Bloodied face of Utah man, 78, hurled to ground by police department in ‘unprovoked’ incident while responding to callout about squatters
An elderly man was left bloodied and bruised outside his home in the presence of his traumatized wife during a violent arrest by police in Utah who thought they were squatters.
Rand Briem, 79, is suing Ogden police, claiming he was permanently injured during the confrontation on a cold night last November.
Briem and his wife Vera, 75, were driving away from the home on East 21st Street when an officer approached and asked, “Do you need to be here?”
Seconds later, Briem was in handcuffs, bleeding profusely from a head wound and waiting for paramedics after protesting when the officer took his driver’s license.
‘I’ve never had any control. I was completely at his mercy,” Briem said this week.
‘Suddenly I was on the ground and tasted my blood.’
Rand Briem was left bleeding profusely after the confrontation with Ogden police
The senior suffered cuts and extensive bruising to his body, along with damage to the rotator cuff in his right shoulder
Police had been called to a $300,000 home by a member of the public. They saw a trespassing notice on the front door and feared it might have been cracked.
But it was actually a non-occupancy notice from the Weber-Morgan Health Department that only applied to the property’s basement after it was affected by chemical contamination.
The couple lived in the rest of the building and Briem was keen to make that clear when officers arrived.
‘What can I do for you, sir?’ he asks as they approach his car in the police bodycam footage released this week.
“Yes, that’s my house, that’s my garage, my house hasn’t been foreclosed on,” he says, explaining that only the basement is out of use.
Irritated that they do not accept his explanation, he tries to drive away but is ordered out of his car by an officer who insists that the report must be investigated.
“What’s wrong with you now?” he asks, ‘what is this? what an investigation, for God’s sake!’
When asked for his driver’s license, Briem tries to impose himself, telling the officer, “I’ll show you my driver’s license, I won’t give it to you.”
Briem was in his car and was about to drive away when police approached him on November 29
When he was ordered out of his car, he was asked for his driver’s license, but he agreed to only ‘show’ it to the officer
The confrontation escalated when the officer grabbed it from his hand and Briem tried to grab it back, before turning around and being strapped first to his car and then to the ground.
Briem’s wife Vera, 75, screamed in fear as the scuffle escalated and her husband was pulled back to his feet as blood flowed from a head wound.
Briem was left on the porch to await paramedics after police realized it was his home
But when the officer swipes it from his hand, Briem tries to snatch it back and is quickly shoved against his car as the officer tries to handcuff him.
“I told you I wasn’t giving it to you,” he pleads as the officer repeatedly demands, “Don’t grab me.”
Briem’s terrified wife begins to scream as her husband struggles with the young officer, shouting, “He’s sick!” and then ‘he’s dead!’ while her husband lies handcuffed on the ground.
‘Stop! This is ridiculous,” an officer says as the struggle continues before Briem is pulled to his feet with blood pouring out of him, sits on the porch of the house and tells them the doctors are on their way.
“We need to make sure you’re okay. That was a pretty bad fall you took,” the officer said.
“I’d be fine if you hadn’t thrown me to the ground,” Briem replies.
“All you had to do was comply with what we asked,” the officer snaps back.
“I’m a 78-year-old man and you had to throw me face down on the sidewalk and crack my head open,” Briem said.
“Well, that’s what happens when you try to grab me,” the officer told him.
“I didn’t try to grab you,” Briem shouts, “I didn’t try to grab you.”
In the lawsuit filed Wednesday, Briem claims he has suffered permanent damage to the rotator cuff in his shoulder and that his wife has PTSD.
But he was convicted of interfering with an arresting officer eight months before the incident at his home and admits he was too confrontational.
“I don’t generally talk to everyone around me like that, but I was definitely very angry,” he said ksl.com.
“I think I had a grudge at the time. I won’t do that again.’
Ogden police said they will defend the case and have charged Briem again with interfering with an arresting officer.
“The Ogden Police Department is confident that the court will find our officers’ use of force justified, just as our internal investigation did,” they said in a statement.
Attorney Bob Sykes, who represents the couple, insists there is no evidence Bream grabbed the officer and that the officer only told the senior not to grab him so the claim would be recorded on the bodycam.
“The law is universally clear on this,” he said, “rudeness does not justify excessive force.”
“According to constitutional principles, violence is not permitted if violence is not required,” he added.
‘If force is used and it is not excessive or more than necessary.
“These principles have been dramatically and unjustifiably violated in this case.”