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Probes focus on city cop, brutality || AUDIO
By JOHN W. GOODWIN JR.
jgoodwin@vindy.com
Audio Clip
YOUNGSTOWN
Police and lawyers are digging into accusations of police brutality in the city, while more is learned about the accused officer and the man lodging the allegation.
Willie Daniel, 36, of High Street, has filed a complaint with the Youngstown Police Department, claiming Officer Robert Joliff verbally assaulted him, punched him several times in the face, then hit him in the head with a liquor bottle after a traffic accident Feb. 27 along Wilson Avenue.
Daniel is paralyzed from the waist down from a shooting in 1999.
Daniel said his brother, Kenneth Daniel, was driving the car at the time of the accident, but officers found Willie Daniel alone in the car when responding to the accident. Police charged him with driving under suspension and reckless operation.
Kenneth Daniel said he was driving the car the night of the accident on the East Side. He said he went to get help after the accident and when he returned he saw the police treatment of his brother from a distance, “but was too nervous to walk back to the scene.”
A tow truck driver told officers responding to the accident that Daniel had a gun in the car. No gun was found, but officers did recover a stick that Daniel said he uses to assist him with various tasks.
Police Chief Jimmy Hughes said the department is investigating the accusation.
Daniel met Wednesday with Atty. Dave Betras, who announced the law firm will be looking into the arrest.
Betras said there seems to have been an assumption by the officer that his client had broken the law.
“Preliminarily, there seems to have been a rush to judgment on the part of the police officer with what happened to this gentleman, and we are certainly going to look into that,” he said. “It is always a concern that when you are a law enforcement officer, with the power of arrest, you use the discretion we expect from our law enforcement officers.”
Willie Daniel’s criminal history is not without blemish. He has had three arrests for carrying concealed weapons and driving without a valid license all before the shooting that left him paralyzed.
There also were two arrests for having an open alcohol container and one arrest for drinking in a motor vehicle after the 1999 shooting.
Betras, however, said the bottom line is that police did not find anything illegal in his client’s car after the February accident. He said his client was not driving the car, and he did nothing to warrant being punched in the mouth.
“Just because he has a past criminal record does not give you a right to beat him,” Betras said.
The Vindicator has requested a copy of any and all past complaints against Joliff. The city’s law department said those files will be made available to the paper sometime today.