welcome back to the civil rights lawyer Channel where you may be wasting time but you'll probably learn something about your constitutional rights if you believe that's time well wasted Please Subscribe and follow along with the madness a West Virginia Deputy has been indicted by the feds it just hit the news a few days ago I figured there must be some body cam footage of this incident so I went ahead and sent a foia request to the employer agency I was holding off on discussing this case until I saw the footage I've now received a response from the sheriff's department and you're not going to like it I know I didn't here's what we know as of right now Monongalia County that's Morgantown Sheriff's Office Deputy Lance karetza has been indicted in federal court for a felony civil rights violation after allegedly punching in pepper spraying a handcuffed suspect as well as for attempting to cover it up by filing a false police report the doj issued a press release I went ahead and pulled the unsealed indictment off Pacer unfortunately it doesn't contain much in the way of details I rightfully assume that there must be body cam footage that has now been confirmed by the U.S attorney for the Northern District of West Virginia who gave a media interview explaining that there was indeed body cam footage of this incident in that it was key to their decision to indict the defendant officer he gave some additional details that weren't in the indictment here's what he said once we saw the evidence and interviewed the witnesses we knew that this case had to be charged he also noted that the Monongalia County prosecutor's office decided not to pursue State charges that's not so that means that the body cam footage must be good or rather bad in fact he said the video really speaks for itself there's a lot of it and that's why body cams are so important and if that's the case why did the state level County prosecutor not file charges that's rhetorical question of course as you'll see the county is now attempting to stop me from sharing this body cam footage with the public you they can give it to the feds of course but not the citizens that they represent as soon as I heard about the initial indictment and I saw this doj press release I went ahead right away and sent a foia request to the Sheriff's Department as of this morning they responded denying my request on the grounds that there's a federal prosecution taking place the problem is however I didn't foia the feds but rather the county who has decided not to prosecute so there's an exception in our state foia statute where there's if there's still an open criminal investigation they don't have to give you what you're asking for but they don't have an open state level criminal investigation What's Happening Here is that the county Monongalia County Sheriff's Office is attempting to prevent the public from seeing this body cam footage even though the U.S attorney Prosecuting the Federal indictment just released is discussing it on the radio in the past few days here's more of what the U.S attorney said deputy creta and six others responded to a disturbance at the residence in January 20th 2018 an investigation at the scene determined none of the suspects broke laws or would be arrested but management asked that they'd be escorted from the property as the group exited the floor kariza ordered one of the guests to open the door to a nearby room where he found a man sleeping creates it then allegedly began to shake the man and hit his feet to wake him up when the guest explained he was sleeping kariza threw him off the bed and beat him as the contact escalated Carissa restrained the guest as the six other officers were in the room so if you've watched some of my recent videos you've heard about the the fact that the constitution still applies to you if you're a tenant of a hotel room but that's not even what this Federal indictment is about just an assign continuing with what the federal prosecutor said he said this particular victim had a flashlight in his face and he thought it was just as friends messing around with him it turned out that it was a sheriff's deputy and from there it really got out of control creta battered and used pepper spray on the victim well handcuffed while the suspect was being taken off the property creates it then allegedly continued to use unnecessary Force the report that was filed after this did not indicate that pepper spray had been deployed after handcuffs were used in fact it said pepper spray was deployed before handcuffs were you which was not consistent with the video evidence we have and that's from the federal prosecutor he's referencing the body cam footage which should have been provided to me so that we could see it so that the public could see it so I already responded to their denial of my foia requests and I'm threatening to sue them for illegally denying my request the public has a right to see this footage the Sheriff's Office can't just suppress footage that's owned by the public its public record I will get that footage and now I really want to see it so I also pulled the actual indictment itself off of Pacer and I'll post it up on the blog if you want to see it here's what it charges the indictment contains two counts the first is deprivation of rights under color of law this alleges that Lance creta a deputy sheriff with the Monongalia County Sheriff's Office while acting under color of law deprived the victim of his fourth amendment rights by engaging in an unreasonable I.E excessive unnecessary and unjustified use of force specifically he punched the victim in the face striking him spraying him with pepper spray at a time after the victim had been handcuffed it's also alleged that he need the victim while escorting him the indictment specifically alleges that this offense included the use of a dangerous weapon and resulted in bodily injury to the victim why was that last part alleged as we've discussed before in these glorious cases where those elements are present the charge of deprivation under color of law transforms from a misdemeanor up to a felony level count two of the indictment alleges that on the following day so January 21st 2018 Deputy creates a knowingly falsified and made a false entry in a record in document with the intent to impede obstruct and influence an investigation into his action specifically it alleges that createsa made false entries into a use of force report by falsely stating that he sprayed the victim with pepper spray before the victim was handcuffed as well as by omitting that he sprayed the victim with pepper spray after the victim was handcuffed and also admitting that he struck the victim after he was handcuffed if convicted kratesa faces up to 10 years in prison for the civil rights violation in up to 20 years in prison for falsifying the report as they say a lot of times the cover-up is worse than the original crime so there's quite a bit of case law out there placing police officers on notice that it's unreasonable excessive force to use tasers or pepper spray on handcuffed arrestees the Fourth Amendment bars police officers from using excessive force to effectuate a seizure courts evaluate a claim of excessive force based on an objective reasonableness standard taking into account the severity of the crime at issue you whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others and whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight these are known as The Graham fact the courts also look at the circumstances of the at the moment the force was deployed with an eye towards the proportionality of the force in light of all the circumstances involved so there's already binding legal precedent in the fourth circuit which is where West Virginia is located that pepper spraying suspects in response to minimal non-violent resistance is a Fourth Amendment violation you can look at the 2001 case of Park versus shifflett there's quite a bit of case law denying correctional officers qualified immunity for using pepper spray unnecessarily for the purpose of causing pain or for retaliation as well as for using it excessively so there's a big difference between pepper spraying and arrestee who is handcuffed and one who was not handcuffed there's also a difference between the use of pepper spray in a jail or prison context and use against a non-incarcerated individual because there it's much more likely to be considered excessive force by the courts especially if one is handcuffed so unfortunately I can't show you the body cam footage but we now have confirmation that it exists I may have to sue for it but I'll get it one way or the other I'll post the documents I have so far up on the blog at the Civil Rights lawyer.com I look forward to following this one and I look forward to seeing what happens as always thanks for watching you'll find more information in the link below to the blog at the Civil Rights lawyer.com if you have a video you want me to see please use the submission Link in the description or at the blog if you want to learn more about these cases and your constitutional rights Please Subscribe hit the Bell notification so you don't miss updates or future videos please also comment with your thoughts about this case do you agree or disagree with the feds Prosecuting here what about the state refusing the prosecute if you want to support the Channel please consider clicking the join button becoming a channel member or sponsor remember freedom is scary deal with it see you next time