FORSYTH DEPUTIES EXONERATED IN TRAFFIC-STOP BEATING

District Attorney Says Action Taken During Early Morning Confrontation
Within Law

The Forsyth County district attorney will release a report today saying
that the two sheriff's deputies who beat Nakia Glenn during a traffic stop,
which turned violent, acted properly because Glenn resisted arrest and
posed a threat to the officers' safety.

Glenn, 22, was in a coma for several weeks after the incident Aug. 19 on
East 21st Street and Cleveland Avenue. He is now in a rehabilitation center
and has severe brain damage.

District Attorney Tom Keith says in his report that Glenn's coma was caused
by the cocaine he swallowed sometime during his arrest, not by being hit on
the head with a 10-ounce flashlight by Deputy Shane Wells.

Keith says he doesn't plan to bring charges against Wells or Deputy Gary
Simpson. He says that they acted within the law and abided by the policies
of the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office.

"They (these officers) were in a fight for their lives," Keith says. "This
is a community issue more than it is about excessive force."

The contents of Keith's report didn't satisfy Glenn's relatives, who say
that he was beaten and had his civil rights violated.

"His life is virtually gone," said Keith Glenn, Nakia Glenn's uncle, who
lives in Maryland and has been caring for him. "There is a lot of wrong
here and I'm not going to let it pass."

The State Bureau of Investigation produced its own report on the incident
and in November turned that document over to Keith, who conducted his own
investigation. His report includes witness statements, medical documents
and interviews with the officers. At the center is a videotape made from a
camera mounted on Wells' patrol car. The tape shows much of what happened
but it is incomplete, with critical events occurring off camera or without
sound.

Wells and Simpson are members of the sheriff's Highway Interdiction Team,
which targets drunken drivers and trucks with safety violations on U.S. 52.
They told investigators that they were in the Cleveland Avenue neighborhood
early that Sunday morning looking for a driving-while-impaired suspect.
Before their shift ended at 4:15 a.m., they planned to refuel their cars at
the county's gasoline pumps on Fairchild Road.

The deputies were in separate cars when they came upon Glenn and his
friend, Carlos Antoine Williams, who were in a Pontiac in the middle of
Cleveland Avenue between 18th and 19th streets, talking to friends. Wells
blew an air horn twice to get the driver to move the car.

Wells told investigators that the car crossed the double yellow lines twice
and that he noticed that neither the driver nor passenger was wearing a
seat belt, which gave him the right to pull the driver over.

The camera didn't begin recording until after the stop, which was at 3:07 a.m.

Simpson was behind Wells, and he pulled his Camaro in front of the sedan.
Wells pulled up behind. Wells asked to see Glenn's license and
registration. He took the documents and went to the passenger side to speak
with Williams.

Simpson asked Glenn to get out and walk to the back of the Pontiac. The two
talked, but that conversation isn't recorded because only Wells had his
microphone on.

Sheriff Ron Barker said that is a common practice, because more than one
microphone can cause feedback or inaudible transmissions. He said he has
supported the deputies since the beginning and is pleased with Keith's report.

Wells told investigators he became concerned as he spoke with Williams that
Williams might be armed or have a weapon in the car. He told Simpson to
release Sam, his patrol dog, a tactic that he told investigators was
intended to intimidate Glenn and Williams.

Simpson went to handcuff Glenn. Wells came over to help and told Glennthat
they were doing it for "officer safety."

Seconds later, the video shows Glenn running from Simpson and Wells, around
the back of the Pontiac. They tackled him off camera, next to a small stone
wall. During the fight, Glenn was pepper-sprayed twice. Wells also hit
Glenn at least twice in the head with his patrol flashlight, which caused
injury.

As the deputies wrestled with Glenn, people started gathering. Wells said
that one person kicked him. They told him to get on the ground and put his
hands behind his back.

Wells used a remote control to release Sam and commanded the Belgian
Malinois to attack Glenn. The dog is trained to grab a suspect's arm and
pull him down. Glenn bit the dog and Simpson.

Wells told investigators that when Simpson went to put the dog back in the
patrol car, Glenn dragged Wells to the front of the Pontiac, and Wells
tried to restrain Glenn in the passenger's seat until help arrived. Both
deputies said that Glenn was trying to reach for their weapons and that
they were afraid for their lives, Keith says. It took four officers to
handcuff Glenn.

In his report, Keith says that there are five people who witnessed most of
what happened: Simpson, Wells, Glenn, Williams, and Christopher Peoples.

Williams said he saw Glenn get hit with the flashlight. He got out of the
car and went to see what was going on. He left when Wells released the dog.

Peoples lives at the intersection and said he saw the whole incident from
his porch. He told Keith and the SBI that the deputies hit Glenn when he
tried to pull away from them as they were putting him in handcuffs. As
Wells and Glenn struggled in Glenn's car, Wells yelled that Glenn was
reaching for his gun, Peoples said. He yelled at Wells, "He ain't reaching
for your gun when each of you got one arm behind his back."

Keith discounts Peoples' statement. He says that Peoples has a criminal
record, that his view from the porch was obstructed and that the street
lacked working street lamps and was too dark to see anything from that
distance.

At some point, Glenn swallowed a small bag of cocaine. The deputies and
paramedics said that Glenn's mouth was clenched shut.

The paramedics arrived about 3:25 a.m. and took Glenn to Forsyth Medical
Center in an ambulance. He was conscious and breathing normally, then had a
seizure. He suffered brain damage, which has partially paralyzed him and
makes it difficult for him to talk.

Doctors who treated Glenn told Keith that the brain damage was caused by
the 27 grams of cocaine he ingested, not Wells' blows. When Glenn was in
the emergency room, doctors retrieved a small bag of cocaine from his throat.

At the time of his arrest, Glenn was wanted in Georgia on drug-possession
charges. He has a lengthy arrest record and, during an incident in 1999, he
ran from a Winston-Salem police officer and swallowed cocaine during the
arrest.

But Glenn's friends and relatives say that Glenn was also an aspiring music
producer who was targeted and beaten by the two officers.

The charges against Glenn have been dropped, because Keith said he was too
sick to stand trial.

After the arrest, many of Glenn's friends and relatives reached out to such
people as Walter Marshall, a Forsyth County commissioner, for help in
improving relations between law enforcement and people who live in the
predominantly black neighborhoods in and around Cleveland Avenue.

Marshall, the former president of the local chapter of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People, has provided that
liaison. He also had questions about the arrest.

But, after seeing the video, he said yesterday that he is convinced that
the deputies acted appropriately. "Based on the tape, I don't think the
officers did anything violent," he said. "You didn't hear any hate or anger
in their voices. What happened to Mr. Glenn was very unfortunate, but this
was not a Rodney King type situation."

He said he couldn't speak for what can't be seen on the tape, only what can.

But Glenn's relatives have many unanswered questions which they plan to
deal with in state and federal court.

"I'm absolutely convinced that Nakia's civil rights were violated," Keith
Glenn said. "Tom Keith has totally closed his eyes to justice."