I would think that he would not even think twice about it," Gallagher said. "I'm thinking that he didn't see it at all."
Gallagher said the Police Department gave its only copy of the tape to Bergeron after he requested it, though he would have also received all the footage from the cell and booking room as well.
If Bergeron was fighting with officers as indicated in the police report, he wasn't charged with disobeying an officer or resisting arrest. Gallagher said it is up to the officers involved to decide whether to seek those charges. When dealing with a drunk suspect, he said, they try to be understanding.
"People are in a different place when they're intoxicated like that," he said.
"We get spit at. That's technically a crime, but it's up to the officer's discretion (whether to press charges)," Gallagher said.
He said it is not unusual for someone arrested for driving while intoxicated to want to fight officers at 2 a.m. then "apologize till they're blue in the face" at 7 a.m.
How is the rest of the Police Department responding under the weight of the investigation?
Gallagher referred to the incident as "a cloud over the whole department" and "a black eye for all of us." But he's confident in the officers who are still working on the force.
"We have to just continue on. I still believe we're a professional department with a lot of excellent officers here, and we just continue to do our job."
Gallagher declined to comment on whether the three officers linked to the video had any prior behavioral issues. Steve Arnold of the New England Police Benevolent Association Inc., which represents the Seabrook Police Association, said the suspended officers are "under representation."
"We're waiting to see exactly where this thing is going," Arnold said.
As for Gleason, he said he's "very optimistic that there will be pursuit of justice in full in this case" as he cooperates with state and federal investigators.
The attorney said he believes the officers in question were so "drunk with power" that "they think they can do anything at any point in time."
"It's a common mistake that, quite frankly, criminals make," he said.
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