David Carson
ST. LOUIS • An Occupy St. Louis
protester, Scott O’Rourke, was acquitted Wednesday of assaulting a police
officer after raising claims that it was in fact the officer who had beat him.
It is the third acquittal of an
Occupy protester on assault charges. Two prior defendants — Ryan Macias, 25,
and Ryan Seal, 27 — also alleged police brutality in their December 2012 trial,
pointing to booking photos and hospital reports that showed their injuries.
O’Rourke, 24, on trial this
week, was at a protest over police brutality regarding the two other claims
when he became ensnared with law enforcement.
Police said that during the
protest on May 24, 2012, O’Rourke was caught spray-painting the windows of a
bank on Olive Street, and that he punched the owner of a business. Police also
alleged that after being arrested, O’Rourke punched one of the officers after
his handcuffs were removed at the central patrol station.
He was charged with two felony
counts of assault on a law enforcement officer and misdemeanor counts of
assault, property damage and resisting arrest. Jurors acquitted him of all.
Joseph Welch, the defense
attorney on O’Rourke’s case and the case from 2012, said the separate verdicts
bolstered the notion that there was “a pattern of police brutality and police
misconduct at the Occupy events” that officials knew.
“Why are they even prosecuting
these cases?” he asked.
A police spokesperson said the
department was unaware of any complaints relative to the incident, but would
encourage anyone with complaints to come forward and they would be
investigated.
Lauren Trager, spokeswoman for
Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce’s office, said in a statement, “We hold the
highest regard and respect for the process by which juries make difficult
decisions. However, we stand by our decision to prosecute Mr. Scott O’Rourke.”
Welch pointed out in trial that
O’Rourke was accused of delivering punches with just his right hand, even
though he is left handed. The attorney also put his client on the witness stand
and said he believed the jury’s confidence in his credibility was a key to
winning the case.
Welch showed the jurors
hospital records and a booking photo of the broken nose that O’Rourke sustained
— he says from an officer’s punching him. The officer never denied delivering
the blow but insisted it had been justified. Welch had to fight in court to get
the booking photo of his client from prosecutors.
In court motions, Welch said
that what prosecutors finally produced was a drivers license photo, and that it
was only on the eve of the trial (when the case was first set back in February)
that they turned over the actual booking photo showing the injuries. Welch
unsuccessfully fought to have a judge dismiss the case as a result.
Seal and Macias had alleged
that they received concussions and other injuries after their encounter with
police on March 15, 2012. Police had alleged that one of the men spit at an
officer and then resisted arrest, and that the other man jumped on the arresting
officer’s back.
Jurors, after acquitting the
two men of resisting arrest and assaulting police, said discrepancies between
the police accounts gave them doubt, as well as a video that did not make it
clear who had spit at the officers.