Two Ocean City Police Officers who arrested a Black teen over the summer in a chaotic exchange that went viral, prompting outrage from activists and concern from state officials, answered differently in court Monday to a question about the use of force.
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The officers, testifying at the teen’s trial, said that Taizier Griffin pushed past the raised arm of an officer who was trying to stop him from vaping, and they considered it an assault.
Lawyers for the teen asked which was more dangerous: the alleged assault or shooting the young man with a Taser moments later as he had his hands up?
One officer said the alleged assault. The other one said deploying the Taser.
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How and why the officers chose to deploy force was at the heart of testimony that provided the most detailed public account yet of the moments leading up to the arrest, one of several confrontations between police and Black teens last summer that elicited calls for reform.
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The officers’ depictions of what transpired before police charged Griffin with offenses including disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and assault, conflict with eyewitness accounts from Griffin’s friends and family.
It began when Ocean City bicycle Officer Corwin Vincent said he spotted Griffin, then 18, exhaling a cloud of vapor along the boardwalk on June 6 as he walked with several companions. (Vaping on boardwalk is prohibited by town ordinance.)
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Vincent, 28, said he stopped his bike and put his arm in front of Griffin’s path.
“I requested him to identify himself,” Vincent said. “Mr. Griffin refused to identify himself. He pushed right through my arm and continued to walk.”
Vincent said he considered the teen’s action an assault. He said he grabbed Griffin by the back of his shirt, but he kept walking. “As that was going on, Mr. Griffin was yelling in a loud voice that he was going to kill us,” testified Vincent, who has been with the department since 2016.
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As Griffin kept walking, Vincent said, he and another officer, Joseph Laughlin, drew their Tasers and began yelling for Griffin to get on the ground. Under department policy, only one officer may use a Taser, so Vincent re-holstered his.
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At that point, video taken by Griffin's friend begins with him facing officers with his hands up. Seconds later, the teen appears to reach for his backpack strap.
Laughlin testified that he deployed his Taser “to end the altercation.”
“We had already tried hands on, and it was clear it wasn’t effective, so I went with the Taser,” Laughlin said. “It would have been an easier way to get this done quickly, safely, and get it off the boardwalk.”
Laughlin fired, and Griffin, who had come from his Cecil County, Md., home with friends to celebrate his high school graduation, collapsed.
Griffin’s friend Cori Ewing, 18, filmed the video. A lawyer for Griffin asked whether the officers’ accounts had been accurate.
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“Not at all,” she testified.
Ewing said that when Vincent first approached Griffin he grabbed the teen by the arm and said, “No vaping on boardwalk.”
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“He was not aware really of the officers coming toward him,” she said. “Somebody comes up and grabs you, you’re going to jump. You don’t know who’s grabbing you. It’s a natural reaction.”
She said other officers converged quickly.
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“All the officers were running up around him,” Ewing said. “There wasn’t much time in between, and then they were all yelling,” he added, “There was like so many commands going at once.”
She said the officers were yelling for Griffin to remove his backpack and get on the ground. She said the officers hadn’t asked Griffin to identify himself. She testified that no more than 20 seconds passed between when officers approached Griffin and when he was shot with the Taser.
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Griffin’s lawyers asked three of his other companions whether they agreed with Ewing. All said they did.
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“I remember them coming up and grabbing my brother by his left arm,” Griffin’s 17-year-old brother, Tayvin, testified. “He wasn’t aware of what was happening.”
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The issue of how and whether officers asked Griffin to identify himself was closely questioned by his Baltimore-based lawyers, William “Billy” Murphy and Malcolm Ruff. Under Ocean City ordinance, it’s a misdemeanor to refuse to provide proper identification in certain situations “by providing the person’s name, address, and date of birth.”
They also questioned whether the officer’s use of force was appropriate to the circumstances. “What was more dangerous, this young man walking through your arm, or the use of a Taser while he had his hands up?” Ruff asked Vincent.
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“I think walking through the arm is more dangerous,” the officer replied. Asked the same question, Laughlin answered that the Taser was more dangerous.
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Senior Judge W. Newton Jackson III, visiting from Wicomico County Circuit Court, agreed to allow the remainder of the trial to be postponed, so that transcripts of the testimony can be generated and the lawyers can make written motions. It is scheduled to resume on Jan. 5.
The trial of a second teenager, Brian Anderson, whose violent arrest along the boardwalk was also captured in viral video this summer also was postponed until Jan. 5.