Vol. 79/No. 14      April 20, 2015

Dent, 57, who is African-American and a Detroit resident, had just visited a friend in this predominantly Black town southwest of Detroit and was heading home in the evening of Jan. 28 when he was pulled over. Officer William Melendez put him in a chokehold and punched him 16 times in the face. Other cops cuffed Dent and used a Taser on him three times. The entire incident was caught on the cops’ dashboard videocam.

Dent spent two days in the hospital being treated for injuries — a fractured left orbital bone, bleeding in his brain and four broken ribs.

Over the past year, killings and brutality against working people, disproportionately Black, have gotten more and more publicity and are increasingly being met with public protests across the country.

Melendez, who was a Detroit cop from 1993 until his resignation in 2009, was named in a dozen federal lawsuits accusing him of planting evidence, wrongfully killing unarmed civilians, falsifying police reports and other offenses.

Cops charged Dent, who has no previous criminal record, with assault, resisting arrest and possession of cocaine they claim to have found in his car. Dent’s post-arrest drug test was negative.

Melendez, who is called “Robocop” by workers in the area, said he decided to pull Dent over because he had stopped to visit someone in a part of town known for drug problems.

After viewing the dashcam video at a preliminary hearing in March, a district court judge dropped all charges against Dent except drug possession. Dent pled not guilty April 1. Sixty people picketed outside police headquarters demanding the cops who beat Dent be fired.

“It’s never appropriate ever to see that kind of brutality visited upon someone being arrested,” Gregory Rohl, Dent’s attorney, told the press. “I don’t care if he’s got a kilo of cocaine and two dead bodies in that car.”

Both Dent and Rohl insist there were no drugs in Dent’s car before the police arrived.

“In the video, the officer seen throwing the punches, William Melendez, is seen pulling something from his pocket that looks like a plastic baggy with something inside it,” the Detroit NBC News affiliate reported.

The case has received national press coverage. “So much about Dent’s case is troublesome, and so he has become the latest touchstone in our coalescing conversation about the intersection of police forces and communities of color,” columnist Charles Blow wrote in the New York Times March 30.

Following the April 3 march, a rally was held in the police headquarters parking lot. Speakers included representatives of the Inkster chapter of National Action Network; the Arab Center for Economic and Community Services in Dearborn, which brought a dozen young people to the protest; and the National Lawyers Guild. Participants included some three dozen members of the United Auto Workers union, many from UAW Local 600 at Ford’s River Rouge plant where Dent worked; and a contingent from the American Postal Workers Union. Speakers vowed to keep the pressure on until all charges against Dent are dropped and the police involved are fired.

Dent’s next court appearance is scheduled for April 15.
 
 
Related articles:
Protesters say ‘It’s got to stop’ after Georgia cops kill unarmed man
London march protests cop killing of Henry Hicks
 
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home