A former Wilmington police officer was sentenced for assault, official misconduct and evidence tampering charges Friday, stemming from a violent arrest that prompted protests in 2021.
Despite prosecutors arguing his excessive force and subsequent lies in official paperwork deserved a prison sentence of six months, the presiding judge said he felt a sentence of probation would serve as justice in the case.
Samuel Waters' defense argued that he'd already suffered consequences including the loss of his job as a police officer, as well as a pending federal lawsuit, in successfully arguing for a probationary sentence.
Last year, a jury found Waters guilty of misdemeanor assault and official misconduct for repeatedly slamming a man’s head against the wall of a Southbridge store, as well as felony evidence tampering for lying about the circumstances of his encounter with the man in his subsequent police report.
Video of the violent arrest circulated on social media in 2021, prompting demonstrations and Waters’ eventual firing from the Wilmington Police Department.
The jury acquitted him of felony perjury related to his statements following the interaction. He was also acquitted of another count of assault for a separate, violent arrest that took place days before the encounter that led to his guilty verdicts.
In-Depth: The evidence and new video behind a rare excessive force conviction for police in Delaware
The arrest of Samuel Waters
The encounter that led to Waters’ guilty verdicts stemmed from his response to a harassment complaint at a nearby business. The suspect in that case, Dwayne Brown, had just made a purchase at a convenience store in Southbridge when Waters approached him.
Waters' body camera was not activated during the interaction, but the arrest was captured on security camera footage that had no sound.
After a brief interaction, Waters turned Brown around and placed one of Brown's hands on a plexiglass wall. Waters then briefly grabbed ahold of Brown's other arm before he placed his own hand on Brown's head and rammed it into the plexiglass wall.
After the head bounce, Waters escorted Brown outside and placed him under arrest for harassment and resisting arrest, charges that were ultimately dropped. Outside, his body camera was activated. As Waters had Brown pinned against an outside wall, Waters told Brown: "Maybe next time" he will "listen, instead of being a (expletive)."
Brown angrily replied: "You smashed my face into the glass for nothing."
"That is not (expletive) proper procedure, dude," Brown told Waters in the footage. "I wasn’t doing anything but asking you questions. You were wrong."
Testifying to the jury in Waters' trial, Joseph Leary, a Wilmington police officer who trains others on the use of force, agreed with Brown's assessment.
He told the jury that department training and policy do not endorse bouncing a suspect's head off a wall generally. Force to the face, neck and back area are regarded as "red zones" because of the potential to cause serious and permanent injury.
"There was nothing that was going on where that level of force was required," Leary told the jury.
The guilty verdict related to Waters' lying was built on comparisons of his subsequent police report and his oral statements captured on body camera footage afterward.
In body camera footage after Brown's arrest, he told someone he had no idea who Brown was. But he authored police reports and other documents in the aftermath of the arrest that were examined during the trial. In that narrative of Brown's arrest, he claimed that the harassment victim showed him a picture and he immediately recognized Brown, which prosecutors said was a lie.
Waters also included information about Brown's criminal history that prosecutors said was meant as an after-the-fact justification for his violent tactics during the arrest.
In court Friday, Deputy Attorney General Dan McBride, who heads the state Attorney General's Office of Civil Rights and Public Trust, also noted a conversation Waters had with his supervisor directly after the incident.
McBride said Waters told his supervisor that Brown harassed the "only white female" working at the business and that he was just going to take a miscellaneous complaint until Brown resisted arrest. McBride said that was also a "lie."
He argued that Waters' use of force came within seconds of their encounter and described it as "almost an ambush."
Arguments over prison time
Criminal defendants are sentenced by judges based largely on the range of punishment prescribed by the law governing their guilty convictions, as well as standardized recommendations based on their personal history, criminal conduct and things like whether they've accepted responsibility for their wrongdoing.
The recommended sentence in Waters' case called for a sentence consisting of only probation. However, in court Friday, prosecutors said that Waters' use of force, subsequent betrayal of trust and his failure to appreciate the seriousness of his conduct warranted some imprisonment.
In court Friday, McBride said Waters' reports contained more "fiction than fact," but used "standard" police language that "struck me to my core."
He said Waters lied in his reports, seeking to create a "fictitious character" and a "stereotype of a Wilmington criminal" to justify his use of force. He told the judge he has been a prosecutor for more than a decade and regularly relies upon the written statements of police officers in litigating against criminal defendants.
"It made me question everything I ever read in every case," McBride told the judge.
Waters' case was a rare public airing of the official reports that all Delaware police create in the course of their work.
Exemptions in state public records law give local police departments broad latitude to hide such documents absent the subpoena power possessed by prosecutors and even in cases where the wide circulation of video depicting police violence creates cause to question officers' actions.
In a written submission to the court, McBride's office also noted that before Waters was a Wilmington officer, he was fired from a police department in Maryland for running a stop sign and then flipping someone off while in uniform. They argued this wasn't relevant to his convictions, but showed his "disregard for professional standards that police should abide by."
McBride said the case erodes the already strained relationship between police and the public and thus deserves serious punishment.
On Waters' behalf, John Malik, his defense attorney, argued that his client had already suffered consequences. He lost his job and ability to be a police officer and thus isn't an ongoing threat to public safety or to re-offend.
He said his client has been working at a national grocers' distribution warehouse and nearly lost that job when he was convicted last year. He argued he'd have trouble finding another job if he were sentenced to prison time.
Malik also cited two recent Delaware police violence cases that only resulted in probationary sentences: one involving a New Castle County officer who dragged a young woman by her hair while in a temporary lockup and a Dewey Beach officer who struck a man while he was on a medical stretcher.
Malik also said it is easy for the public to "Monday morning quarterback" such actions by police. He delved into the facts of the case to argue that Waters' choice to use force was not incorrect, though the type of force he used was wrong.
He noted Waters rescues animals and helped his wife's former student, arguing his actions were an aberration and not in his character. He also disputed that Waters had not shown remorse or an appreciation for his offense, stating that his client has not made such statements because he intends to appeal his conviction.
Waters also declined to address the court Friday, citing his plans to appeal the case.
Ultimately, presiding Judge Francis Jones said he had balanced the factors described by Malik with the seriousness of Waters' betrayal of public trust and concluded that he did not deserve prison time. He said he doesn't believe Waters is an ongoing threat to public safety.
"This was a one-off," Jones said before handing down the sentence of probation.
Meanwhile, Brown filed a lawsuit against Waters and the city, claiming the Police Department has engaged in a practice of violating people’s constitutional rights. In September, a judge ruled that his attorneys had not offered sufficient allegations to support such a claim and gave them the opportunity to amend their complaint.
That amendment is pending submission by Brown’s attorneys.
Contact Xerxes Wilson at (302) 324-2787 or xwilson@delawareonline.com.
This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Ex-Wilmington police officer caught on video smashing man's head during arrest sentenced
Local News
