Mississippi man David Logan beaten by cops during traffic stop
An African American man was beaten to a bloody pulp by white Mississippi law enforcement officers during a traffic stop this month, the man’s attorney has claimed.
But a sheriff defended the officers, saying that 28-year-old David Logan resisted arrest and that his account of what unfolded is “not even close to what happened.”
Logan’s attorney, Carlos Moore, shared a disturbing photo of Logan on Monday that showed his shirtless client with his hands behind his back, a swollen left eye and blood streaming down his face onto his chest.
Moore claimed that during the July 18 incident in northern Mississippi’s Yalobusha County, officers tased an unarmed Logan and beat him.
“They roughed him up to the extent that he was out of his clothes,” said Moore, who added that Logan had to be treated at two hospitals for a broken bone near one eye and was left with double vision and sleeping problems from the incident.
Moore told the Oxford Eagle that the officers “attacked [Logan], threw him on concrete pavement, tased him, roughed him up real bad.”
The attorney also alleged to the news outlet that even after Logan was placed in handcuffs, his client was punched in the face and hit over the eye with a flashlight several times.
Moore claimed that during the incident, Logan walked away from officers at a police roadblock and did not run.
In an interview Monday with the Associated Press, Yalobusha County Sheriff Lance Humphreys confirmed the officers involved were white but denied Moore’s claims.
According to Humphreys, officers from the sheriff’s department, the Water Valley Police Department and the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics were checking driver’s licenses at a roadblock when they pulled Logan over.
Humphreys said officers reported that when Logan got out of the vehicle, he ran toward them twice.
“He lowered his shoulder and tried to go through them,” Humphreys said.
The sheriff said the officers used a stun gun on Logan and arrested him but did not beat him.
According to the AP, one officer involved injured his knee during the incident and will have to have surgery, while another suffered injuries to leg ligaments.
Logan ultimately was charged with possession of ecstasy, two counts of assault on an officer, one count of resisting arrest and one count of possessing drug paraphernalia.
Since Logan was hospitalized, he did not have to post bond.
None of the officers involved in the incident have been placed on leave and a grand jury will consider whether to indict Logan, Humphreys said.
Photo Credit: The Cochran Firm