DA says Wichita officer who hit, pepper sprayed teen at roller rink acted in self-defense

The Wichita police officer seen hitting a teenage boy on a video that led to community outcry will not be prosecuted, Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said Friday.

Bennett said at a news conference that the New Year’s Eve incident was clearly self-defense since the boy hit the officer in the back of the head while that officer and another tried to detain his girlfriend.

“The officer was acting in self-defense. Period. Paragraph,” Bennett said. “The officer is acting in self-defense. He just is. You don’t have the right to punch the officer in the back of the head and he has a right to defend himself.”

There is no video of the boy hitting the officer. Bennett said there were no surveillance cameras in the Roller City lobby where the fight happened. A cellphone camera caught the scuffle as the officer hit the boy. Witnesses, Bennett said, included four employees, two children, a parent and the two officers involved.

Bennett said the charge that he weighed in the case against the officer was misdemeanor battery. The officer could still face discipline within the department.

The boy will face some consequences, but less severe than the misdemeanor battery of an officer that would be expected from the incident, Bennett said. Any consequences for the girl will be handled through “other channels,” he said.

Bennett said there were extenuating circumstances involving the girl that he couldn’t speak about that would have elevated the encounter she and her boyfriend had with police. For that reason, the consequences for the boy and girl are not going through the typical route, he said.

LaWanda DeShazer, who is an adviser to the NAACP youth council and was speaking as a community advocate, said she’s glad the juveniles will not be left with a record that will follow them the rest of their lives, but she’s still disappointed in the situation.

“There have been too many incidents of police (and) physical interaction with citizens,” she said.

DeShazer, pointing to the same “stand your ground” law that Bennett had cited in not charging the officer, said the boy saw his girlfriend in a fight with police and tried to protect her.

“So when does (the law) apply?” she said.

DeShazer also said she wants to see the department change its policy to have off-duty officers who are working security, like the officers in this case, wear body cameras and to revamp its crisis intervention training.

What happened

The girl, then 15, was originally asked to leave after her boyfriend, then 16, wasn’t allowed into Roller City because they didn’t have his size skates.

“She had a verbal and pretty emotional reaction to this,” Bennett said. “Made some threatening comment. Made some disruptive comments. She was asked to leave the facility.”

Bennett said as the girl was being escorted out, she stepped behind the counter toward the manager and said: “I want my money back or else.” The girl fell as a male and female officer tried to get her out, and the girl kicked the female officer, Bennett said.

As they were moving toward getting the girl out, the female officer either let go or lost her grip on the girl, Bennett said.

“Maybe it’s a matter of perception, but either (the girl) takes a swing at or flails her arm to get away from (the officer) … her hand is going toward the officer,” he said.

At that point, police started trying to arrest the girl, he said. The female officer was trying to restrain her while a third officer, a male, came to try to help. He was at the girl’s feet while she was on the ground, Bennett said.

Her boyfriend outside heard the scuffle and ran in. He punched the officer in the back of the head, Bennett said.

A video from a phone then captured what happened next.

The video starts with the male officer tackling the teenage boy while the female officer grappled with the teenage girl.

The male officer threw two punches while he was on top of the boy on the ground. Bennett said he missed with the first punch but hit the boy with the second. They both got to their feet and the officer shoved the boy against a wall, then flung him across the lobby.

Bennett said that then, depending on perception, the boy was either standing down, bracing himself or getting into a fighting position. Bennett said he’s heard all three.

“To the citizens, he was standing down,” DeShazer said, adding the boy had been tackled, hit and flung across the room by that point. “I think he had enough.”

As they squared off, the officer drew a can of pepper spray and sprayed it at the boy. The video clip ends abruptly at that point with the boy still on his feet and the girl on the ground, subdued by the female officer.

Bennett said the officer said in an interview said he used the pepper spray because he didn’t want to keep fighting the teen.

“I got a room full of teenagers,” Bennett said, paraphrasing what the officer said in an interview. “I got a female officer who does not have the juvenile female under control. I’m going to use my least restrictive, least aggressive form of force here.”

The Wichita police officer who hit the boy was put on desk duty.

Chief Joseph Sullivan, who started in late November and just before the New Year’s Eve incident, has not said much about the incident. During Friday’s news conference, he said he would wait to make a statement and take questions until after the department has completed its internal investigation.

To prevent any conflict of interest, the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office did the investigation before turning its findings over to Bennett’s office.

This story was originally published March 3, 2023 at 6:05 PM.