Maureen Spain is a busy soccer mom and a nurse who finds time to engage in local issues. We encountered Ms Spain several times before. She was arrested at the Greensward on Memorial Day 2016, by Richard Rouse who was looking for brownie points for promotion to sergeant. The day following her arrest, she was placed on an Authorization of Agency by the vengeful Zoo, even though she had not set foot on Zoo property that day. She took the case of her arrest to CLERB.
Ms Spain was recently detained, cuffed, physically abused and transported by cops who told her, during the abuse session, that they “love the Zoo”. We have full details of this incident, but first some background.
We previously documented the City’s use of AoA as a tool for political harassment. Among the over 2100 MPD victims of this irregular procedure, we highlighted five AoAs which were clearly part of ongoing political harassment at MPD, continued brazenly even while the Court Monitor is examining such issues. The most recent political AoA was Rodney Fisher’s from July 25th 2019, well after Monitor’s appointment.
* Author’s note: I was arrested with Ms. Spain and am also named on the same AoAs as she.
Authorization of Agency as political harassment
Ms. Spain has the distinction of being on the first political AoA that we know about. She was also on the AoA for the December 19th 2016 die-in protest at the Mayor’s house, which resulted in the City Blacklist. More than forty people were on this AoA, even though it was well known that no more than a dozen people participated in the Die-In. The majority of those blacklisted were there as political opponents of Mayor Strickland’s regime. The abuse of AoAs continued with another Zoo AoA, Dan Rosson’s at Memphis Animal Shelter and the aforementioned Rodney Fisher AoA with video.
We have documented AoA as a means of harassing those suffering lack of housing and other disenfranchised citizens. AoA remained unreported for at least ten years before its 2017 exposure with the City Blacklist. AoA as a secret police weapon seemed ideal when the City was mulling retaliation against the Greensward prisoners, so it is not surprising that MPD would add it to its arsenal of unconstitutional attack tools.
AoA is not the only harassment method used by MPD. Hunter Demster, Antonio Blair, Keedran Franklin and many others have been surveilled or arrested in recent years. Ms Spain herself, with numerous other activists, was featured in Joint Intelligence Bulletins as documented in the Kendrick trial documents.
Ms Spain, whose most recent political involvement was “just a day in the park”, was dialed in to Detective Tim Reynold’s paranoid conspiracy theory centered on Saul Alinsky’s book. This is part of a pattern of harassment which continued from May 2016 to August 2019, even while the Court Monitor was watching.
August 30th 2019 at Paradiso Cinema
On August 30th, Maureen Spain organized a birthday outing for her son and some of his early teen friends. She had a slight buzz on from a two glasses of wine earlier that day, and used a rideshare instead of driving to the Paradiso. At the theater, after a discussion with staff over their policy of not allowing children access to the movie, security guard Ray Daughtry dialed 911 and at least seven MPD officers responded: David Osborne, Martin Nolan, Lenette Otis, James Dolan, Chase Bates, Breana Johnson and Ryan Walker. Osborne and Nolan identified themselves to Ms Spain and the others are listed in the 911 Call Log (PDF) of the event. Audio of the 911 call is here. (WAV file).
According to the 911 log Ms Spain was detained at 8:28 PM, placed in custody at 8:51 PM, and she was transported at 9:25. As Ms Spain was never arrested, she was detained, cuffed and locked in the back of a cruiser at the Paradiso for a total of 57 minutes, and a further thirteen minutes while being transported. Normal police procedures require that detention at a location should be resolved within “about” 20 minutes, by release, transportation for further detention or arrest.
Ms Spain wrote a first-person account (PDF) of the incident.
Cuffed in the Cruiser.
Ms Spain was jumped by Malco Paradiso security guard Ray Daughtry, who detained her and handcuffed one wrist. Officers Nolan and Osborne made the scene, placed handcuffs on Ms. Spain very tightly behind her back and sat her in the back of their cruiser. MPD’s Peerless-brand police handcuffs have a pawl and ratchet mechanism which allows the cuffs to get tighter with movement, but never looser. Being forced to sit on a pair of cuffs in an enclosed space in the back of a car is very uncomfortable, and every movement makes the cuffs tighter. If the police are being nice, they can insert a key and lock the ratchet so that the cuffs stay in place and don’t get tighter. These cops were not being nice that evening.
The two detaining officers videoed Ms Spain’s writhing in agony and made video of her through the opening in the partition. At one point, one of the officers said that he “loved the zoo”, tying the incident to the MPD harassment of Ms Spain, which had been ongoing for more than three years. At another point, one of the officers offered to loosen her cuffs, but took them off and replaced them even tighter, savagely twisting them and her wrists.
During the 57 minutes of Ms. Spain’s torture, her son and his friends waited on the curb until one of the other parents came to pick them up, so the kids were forced to see their mother’s mistreatment.
Ms Spain Transported.
Maureen Spain was transported at 9:29 and arrived at the MMHI Crisis Center at 9.42. The transporting officers were given as Lenette Otis, Chase Bates and James Dolan. She was finally uncuffed at 9:52 and released from the Crisis Center after a couple of hours. Although the 911 log ends with an indicated arrest, she was never charged in relation to the incident and no court records were filed.
As Ms Spain had previously been targeted as a political figure, the investigation was one likely to result in political intelligence being revealed, but we do not believe that the detaining officers had permission from the Police Director to conduct this investigation.
Maureen Spain’s injuries.
The above photos show bruising on Maureen Spain’s shoulder area and fingerprint bruises on her upper right arm, and her wrist swollen, welted, bruised and abraded by the handcuffs. Photos taken Sept 1st 2019.
She also had a very large bruise on her upper arm, which came up later, this photo taken on Sept 4th.
Ms. Spain also suffered nerve damage to her hands and wrists.
–concluded–
Memphis Truth Commission 