Appeal alleges Harassment, Intimidation and Torture by Denver police in '05 Arrest
It seems that the only thing Cecil Bynum and the police agree about is that after he was arrested for a small amount of 'crack' cocaine on Colfax Avenue in Denver (in January of '05) his thumb had to be amputated.
Bynum, now 40 years old and serving a 24-year sentence as a habitual offendor, was a passenger in a car pulled over by Denver police, who arrested him on an outstanding warrant for failure to appear in court on a summons for trespassing. Police allege that during the course of that arrest, Bynum gagged while trying to swallow a piece of "crack" cocaine that resulted in his being sentenced to 24 years in prison. They deny any knowledge of, or responsibility for, the fact that 2 days later his thumb, badly mutilated and by then seriously infected with staph, had to be amputated.
Predictably perhaps, Bynum, whose case is now on appeal, tells a different story. According to Bynum, who was last released from prison in 2004 and has an extensive record of drug-related offenses, police had had seized his ID and social security card after detaining him in early 2004 as a suspected drug dealer. Despite the fact that no drugs were found on Bynum, who insists he was working as a day laborer through a temporary service at the time, police refused to return his identification. As a result, Bynum says that the same officer who seized his ID and social security card then singled him out for harassment, intimidation and persecution, citing him no less than 3 subsequent occasions for "trespassing" for not having his ID after he was stopped and searched. When Bynum attempted to retrieve his ID from police however, he alleges that he was told the documents were the subject of a "personal hold" placed on them by Officer Heart, the same officer responsible for both confiscating the documents, and for repeatedly citing Bynum for not having them.
Bynum claims he complained to the court about the situation when he appeared on the 2nd of the 3 citations to plead guilty. According to Bynum, fighting the citations, which he believed at the time to be illegal, would have required that he miss yet more days of work – something he could not afford to do. It would have required him to post a $25 “jury fee” for each case. Bynum claims that money is the reason that he had failed to appear to answer yet another citation from Officer Heart – a citation that effectively charged him with a crime for simply being in the “high crime” neighborhood in which he lived at the time.
None of which explains what happened to cause Mr. Bynum's thumb to be so badly mutilated that it had to be amputated 2 days after he was taken into custody. Nor does it explain why he was not given medical attention sooner. Bynum, of course, claims that he was choked and beaten by as many as half a dozen police officers during the course of his arrest, that the beating continued long after police had recovered the piece of cocaine they allege he was trying to swallow and after he was handcuffed.
Not surprisingly, the police have a different version of events. Unfortunately, though, they are unable to produce any videotapes of the arrest, despite having no less than three cars (each of which contains a camera) on the scene at the time it occurred.
At his subsequent trial Bynum claims he tried to have his public defender raise all of these issues before trial, which would have preserved the relevant issues for appeal. Instead, one of the claims in that appeal is “ineffective assistance of counsel”.
Mr. Bynum is no angel. He has multiple prior felony arrests, and has spent a large part of his adult life in prison. But his appeal does not lay claim to sainthood. It charges that he was the target of a campaign of harassment by police that led ultimately to the warrant being issued for his arrest, which resulted in his thumb being amputated and his being sentenced to 24 years in prison. Bynum claims that the trial court erred in not ruling on the validity of the warrant and suppressing the evidence against him. He further claims that he is the victim of torture.
Bynum claims that he is not alone, that the Denver City Council's designation of neighborhoods like the one he lived in on Colfax Avenue as “high crime” districts has subjected hundreds, if not thousands, of residents of these areas to an unending barrage of police harassment and intimidation.
It's an assessment that Georgetown University Law Professor David Cole agrees with. In his 1996 book “No Equal Justice”, Cole discusses how such designations of impoverished neighborhoods as special enforcement zones has allowed police to deprive residents of these neighborhoods of basic civil rights most Americans take for granted as “inalienable”. Those affected are disproportionately Black and Latino, and overwhelmingly very poor.
80% of those in prison here in Colorado are indigent and require the public defender. Caught between high rents and low wages most, like Bynum, will return to prison, often to serve long sentences for petty drug charges at enormous expense to the state government. Many also claim, as does Bynum, that they are targets for police once they are released into the “high crime” neighborhoods most will return to.
If you, or someone you know, has had a similar experience with harassment or brutality by police, Cecil Bynum would love to hear from you. You can write to him at this address:
Cecil Bynum
#49080
Sterling Correctional Facility
POB 6000
Sterling, CO 80751
*this article was written by fellow inmate Tom Gomez, with whom Mr. Bynum shared his story.
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A typical story and a sad one
A typical but sad story. I think many people who fallow politics would agree that politicians and politics in general, revolve around four things as it is practiced in the America today. These four things are; 1) Politics manly revolves around self interest; 2) Politicians must acquire wealth, power, and status regardless of weather there goals and aims are altruistic; 3) The issues and ideals that are espoused by politicians are more often then not political weapons and not in themselves valued by politicians; and 4) All of the above principles apply equally to bureaucracies1. Our founding fathers, people like Jefferson, Washington, and Samuel Adams would look at this state of affairs with repugnance but the truth is the only people who doubt that politics has come down to these four principles (or something very similar) in contemporary America are also the same people who believe in the tooth fairy and Santa Clause.
The DOC, police and the judicial system exist for their own interests not ours and they need to be fought for the reasons above. I feel for this man who like so many has suffered at the hands of a government that cares nothing about you or me if we don't have money.
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