BETHEL -- The FBI is deciding whether to open an official civil rights investigation into a July altercation involving a Bethel police officer that sparked complaints of police brutality and was captured on video, an FBI spokeswoman said Thursday.
Two agents came to Bethel last week on a "fact-finding mission," a step short of an official investigation, said spokeswoman Staci Feger-Pellessier.
But based on the video "we are definitely looking into it," Feger-Pellessier said. The matter could end here or the FBI could open up an investigation.
"If we opened up an official investigation, the next step again would be to collect additional evidence," she said. The case would be turned over to the U.S. Attorney's Office, which would decide whether to prosecute, she said. "We just investigate."
The 5-minute video, released this month, shows then-officer Andrew Reid repeatedly slamming a man to the ground in front of the Alaska Commercial Co. store in the heart of Bethel. The incident happened July 12 and was witnessed by a visiting anthropology professor from Arizona, Linda Green, who made a complaint to police and the FBI. But it was the video that prompted the FBI to examine what happened, Feger-Pellessier said.
The city is cooperating with the FBI, said Bill Ingaldson, an Anchorage lawyer hired to defend the city against claims of police brutality.
"It's good that it's an external agency. We welcome that," Ingaldson said.
The man was later identified as Wassillie Gregory, who just turned 49 and has been in repeated trouble over the years because of alcohol, a magistrate judge said in court back in July. He didn't have a lawyer when he pleaded guilty to harassment two days after the incident. Now he is being represented by Scott Brown, who has filed a notice in court seeking to take back the guilty plea in light of the video.
Reid has been fired from the Bethel police force, officials have said. Efforts to reach him Thursday were unsuccessful. He earlier told Ingaldson's firm that Gregory was highly intoxicated and holding his hands in front of him. He said he was jerking him in an attempt to free the man's hands so he could put on handcuffs.
The FBI says it is looking into whether what happened amounts to a criminal civil rights offense: "deprivation of rights under color of law."
That pertains to the use of excessive force by law enforcement, a type of police misconduct. Punishment can mean up to 1 year in prison, fines or both. If bodily injury results, the penalty is up to 10 years in prison.
The source of the video has been an issue in and of itself.
When Brown filed court papers April 2 seeking to take back Gregory's plea, he described a months-long challenge in securing the video. The Bethel Police Department got a copy from the store on a hard drive, but when they returned it to the store, it was blank. Brown said in court filings that a technician was able to recover it for him.
Some have questioned why the hard drive was returned with no video.
Ingaldson said Thursday he found out what happened. Bethel Police Chief Andre Achee gave the store a blank hard drive for the video, which was a large file of about 5 gigabytes, Ingaldson said. The store put the video on the hard drive for police, who then removed it, he said.
As it turned out, the hard drive had belonged to the store originally and the store asked for it back. When police returned it without the video, they were giving it back the way they got it originally, Ingaldson said.
"It's like if somebody gave you evidence in an envelope or evidence in a briefcase, and you took the evidence out and gave back the briefcase," the lawyer said. "It wasn't destroyed."