Lindenwold man, wife say cop used excessive force

A LITTLE girl, in pink from head to toe, got a free ride on her daddy's lap as a nurse pushed his wheelchair into the lobby of a Camden hospital one recent, rainy night.

James Black's kids have learned to cope with their father being in the hospital for the last three weeks. They found the bright side to his wheelchair and no longer cry or gawk at his bite and scratch marks on his body or his severely swollen head, the deep scar on his scalp and the helmet he has to wear to protect it.

But Black, 39, is afraid that his 3-year-old daughter, 6-year-old son, and his wife, Michelle, will never forget, and never fully cope with what happened to him during an altercation with a Lindenwold police officer and his K-9 German shepherd on Oct. 7.

"I feel like I'm being punished," said Black, his leg and hands trembling as his kids played on the carpet in a waiting room at Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center. "I just want to get home."

The family and their attorney say the events that caused Black, a taxi driver, to suffer a stroke began on the morning of Oct. 7, when Michelle was leaving their home at the Emerald Ridge Apartments in Lindenwold.

Michelle claims she was driving her Ford Explorer with the children in the back seat when a Lindenwold police cruiser passed her in the apartment complex. She claims the cruiser did a U-turn, pulled up behind her and turned on its lights.

James Black was leaving at the same time to go to work and pulled his cab beside his wife's vehicle after she was stopped.

"He said, 'What's wrong? What did you do?' and I said 'I don't know,' " Michelle Black said.

According to a news release issued by the Lindenwold Police Department five days after the incident, K-9 patrol officer Scott Pierson initiated the traffic stop and instructed James Black to "move along" but "the suspect exited his vehicle and indicated that the female was his wife."

Several things could have happened after that moment, said Terence Jones, a former Philadelphia police officer and advocate for the family. Jones believes that the officer could have ticketed James Black for obstructing traffic, had his car towed, or showed sympathy for a husband who may have been unintentionally interfering with a traffic stop out of concern for his wife and kids.

"You can't lock someone up because they pulled up next to their wife and was trying to find out what was going on," said Jones, an investigator for Black's attorney.

But Lindenwold police said Black had gotten out of his car and refused repeated requests by Pierson to move along, and eventually was informed that he was under arrest.

Edward Mamet, a retired New York Police Department captain and law-enforcement consultant, said that once Black had been given orders by the officer to move his vehicle from the street and move on, he had to obey.

"The law is clear if you interfere with the actions of a police officer," he said.

Lindenwold police said Black resisted arrest, but his wife claims he didn't want to be handcuffed in front of his children.

"My husband said, 'If you want to arrest me, that's fine, I'll go to the car with you,' " Michelle Black said.

In the midst of that conversation, Michelle Black says she saw Kovu, a German shepherd named after a character in "The Lion King II," bolt from Pierson's cruiser and head toward her husband.

"He was biting him and he dragged him from the side of the car to the middle of the street," Michelle Black said.

Michelle Black was screaming. Her children, she said, were in tears, thinking Kovu was "killing" their father. The officer, she claims, had her husband in a headlock while the dog was biting his legs.

"He kept saying, 'Get down! Get down!' " she said.

Kovu continued to bite her husband, Michelle Black claims, well after he was on the ground and handcuffed and the officer had moved away.

Immediately after the incident, while her husband was on his way to the hospital, Michelle Black drove to the police station and filed a complaint with internal affairs. She wasn't ticketed at the scene for the traffic stop but received a careless-driving citation in the mail eight days later.

James Black was charged with aggravated assault, obstruction, resisting arrest and assault on a police K-9 and released on $10,000 bail. According to the New Jersey Department of Corrections, Black was convicted on a weapons charge in 1997.

Black's attorney, William Buckman, plans to fight the Lindenwold charges.

"The police seem to think the slightest discussion with a police officer during an arrest is resisting arrest," he said. "Someone shouldn't come away from a minor resisting-arrest charge and wind up in the hospital and wind up nearly dead."

Michelle Black said police returned to their apartment the following morning about 3 a.m. because of a paperwork error.

"They told him we're sorry this had to happen in front of your kids, but the next time an officer tells you to do something, you do it," she said.

Hours later, James Black fell ill and was taken to a hospital in Voorhees, where doctors realized that he had suffered a massive stroke. He was airlifted to Trenton for emergency surgery. Jones said doctors there had to remove pieces of Black's skull to relieve pressure on his brain, and he still can't walk. Jones believes that the stroke and the altercation with police are related.

"Here we have a healthy man. He's 5 feet 8, 230 pounds of mostly muscle and 12 hours after this happens he's almost dead," Jones said.

Lindenwold Police Detective Christopher Sherrer, who spoke on Pierson's behalf, said his department is investigating the incident and would forward its findings to the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

"A thorough investigation could take three to four months. We're not going to rush through it, just because it made the news," he said.

Sherrer said Pierson was also injured in the altercation, although he didn't elaborate on the extent. Kuvo, the Czech Republic-born shepherd, was not injured. Sherrer said Pierson remains on active duty pending the outcome of the investigation.

Michelle Black said her husband is a hardworking father who provides for his kids and avoids trouble.

"We come home from work, we go to my son's football practice, and spend our weekends together. We all lived for each other," she said, a tear rolling down her cheek. "Now my kids are just waiting for him to come home and we're going to try to be normal again."