N.C. DA Won't Investigate False Claim Against Cop

June 13, 2012
Cumberland County's top prosecutor has declined to investigate the driver who falsely accused a Fayetteville police officer of making a racial slur last month.

June 13--Cumberland County's top prosecutor has declined to investigate the driver who falsely accused a Fayetteville police officer of making a racial slur last month.

Fayetteville police lawyer Patricia Bradley told the City Council on Monday that the Police Department asked the district attorney to investigate Jermor Simmons under a state statute that makes it a misdemeanor to file a false report to law enforcement for the "purpose of interfering with the operation of a law enforcement agency."

Bradley said the district attorney declined to investigate after checking with an expert at the N.C. School of Government on the statute. She said that while using the statute "may have been a little bit within the realm of possibility" in the case of Simmons, pressing charges against him "would be reaching."

On Tuesday, District Attorney Billy West told The Fayetteville Observer that he and his senior staff reviewed the case and consulted with the state Attorney General's Office. He said the state law cited by Bradley refers to filing a false report that a crime has occurred. But Simmons did not allege that a crime had occurred, West said, so "this matter is more civil in nature" and not within his office's purview.

Simmons, 32 of Fayetteville, filed a written complaint against Officer Eddie Ketchum on May 23 after he was stopped for a traffic violation. The same day, the City Council voted to release an audio and video recording of the May 21 stop. The recording showed that no racial slur was used, and Police Chief Tom Bergamine has said Ketchum did nothing wrong.

Simmons maintains his allegation after viewing the recording himself several times.

Several council members say they want options for penalizing or prosecuting people who make false accusations against officers. Bergamine, whose last day before retirement is June 29, told the council that his department investigates all complaints.

"We do this, but then we lose time in other important matters that our folks can be doing," he said.

Bergamine said a married couple recently filed a complaint accusing a police officer of inappropriately touching the wife. Bergamine said the recording showed otherwise.

"The officer did nothing, other than reach out and take the driver's license and registration," Bergamine said.

When that information was shared with the couple, Bergamine said, the woman responded: "Oh, I might have been mistaken."

The statement stirred Councilman Wade Fowler.

"There needs to be a penalty for that," he said.

Bradley said she polled other law enforcement agencies in the state to see if they require residents to swear under a penalty of perjury when they file a complaint against an officer.

She didn't say how many agencies were surveyed, but she received five responses.

"They all said that they don't require their citizens to swear to a complaint, and that seems to be because that's the way the statute is written," she said.

Bradley said some other states require residents to swear under state laws passed to curb the abuse of false complaints that tie up department resources.

City Attorney Karen McDonald said police Lt. Christopher Davis is reviewing all past complaints that were deemed to be false after internal investigations. He wants to find out how much time was spent investigating the complaints, she said. That information will be reported to the City Council at a later meeting for more discussion of the issue, she said.

The city is also asking police organizations about their interest in supporting changes in state law regarding false complaints, she said.

Staff writer Andrew Barksdale can be reached at [email protected] or 486-3565.

Copyright 2012 - The Fayetteville Observer, N.C.

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