01:04 AM CDT on Friday, June 30, 2006

By BRETT SHIPP / WFAA-TV

Fred Turner

A cell phone video shows DeMyron Martin, wearing a white shirt, on the ground as a police officer, left, approaches.

NEWS 8 INVESTIGATES

More criticism is being leveled against Dallas police officers assigned to the beat on Lower Greenville Avenue.

In our previous reports, the criticism has been about cops misusing pepperball guns. This time, the charge is more serious.

SMU star running back DeMyron Martin told News 8 he was shot with a Taser and arrested by overly-aggressive officers—officers the department continues to defend.

Martin is one of the most gifted young running backs in recent memory at SMU. But the freshman scholarship athlete's promising future nearly came to a shocking halt at the hands of a Dallas officer last February.

He was jolted to the ground with a taser gun, handcuffed and charged with resisting arrest after questioning an officer who had arrested another teammate for fighting.

"I come up to the officer; I'm like, I touch his shoulder and saying like, 'You're arresting the wrong people! You need to arrest these people,' and he flips out. He goes in my face cussing me out. I'm backing away like I'm sorry," Martin recalled.

Teammate Fred Turner, who also witnessed the arrest, said Martin was not out of line and had committed no crime.

"DeMyron goes up to him and grabs him on the shoulder like this and he said, 'You got the wrong one! The guy's getting away!'"

Turner then watched as the officer drew his Taser gun and took his teammate to the ground with an electrical jolt of 50,000 volts. "He was crying, tears, screaming. Screaming, 'No!' It sounded like they were torturing him," Turner said.

Turner said he was so disturbed by what he saw, he grabbed his cell phone camera and started recording the incident.

Seconds later, he said he became the target, as documented in the video.

TURNER: "Man, you can't talk to him like that, man."

VOICE: "Oh, wanna make a bet?"

TURNER: "He ain't done nothing. He laid his hands on him!"

And with that exchange, Turner was arrested—at first, he said, for public intoxication. But Turner maintained he had not been drinking.

"He was like, 'You know what? I'm going to get you on something else,'" Turner quoted the officer as saying. "'Inciting a riot. That's what I'm going to get you on.'"

One police report indicated that Turner's actions "incited the crowd," which "began to attack the police officers." Yet no officer actually complained of being physically attacked.

Assistant Chief David Brown said the incident has been thoroughly investigated, all video recordings closely reviewed. "We take it seriously, these complaints," he said.

Brown said the SMU players were involved in a bar fight and were aggressively resisting police, who feared for their own safety.

"We have some witnesses that say that this use of force was not necessary; but then we have officers saying that the use of force was necessary in order to gain control," Brown said.

Dallas Attorney Bob Jenevine represents the players, all of whom filed complaints against officers who they believe crossed the line between duty and authority. "In this case, they went so far over the line, they had to conjure up a charge that doesn't even make sense," Jenevine said. "They were interested in kicking ass, because that's what they told people they were doing that night—that was their agenda."

Over the past six months, News 8 Investigates has documented numerous allegations of police officers harboring a similar agenda: Includng the firing of pepperball guns into crowds and into cars at close range—not just as a means of crowd control, but to send a message to bar patrons who question their authority.

For DeMyron Martin and others who made that mistake, the impact is achieving the opposite effect.

"My trust in the... any police department is really gone right now," he said. "Anything to do with police, I don't want to be a part of right now."

In all of these cases, the civilians have felt so strongly about being wronged, they have filed official compaints, and each complaint has been—or is being—investigated.

"My image is messed up because of an officer doing wrong. It hurts me more than anything," Martin said with a heavy sigh.

While many of the officers involved have been assigned to another patrol, not one has been disciplined, and to date, all of the complaints have been declared inconclusive or unfounded.

E-mail bshipp@wfaa.com