Questioning police tactics: Diabetic man's arrest at Walmart sparks controversy - WLOS

SPRUCE PINE, N.C. (WLOS) — Surveillance video you’ll see only on News 13 sheds new light on an under-investigation police incident in Spruce Pine. The family of Dillon Ledford is calling the officer's actions into question.

Ledford stopped at the Walmart for a diabetic emergency but the evening ended with his arrest.

News 13 took surveillance video of the arrest to a law enforcement use of force expert for reaction to the officer’s response.

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Ledford’s girlfriend may explain it best.

“He has no recollection of what actually happened, just bits and pieces, small things,” Leslie McIntosh said.

On the phone, Ledford told McIntosh he was stopping at Walmart in Spruce Pine because his blood sugar was low. A surveillance camera caught him parking in Walmart’s online shopping area.

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Over 8 minutes, Ledford entered the store and returned. Still parked 40 minutes later, employees called 911 and told dispatchers, "He’s just got big buggy eyes and is not answering anybody and is twitching."

Within 12 minutes, three officers arrived and in less than four minutes those officers had pulled Ledford from the car, struck him multiple times and tased him.

“When people started to explain to me what they seen, I was like hold on,” McIntosh said.

Ledford's family questioned the use of force.

News 13 took the surveillance video to the University of South Carolina’s Joesph F. Rich School of Law and the faculty director for the Excellence in Policing and Public Safety Program Seth Stoughton.

Surveillance under review

“So, for officers to be standing and spending time right outside the driver’s door without standing behind the B-pillar, it would generally suggest that either they’re not using good tactics or they feel like the situation is pretty safe,” Stoughton said, looking through the video for the first time.

He said as officers assessed the scene they should be running a mental checklist.

“Officers know that they’re not doctors, they’re not paramedics, they can’t diagnose anyone. So, as the general rule in policing, we tell officers when it could be a medical emergency you treat it like it is a medical emergency because the consequences of treating it like it's not are potentially fatal,” Stoughton said.

But public records revealed paramedics were never called. Instead, the interaction went a different route.

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“They’re now opening the door, and they are doing a full-on vehicle extraction, badly. They are just brute-forcing the guy out of the car, which is not how you’re supposed to do a vehicle extraction,” Stoughton said watching the video. “It looks like the motorist is down. Whoa, those are punches. Yeah, that’s a lot of punches, actually.”

While it's tough to see in the video, Ledford’s family said injuries indicate he was drive-stun tased, that's using the taser pressed against his body three times.

“And if they used the taser in a situation where the motorist was not a threat of physical harm or he was not apparently trying to hurt the officers or another person in some way, yes, that could be excessive,” Stoughton said.

As for the strikes?

“After he stops punching, his leg comes in once or twice. I can’t tell on the video whether he’s actually kicking or kneeing the person or not. I can tell from the video those sure look like punches or some kind of potentially open-hand or close-hand strikes. I can’t tell from the video which it is. Whether that’s excessive or not really depends on a couple of factors -- one, is it a closed-hand strike or open-hand strike, the other is where is he hitting the individual,” Stoughton said.

According to Stoughton, what officers said to Ledford also matters. Because the video did not have audio, News 13 requested the incident report, which should include the officer’s accounts. News 13 showed Stoughton what Spruce Pine sent.

Public records heavily redacted

“They, ah, they like the black highlighter. There, huh. Oh my God, the whole thing. That’s functionally useless,” Stoughton said of the copy of the report News 13 received. “This is a description of what the officers did. I don’t know what you're going to contaminate or compromise by releasing the officers' account of what they did in this situation when that’s what you’re actually investigating. That doesn’t make sense to me.”

Stoughton also raised concerns about the minute and a half Ledford was left handcuffed on his stomach.

“This is a potential for positional asphyxia, right. This officer who stays with him is either kneeling on him or next to him. If the officer is on him, see how the officer is leaning forward right there and looks like has a hand on his back. If the officer is putting weight on his back with either his hand or potentially with a knee, that’s a potentially dangerous position to be in,” Stoughton said.

News 13 questioned, “Is this an excessive use of force?”

“It’s really tough to say just on the basis of this video,” Stoughton explained.

However, Stoughton thought the incident should reviewed.

“There’s a good reason to look really hard at this. It might be fine, but there’s at least a good reason to look really critically and find out exactly what happened because it might be fine, but it also really might not be OK,” Stoughton said.

News 13 reached out to District Attorney R. Seth Banks to see where the investigation stands. He told News 13, it is still an active investigation and until he’s had an opportunity to review the investigative findings he couldn’t comment.

News 13 also asked Spruce Pine’s attorney for information about how many officers work on a given shift. We were told that information couldn’t be released because of public safety concerns.

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