A Black teenager whose forceful arrest along Ocean City’s boardwalk last summer was captured in a viral video, eliciting outrage from civil rights activists and concern from state officials, was acquitted of most charges Friday.
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A judge convicted Taizier Griffin of disorderly conduct after tossing more-serious charges pressed by officers who alleged he had assaulted them and resisted arrest, noting police shot Griffin with a Taser.
“That’s punishment enough as far as I’m concerned, and I hope he learned a lesson from that,” said Judge W. Newton Jackson III, a Wicomico County Circuit Court judge who was filling in at the Maryland District Court in Ocean City.
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Griffin, who had been visiting from Cecil County to celebrate his high school graduation when police stopped him, walked out of court with a fine and court costs adding up to $257.50. He plans to appeal.
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“The only lesson to be learned is: Stop coming on the boardwalk down here if you expect to be treated fairly by the police,” one of Griffin’s lawyers, William “Billy” Murphy, said after court. “He learned that lesson.”
The encounter on June 6 began when Corwin Vincent, an Ocean City bicycle officer, spotted Griffin exhaling a cloud of vapor along the boardwalk as he walked with several companions. (Vaping on the boardwalk is prohibited by town ordinance.)
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Vincent testified in November that he stopped his bike and put his arm in front of Griffin’s path. He said the teen walked into his arm and pushed past, and he considered that an assault. He said he grabbed Griffin by the back of his shirt, and things escalated until another officer shot Griffin, then 18, with a Taser.
Video taken by a friend of Griffin’s begins with him facing officers with his hands up. Seconds later, the teen appears to reach for his backpack strap. He is shot with a Taser and collapses. Officer Joseph Laughlin testified that he deployed his Taser “to end the altercation.”
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Vincent testified that the alleged assault — Griffin’s pushing past his raised arm — was more dangerous than officers shooting the teen with a Taser. On Friday, Murphy and another lawyer for Griffin, Malcolm Ruff, called that statement “a whopper” and used it to attack the officer’s credibility.
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Vincent “clearly has no sense of what a reasonable force is if that is his gauge,” Ruff said.
The Ocean City Police Department cleared the officers in the incident, saying routine use-of-force reviews determined that no further inquiry was warranted.
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Griffin’s brother and three other companions testified in November that the officers’ accounts of what happened before the video were inaccurate. They said when Vincent first approached Griffin he grabbed the teen by the arm, and Griffin reflexively pulled away.
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Michael Farlow, an assistant state’s attorney for Worcester County, said that Griffin yelled he would kill the officers and that the fact that officers Vincent and Laughlin “virtually simultaneously” drew Tasers showed that both perceived a threat.
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Jackson, in delivering his ruling, did not elaborate on why he found Griffin not guilty of assault, resisting arrest, obstruction and carrying a concealed weapon (a kitchen knife police said they found in Griffin’s backpack).
The judge said Griffin did fail to identify himself to police and obey their orders, and he merged those charges into the disorderly conduct charge in imposing the fine. Afterward, Murphy and Worcester County State’s Attorney Kristin Heiser disagreed on how many convictions that amounted to. Heiser said three; Murphy said one.
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The judge offered Griffin “probation before judgment,” which would have allowed him to avoid a criminal record. The teen declined, preserving his right to appeal.
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During the proceeding, Griffin conceded guilt to a civil citation for vaping along the boardwalk.
After the verdict, Murphy and Ruff posed smiling for photos with Griffin and his mother and brother outside the courthouse.
Murphy said of the disorderly conduct conviction: “That’s like rolling a spare, one bowling pin remaining, and we’re going to get that knocked down on appeal.”
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Griffin said he was glad to have the trial behind him. “I didn’t know what was going to happen,” he said. “What I went through, no one should go through.”
Murphy and Ruff have notified Ocean City of their client’s plan to sue for more than $1 million in physical and mental damages.
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The lawyers on Friday also handled the case of another teenager, Brian Anderson, whose violent arrest along the boardwalk was captured in viral video last summer days after Griffin’s. The video shows Officer Daniel Jacobs kneeing Anderson hard in the rib cage.
After the verdict in Griffin’s case, Farlow agreed to drop assault and resisting arrest charges against Anderson in exchange for a guilty plea for disorderly conduct. He received a fine and court costs of $257.50 and accepted probation before judgment, which means he can avoid a criminal record but waives his right to appeal.