San Joaquin County’s chief forensic pathologist resigned Tuesday, one day after the release of memos alleging Sheriff-Coroner Steve Moore interfered with death investigations to protect law enforcement officers.
Dr. Bennet Omalu, and his colleague Dr. Susan Parson, who perform autopsies for the county, have accused Moore of trying to influence their medical findings, especially in cases where officers were involved in a person’s death.
Omalu, a Nigerian-born neuropathologist, rose to national prominence in 2005 after he published his discovery in football players of a degenerative brain disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE. His discovery was documented in the 2015 film “Concussion,” starring Will Smith.
In his resignation letter Tuesday, Omalu wrote that Moore was thwarting his efforts to raise the standards of death investigations and overriding his authority as a physician.The documents, obtained by KQED, included memos written by Omalu that raised serious questions about the integrity of investigations of people who died in the custody of law enforcement officers who used Tasers or other types of force.
"The sheriff was using his political office as the coroner to protect police officers whenever someone died while in custody or during arrest. … I had thought that this was initially an anomaly, but now, especially beginning in 2016, it has become routine practice."In March 2017, Omalu and Parson began documenting incidents they believe show wrongdoing by Sheriff Moore. The two doctors allege the sheriff labeled certain deaths as “accidents” rather than “homicides” to shield from prosecution law enforcement officers who were involved.
In the Aug. 22, 2017, memo, one of several he drafted over the past nine months to document his concerns, Omalu wrote: “The Sheriff does whatever he feels like doing as the coroner, in total disregard of bioethics, standards of practice of medicine and the generally accepted principles of medicine.”
The forensic pathologists raised other concerns, including months-long delays in getting written reports from sheriff’s investigators that the pathologists needed to complete their cases. And, in several instances, they say they discovered that a sheriff’s deputy who oversees coroner operations ordered technicians to cut the hands off bodies, without the knowledge, consent or supervision of the physicians.More....https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/12/04...w-enforcement/Omalu cited the case of Daniel Humphreys, a father of two who died on a Stockton freeway median in 2008 after crashing his motorcycle as he fled arrest.
In a deposition for a lawsuit brought by Humphreys’ family, Omalu said he was told by investigators that a California Highway Patrol officer had used a Taser on Humphreys once or twice. But when Omalu asked to see a computer record that the weapon automatically generates when fired, he was told there was no report to see. In his autopsy report, Omalu attributed Humphreys’ death to a head injury from the accident.
Two years later, a deputy district attorney shared the Taser report with Omalu. It showed that the CHP officer in fact fired the Taser at Humphreys 31 times. A source close to the sheriff’s office said that the sheriff had access to the Taser report since the day after Humphreys’ death.
“Information was withheld from me, allegedly to mislead me from determining the case to be a homicide,” Omalu wrote in a memo attached to a Oct. 1, 2017 letter to Dr. Sheela Kapre, the medical director of San Joaquin General Hospital.
Omalu subsequently amended his autopsy report to indicate that the death was a homicide by electrocution.
“The sheriff was using his political office as the coroner to protect police officers whenever someone died while in custody or during arrest,” Omalu wrote in an earlier memo documenting the case. “I had thought that this was initially an anomaly, but now, especially beginning in 2016, it has become routine practice.”
Omalu says the sheriff asked him to change the manner of death on an internal worksheet that accompanies each autopsy report in several cases where people died after law enforcement officers used Tasers, chokeholds or other types of force.
In 2016, Omalu’s notes indicate, this occurred in all three cases of people who died during arrest in San Joaquin county that year.
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Originally Posted by tod evans
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