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To date, nationwide, in
2015, 385 people have been shot dead by police officers, a
number that has been called underreported, and about half of
that number are minorities. About 16 percent of that number
were unarmed, according to statistics compiled by the
Washington Post and only three officers have been charged
with a crime.
In this matter, however,
McCallum is an African-American officer and the so-called
victim in the case, Kyle Espinosa, is white. The trail
judge, Herbert Adams, a visiting Sandusky County Court
judge, was so unimpressed with the so-called victim’s
testimony about the confrontation that he dismissed the
charges after the prosecution had closed its case without
sending the matter to the jury.
The incident in question
occurred on September 15, 2014 while Espinosa was in a
holding cell waiting to be called for trial. Espinosa has
had numerous run-ins with the law and has been charged
and/or convicted more than dozen times on charges ranging
from menacing to assault.
On that day, according to
Espinosa, McCallum, after a verbal exchange, grabbed him by
the neck and choked him.
According to McCallum,
Espinosa spat on him and, in response, the deputy pushed him
away.
The problem for Espinosa’s
credibility is that the tape of the incident did not support
his version of the length of the encounter. The actual
incident is blurred and obscured on the tape but the
encounter is clearly much briefer than Espinosa spun it.
Sometime after the
encounter, Espinosa apologized to the deputy. Days after
that, he filed a complaint.
Then, for McCallum, the
unexpected happened. He was suspended for 30 days by the
department and the support from his union was less than
full-throated.
“Had the union backed me
in the first place, it never would have gone to trial,” says
McCallum. But it did go to trial and for no apparent reason,
according to Jeff Zilba, McCallum’s attorney. “I do not
understand why this case was prosecuted,” says the lawyer.
“To file criminal charges was really overkill.”
McCallum has returned to
duty now that the trial has ended but has not been
reinstated to his previous duties of working in Judge C.
Allan McConnell’s courtroom. His attorney fees, which the
union had pledged to cover, are not fully paid and he has
not been reimbursed for his 30-day suspension.
Not guilty, in the case of
Deputy John McCallum, is not the same as being declared
innocent. |
