Chatham County District Attorney Shalena Cook Jones broke down Savannah police body camera video in five steps to determine how a controversial arrest from last summer complies with Savannah Police Department use-of-force policy.
- Refusal to comply with valid police commands
Starting at the 2:02 mark of Vollrath’s BWC footage, the first announcement from SPD can be heard. In this announcement, they identify themselves as SPD, announce that they have multiple warrants for his arrest and instruct Robinson to exit the hotel room unarmed and with his hands up.
In response to this announcement, Jones said she recognized after multiple rewatches of the video that Robinson deadbolts the door to the hotel room. Around the 2:17 mark, an officer can be heard announcing that “he’s just locked it,” referring to the door of Robinson’s hotel room. This refusal to comply with SPD commands and instead retreating into the room increases the level of danger to the officers, according to Jones.
“They don’t know if he has a weapon. They don’t know if he has a hostage. They don’t know how many weapons that he might have. They don’t know if there are any other people in the room,” Jones said.
Jones added that the fact of the officers possessing multiple warrants for his arrest is what makes this case different from “a George Floyd or even an Ahmaud Arbery, or any of the cases that we look at around the nation.”
Starting at the 3:17 mark, multiple officers can be heard telling Robinson to put his hands up and walk backwards towards them, which he does not do. This same scene can also be viewed in Contreras’ BWC footage at the 0:34 mark. Shortly after, Robinson begins to run.
“He disobeys lawful commands by locking the door. When he finally comes out, they say, walk back to us with your hands up like this, which he does not,” Jones added. “He’s looking over his shoulder to see what his escape routes are. They tell him, we already got the place surrounded. Don’t run. And what does he do? He takes off running.”
- Fleeing the scene
At the 1:01 mark in Contreras’ footage, Jones pointed out an unrelated vehicle pulling out of a parking spot. This brought to her attention that Robinson’s decision to run has now further increased the level of danger, not just to the officers but to anyone staying in the hotel or in the parking lot.
Jones said this was one of the first things that went into her analysis of the videos.
Contreras’ footage shows Robinson attempting to scale a white fence around the 1:11. While Jones admitted that some viewers may be apprehensive to the amount of officers it took to pull him off the fence, she affirmed that the level of force used was in the interest of public safety.
“None of them knew it was on the other side of that fence. If he had gotten over the other side of that fence and gotten away from those cops … and goes downtown to Ellis Square and shoot somebody in the face, [the community is] going to be asking ‘why wasn’t he detained before?’” Jones said.
- Presenting with the possibility of being armed
In that same clip of Contreras’ footage, the officer can be heard yelling that Robinson is seen reaching into his waistband. Because the officers still don’t know if Robinson is armed, they make the assumption that he “likely has a gun,” according to Jones.
Jones added that Robinson did not have a gun on him when he was arrested, but a cell phone.
“I have to balance the interest of law enforcement [with] his interest. Because the law says, constitutionally, he has a right to be free from a lawful search and seizure,” Jones said. “But, that does not mean that you get to pose a threat to law enforcement when they are doing their job.”
- “Not offering signs of verbal and physical compliance”
For Jones, the force utilized by the officers is justified mainly due to Robinson’s lack of “verbal and physical compliance” throughout the incident. This lack of compliance started when Robinson first exited the hotel room and did not follow officers’ lawful commands to put his hands up and walk towards them.
At the 1:10 mark of Contreras’ footage, an officer can be heard yelling “you’re gonna get shot” and holding up a long rifle. Jones added that this is an airsoft rifle and is not designed to kill.
“A lawful citizen at that point should say, I’m not going to continue to run,” Jones added as further reasoning.
As the officers pull Robinson off the fence, one can be seen administering two blows to his side. Jones said that this move is a “reasonable technique” used to force compliance from a detainee. She said the same can be said of the five strikes to his face that occur around the 2 minute mark in Contreras’ footage.
These strikes are seen as reasonable techniques due to the fact that Robinson still has one arm underneath his body and officers suspect that he could still have a weapon, Jones said.
“Was it necessary? It absolutely was. Is it criminal? It absolutely isn’t,” Jones said.
- Police aggression ends immediately following detainment
Jones said one of the critical aspects of her decisions is that once Robinson is detained “all use of force stops.” While watching the videos, Jones said she was looking for “officer misconduct that would show some signs of malice, animus, racial motivation.”
“None of those officers made any bad comments about him. None of them called him any names. One of them checked the cuts on his face. They also called EMS promptly to give him care. None of them turned their body cameras off,” Jones added.
The entire encounter involved nine officers and took place over the course of 30 seconds following the foot pursuit, Jones said.
Jones said she held the press conference in the interest of providing the community with transparency surrounding the incident.
“We need to remove the cloak of secrecy around these kinds of incidents and be transparent with the community. So that we can adopt a culture that addresses these issues.”
Jones began investigating Robinson’s arrest back in February, when a manila envelope containing an anonymous letter was dropped at her house. When her office initially reached out to SPD to obtain the BWC footage from the incident, the office was told it would need to file a subpoena if it wanted to investigate misconduct of an SPD officer.
Jones added that the officers are still subject to departmental policies they may have violated.
On June 1, a judge denied Robinson’s request for bond, according to a press release from the DA’s office. The denial was based on evidence at the hearing that suggested family members of the defendant allegedly pressured the victim in the case to recant her report.