Panama City, Bay County, Florida
Thursday, September 18, 2014
By: Kevin Earl Wood, Email: allunited@bellsouth.net
The trial of a University of Central Florida (UCF) student, Victoria King, for resisting an officer without violence, will continue Friday, September 19th, as Ms. King’s attorney, Roger Weeden, Orlando, Florida prepares to cross examine the state’s star witness, UCF Police Department Officer Timothy Isaacs.
Many argue that it should be the officers who should be on trial for assault, criminal mischief and battery against Ms. King who was simply using her borrowed mother’s car to get to an emergency medical appointment at the UCF Clinic. Unfortunately, her mother’s car had a bad tail light resulting in the initial traffic stop by UCFPD Officer Timothy Isaacs.
Today’s, Thursday’s, portion of the trial included jury selection, opening statements to the jury by the State and the defense, Roger Weeden, and the presentation of the State’s case. The State’s case will continue on Friday.
Only two state witnesses were heard today, UCFPD Officers Mica Wenner and Timothy Isaacs. Officer Isaacs initially stopped Ms. King for a bad tail light. Later in the stop Officer Wenner arrived as backup to Officer Isaacs’ initial traffic stop.
A third witness was to be called by the state today but the judge postponed further trial until Friday morning.
Notably, Officer Wenner testified today that she did nothing to calm down the confrontation with Ms. King being escalated by Officer Isaacs. Officer Wenner never reasoned with Ms. King to make Ms. King feel more comfortable, or to calm down Officer Isaacs, and as a result the officers permitted a bad tail light stop to escalate to violence against Ms. King and Ms. King’s mother’s car by officers Isaacs and Wenner.
Tomorrow’s trial will be not only interesting and fascinating, but will reveal the true mindset and motive of Officer Isaacs.
It is expected that defense Attorney Roger Weeden, representing Ms. King, will attack Isaac’s credibility on numerous grounds during cross examination of Isaacs. It will be a circus worth watching.
Bay Community News will break this down play-for-play as to what is expected to happen tomorrow.
Bad Tail Light Stop
Over the last several months Bay Community News has interviewed numerous officers throughout Florida and has found that there is a unanimous consensus among officers that it is a matter of “common courtesy” for an officer to issue an “oral” or “written” warning to the motorist to have their tail light fixed instead of nailing the motorist with an expensive defective equipment traffic citation (ticket).
In the instant case it appears that Officer Isaacs had no intent of extending such a “courtesy” to Ms. King, a “black” female driver and UCF student. Instead of issuing a “verbal” or “written” warning to Ms. King to get the tail light fixed on her mother’s car, Officer Isaacs instead went directly to writing Ms. King an expensive traffic citation for an equipment defect without considering a warning, particularly since it was Ms. King’s mother’s car. The UCF Police Department (UCFPD) has forms for such written warnings.
On October 3, 2013, Ms. King paid a $94.00 civil fine to the Orange County Clerk of Court on the bad tail light citation.
Statistical studies show that “black” motorists are less likely to receive a warning than “white” motorists rather than being issued an expensive citation.
University of Washington Study of Traffic Stops by Race
It is expected that defense attorney Roger Weeden will present these statistics to the court and the jury tomorrow.
Officer Isaacs’ Computer Background Check
At the time of the initial stop Ms. King provided Officer Isaacs with her drivers license through an open window.
Isaacs’ then returned to his car and did a computer background check through D.A.V.I.D. (Driver And Vehicle Information Database) check on the car, its registration, insurance, and also to see if Ms. King had any “wants or warrants” and to see if Ms. King had a prior criminal record. Everything on the computer background check came back OK and Officer Isaacs confirmed that the car was registered to Ms. King’s mother. Ms. King has no prior criminal record and presented no threat as a UCF student to Officer Isaacs.
He then, again, went straight to writing an expensive citation (ticket) rather than considering an oral or written warning to get the tail light fixed. This can be seen in Isaacs’ video of the ticket writing. (it should be noted that Isaacs was not wearing a “body camera”, as misreported by other media outlets, but was instead wearing a “head camera” attached to his sunglasses so you can see him looking at the ticket pad as he fills out the citation in the video).
Ticket Written, Traffic Stop Completed
Once Isaacs wrote the ticket the traffic stop was completed. All he had to do is hand Ms. King her yellow copy of the ticket and say “have a nice day” and let her move on to her emergency medical appointment.
Signing the Ticket
There once was a time in Florida law that you had to sign “all” traffic tickets or face arrest for not doing so. However, Florida law was amended and now you only have to sign tickets that are (1) “criminal” traffic citations or (2) require a mandatory hearing in court.
Ms. King’s simple civil, noncriminal bad tail light ticket did not require a “mandatory hearing” and was not a “criminal” citation. Isaacs annotated such on the ticket himself.
During Officer Isaacs’ pretrial sworn deposition, under oath, Officer Isaacs was asked by defense attorney Roger Weeden, “There was no obligation for her to sign the ticket, was there?” and Isaacs responded, under oath, “No sir” admitting that she did not have to sign the ticket.
During the UCFPD videotaped internal investigation Officer Isaacs, which Bay Community News has obtained a copy, also confirmed that from the following dialog:
Internal Affairs Investigation Officer: And, obviously, you made a comment earlier that you, you realized that she was not required by law to sign the citation?
Officer Isaacs: Yes sir.
In a later statement by Isaacs to the Internal Affairs Investigation Officer Isaacs admitted, “I also recognize, that she, doesn’t have, you know, she doesn’t have to roll down her window all the way.” Mr. Weeden tomorrow will certainly build on this admission in his cross examination of Officer Isaacs.
As the internal investigation continued Isaacs admits that they later found the registration in the glove box.
Internal Affairs Investigation Officer: Did you in fact ever gain access to her glove box?
Officer Isaacs: Yes.
Internal Affairs Investigating Officer: Did you find anything in there?
Officer Isaacs: Found the registration.
It is apparent in this case that Officer Isaacs wanted to search the vehicle of a “black” female to find contraband, weapons, drugs, whatever. At the end of the day Officer Isaacs and UCFPD found nothing and came up empty.
Officer Isaacs’ lied to Ms. King that he had to “reach” into her vehicle to have her “sign” the ticket fraudulently claiming that it was for “his safety” that Ms. King was required to roll her window down “all the way.” Isaacs knew that Ms. King had no prior criminal history and was not a “threat” to him. She was simply a UCF student attempting to get to an emergency medical appointment at UCF which Isaacs was obstructing. Isaacs had another option of escorting Ms. King to her emergency appointment to determine the cause of her excessive bleeding. He did not.
All officer Isaacs had to do was hand Ms. King her yellow copy of the ticket and say, “have a nice day.”
Ms. King Reaches Out to Receive Her Yellow Copy of the Traffic Ticket
If fact, Ms. King even reached out of her window to take her yellow copy of the ticket. Isaacs refused to give it to her “unless” she rolled the window “all the way down.”
Defense attorney Roger Weeden should have a field day with this question tomorrow on cross examination of Isaacs. It goes directly to the heart of Isaacs’ credibility.
The window was rolled down enough for Officer Isaacs to (1) communicate and conduct business with Ms. King and (2) enough for him to hand Ms. King her yellow copy of the citation.
Isaacs should be required to explain why he didn’t just hand Ms. King her yellow copy of the citation and let her go.
Deposition of Isaacs
In trials, attorneys routinely do “depositions” of potential witnesses before trial to discover what these witnesses will testify to. On February 4, 2014 defense attorney Roger Weeden deposed Officer Isaacs. An interesting part of the deposition is:
Mr. Weeden: But when you approached the window with the ticket, there was nothing to prevent you from handing her the ticket, correct:
Officer Isaacs: Um, well, there’s nothing preventing me from handing her the ticket, no. There’s nothing preventing me from handing her her ticket.
If Isaacs had given her the yellow copy of the ticket the traffic stop would not have escalated to violence, assault (threatening to break out the window), criminal mischief (breaking out the window), and battery (physically dragging Ms. King from the car and taking her to the pavement).
At trial officer Isaacs will be required to tell the truth under oath. If his trial testimony does not match his deposition testimony then defense counsel will be able to “impeach” his testimony at trial with the deposition, as well as the video of the UCFPD internal investigation.
If Officer Isaacs tells the truth at tomorrow’s trial then he will admit (1) that Ms. King did not have to “sign” the ticket, (2) that he did not have to “reach” into the vehicle for her “sign” the ticket, (3) that Ms. King did not have to roll the window down “all the way”, (4) that the traffic stop was completed upon his writing of the ticket, and (5) that based on his D.A.V.I.D. computer background check that Ms. King presented no threat to Officer Isaacs.
Conclusion
In essence, the jury should find that it was a conspiracy between Officer Isaacs and Officer Wenner to escalate the traffic stop to an assault, criminal mischief and battery by these officers merely because neither officer Wenner nor Isaacs made any attempt to deescalate the confrontation and negotiate with Ms. King resulting in the assault, criminal mischief, and battery against Ms. King and her mother’s vehicle and that neither Wenner or Isaacs did anything to deescalate the situation involving a minor traffic stop for a bad tail light.
Once Isaacs wrote the ticket for a bad tail light he should have simply handed Ms. King her yellow copy of the citation (ticket) and the traffic stop would have been completed. Ms. King should have then been allowed to continue on her way to the emergency medical appointment at UCF. Why Officer Wenner and Isaacs did not escort Mr. King to her appointment should be a major issue for tomorrows trial.
UCFPD officers are apparently sworn to protect the public and in particular the students of UCF. Officer Isaacs should be asked to explain why he did not protect Ms. King’s, a UCF student, right to medical treatment and instead of helping her escalated a bad tail light traffic stop to assault, criminal mischief and battery.