Police Blamed For Bad Break Brutality Rate May Belie Truth
1. Police Blamed For Bad Break Brutality Rate May Belie Truth
May 17, 1987|By TED CILWICK, Staff Writer
Police arrested 750 students during Spring Break in 1986 as the result of a tougher stance against the
annual rite on Fort Lauderdale`s Strip. John Benz was one of them.
And, like some others, Benz felt police had wrongly arrested and beaten him.
Benz did more than grumble, however. He filed a formal complaint against the arresting officer and later
returned from Northern Michigan University to beat the charges.
Benz was walking along State Road A1A when he bumped into a man whom Officer Ed Lemon was trying
to arrest. Benz said words were exchanged and Lemon pinned his neck against the wire fence atop the
pedestrian wall. Other officers kicked and hit him, he said, and he struggled to breathe. He sustained
neck and hand injuries.
Lemon said Benz was charged with felony battery and resisting arrest because Benz struck him while he
was attempting to arrest another man, who then escaped. He said he restrained Benz against the wall
because Benz was resisting.
The Fort Lauderdale Police Department Internal Affairs Division cleared Lemon of using excessive force,
saying it was necessary to subdue a struggling student.
The judge who acquitted Benz, 21, in a non-jury trial concluded otherwise.
``I acquitted him because of the outrageous behavior on the part of the police officer,`` said Broward
County Judge June L. Johnson.
The Police Department`s treatment of vacationing students like Benz became a critical issue this year as
Fort Lauderdale witnessed a swift crumbling of Spring Break.
To some beachfront merchants and city officials, police conduct is the major reason for the dramatic
decline. This year, 100,000 fewer Breakers returned, and $40 million in business was lost, one agency
estimated.
The Broward Tourist Development Council has commissioned a study, which includes student attitudes
about Spring Break.
Last month, the Spring Season Task Force, a coalition of business people and city officials, began an
inquiry into police practices. After meeting with incoming Chief Joe Gerwens, the panel decided not to
burden him with 1986`s problems, but to look to the future.
2. Yet a News/Sun-Sentinel examination of law enforcement during Spring Break 1986, based on police and
court records and interviews with judges, lawyers, police, merchants, students and others, found:
-- Charges against those arrested often were dismissed or reduced. Others went unconvicted by
agreeing to a brief probation, after which their court records were sealed.
-- Few local residents or merchants filed formal complaints against Fort Lauderdale officers because they
fear retaliation from police or have no faith the department will discipline its men, according to some
attorneys. Out-of- state tourists are unwilling or unable to return here for the department`s internal
affairs inquiries.
-- Six of the seven Spring Break-related complaints to internal affairs resulted in exoneration of the
officers. Yet, criminal charges against some people who filed complaints were dismissed in court -- often
because of the officer`s conduct.
``Whatever we do is going to be for naught unless the image of a few police officers changes,`` said
Marvin Chane, a task force member who runs the Bahia Cabana Motel.
Moreover, the city`s future -- not just the immediate financial woes of oceanfront merchants -- is
clouded by publicity generated by large number of arrests, City Commissioner John Rodstrom Jr. said.
``The national publicity has been so negative that people and businesses that might want to relocate
here or just book a convention are wondering what`s going on and how long it`s going to last,``
Rodstrom said.
Retiring Police Chief Ron Cochran and Capt. Ed White, commander of the beach patrol, said some
merchants themselves are to blame. Shabby rooms, price- gouging for T-shirts, drinks and souvenirs,
and a failure to offer Breakers enough activities like dances have discouraged many from returning,
White said.
``There`s a segment of the commercial interests -- bars, hotels, T-shirt shops -- who are exploiting the
situation . . . with no real concern for Fort Lauderdale`s image,`` Cochran said.
Over the years, Fort Lauderdale`s image has been synonymous with Spring Break: a respite for hordes of
book-weary students from cold Northern campuses.
Cochran said 1985, when about 350,000 Breakers arrived, was a turning point. He said police had a
``more tolerant attitude`` that he came to regret as students became increasingly unruly.
By 1986, something had to be done. To stem rowdyism, pedestrian accidents and other problems, new
parking rules were enforced and the wall was erected along State Road AIA to separate revelers from
traffic. Open alcohol containers were banned.
Arrests increased last year because the wall and parking rules freed officers from traffic duties and
allowed them to enforce other laws, White said.
3. In 1985, the year before the wall and new alcohol law, 889 Spring Break arrests were made. A year later,
arrests nearly tripled, to 2,506, including 750 students. This year, 1,478 arrests were made. The Police
Department has no statistics on the outcome of charges against arrested Spring Breakers.
Cochran said critics cite 1986`s sharp rise in arrests to bolster their argument that police are scaring off
tourists. But he noted that arrests in Daytona Beach have steadily increased while Spring Break blossoms
there.
``The police generally handled themselves very professionally and enforced laws evenly, and the result
was that local residents` daily life was at least bearable,`` Broward Circuit Judge John Ferris said last
year.
White pointed to another set of statistics to defend the department.
In 1986, seven Spring Break-related complaints were filed against Fort Lauderdale officers. Only one was
filed against Broward sheriff`s deputies, who sometimes assist city police on the Strip.
So far this year, none has been filed with either agency.
``The (small) number of complaints is remarkable and tells me the cops are conducting themselves
professionally and using an inordinate amount of restraint,`` White said.
Two of the 1986 complaints resulted in disciplinary actions against three officers.
Two sheriff`s corrections officers, Thomas Wolf and Len Libman, were suspended for 10 days, and
Libman was demoted from sergeant after they banged the head of a handcuffed suspect into a car a half
dozen times, records show. The pair, while off-duty, had stopped to help Fort Lauderdale police with a
disturbance along AIA even though they did not have arrest powers.
A Fort Lauderdale officer, Michael Reed, was suspended for three days for using unnecessary force in
choking a handcuffed suspect who was lying on the ground, injured from a car crash after he had fled
police. Reed contended he merely grabbed the suspect`s collar; three firefighters who were treating the
South Carolina youth at the accident scene said otherwise.
Some lawyers disagree with White, however, and assert that the number of complaints is not an
accurate barometer of police conduct.
They insist that most merchants and tourists who have brushes with the law simply do not file
complaints against officers. The investigation of Reed, for example, began after a police official read the
report of a firefighter, who said Reed ``choked the kid until he just about gagged.``
Attorney B.J. Cummins, a former Pennsylvania police officer, said more complaints are not filed against
police because there is a feeling that internal affairs is not impartial.
Instead, such as the case of two Alaskans who claimed they were badly beaten during their arrest,
matters can be pursued in civil court.
4. The Alaskans received a $27,000 settlement in 1984, said Joseph Murphy, their attorney. A prosecutor
also dismissed all charges against them, including felony battery on an officer, resisting arrest and
disorderly conduct.
Their suit, naming three officers and the city, claimed an undercover officer ran over a foot of one of the
tourists in the Trade Winds Hotel parking lot. Then, one officer knocked the man semiconscious,
inflicting eye and head injuries, court records show.
Most Spring Breakers, do not file police complaints or civil suits because they cannot afford to return
here for depositions and other proceedings, said George Reres, a Broward assistant public defender.
``They just want to plead guilty, pay a fine and get out of Dodge,`` Reres said.
Police say the chief reason many complaints against officers are not substantiated is that the public
misunderstands the police role.
``What appears to a citizen to be brutality is often proper police procedure,`` said Sgt. David Geyer, an
internal affairs supervisor until his transfer this month.
Sometimes, though, while internal affairs exonerates an officer, a judge dismisses charges against an
individual because of that officer`s conduct.
``That says there`s a terrible injustice that has to be corrected at the Police Department,`` said John
Benz`s mother, Mary Benz, a registered nurse. She also raised questions about Officer Lemon`s conduct
in another arrest.
In that case, a valet was driving a patron`s Jeep on Alhambra Street when Lemon arrested him for
driving without a license. The valet, Steven Koblik, said Lemon would not let him retrieve his license 50
feet away in the restaurant.
Lemon said Koblik ``immediately became belligerent`` when pulled over.
When they arrived at the jail, Lemon slammed Koblik against the squad car, choked him and said he
tried to escape, Koblik stated in his complaint.
Lemon said he grabbed Koblik by the neck because Koblik was no longer wearing handcuffs and had his
fists up.
In exonerating Lemon, internal affairs concluded it was a proper arrest.
In dismissing the charges of driving without a license and resisting arrest against Koblik, Judge Johnson
said, ``It was inconceivable (Lemon) wouldn`t take a minute to let the kid get his license. It wasn`t two
miles away or anything. It was an inappropriate thing to take him to jail.``
SPRING BREAK HIGHLIGHTS
A look at contentions that police behavior has killed Spring Break found:
5. -- Students arrested during Spring Break usually do not fight the charges or file complaints of police
brutality, but one who did, John Benz, was exonerated by a judge who called the arresting officer`s
behavior ``outrageous.``
-- In 1986, seven Spring Break-related complaints were filed against Fort Lauderdale officers and one
against the Broward Sheriff`s Office. Two resulted in three police officers being disciplined.
-- Some merchants say overaggressive enforcement of drinking laws by the state Division of Alcoholic
Beverages & Tobacco, which made 335 arrests in 1987, is also damaging the beach`s reputation.
