- Dwayne Brown, 46, spoke in front of a jury evaluating assault, official misconduct, perjury and other charges faced by former Wilmington officer Samuel Waters.
- Much of Brown’s cross examination by John Malik, Waters’ defense attorney, focused on whether Brown was resisting Waters ahead of the head slamming.
- Whether Waters knew Brown and regarded him as a dangerous person before making contact is the key to the most serious charges against Waters.
- It is unclear if Waters, who started street patrol in Wilmington in July 2018, will testify as the defense wraps up their case Monday.
A Wilmington man whose violent 2021 arrest by a former Wilmington police officer was publicized in a viral video testified in that officer’s criminal trial last week, telling jurors that he was “thrown” and “strong-armed” during the arrest.
Dwayne Brown, 46, spoke in front of a jury evaluating assault, official misconduct, perjury and other charges faced by former Wilmington officer Samuel Waters. The criminal charges stem from two separate, forceful arrests by Waters two weeks apart in September 2021.
Waters is also charged with felony counts of perjury and tampering with public records, along with a misdemeanor charge of falsifying business records. Prosecutors say he lied in post-arrest paperwork in a way that sought to justify what they describe as assaults by the officer.
Brown was called to testify Wednesday by Deputy Attorney General David Skoranski. He gave the jury his account of the events that happened on Sept. 21, 2021.
What Brown says happened during the arrest
While making a purchase at a Southbridge convenience store, Brown said, Waters “walked up and grabbed” him. Brown told the jury the officer asked him to “turn around” and put his hands behind his back.
“He’s trying to pin me up against the glass pretty much,” Brown said.
Surveillance footage then shows Waters repeatedly slam Brown’s head into the plexiglass wall, before taking him outside of the store and off-camera of the surveillance footage.
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Much of Brown’s cross-examination by John Malik, Waters’ defense attorney, focused on whether Brown was resisting Waters ahead of the head-slamming.
Brown said there was no attempt by Waters to peacefully talk. Instead, he said the conversation “started at ‘Turn around, put your hands behind your back.’”
“That’s not initiating a conversation; that’s a demand,” Brown said.
A delivery driver who was stocking shelves at the time of the interaction also testified.
“Out of control,” the man said when asked about the officer’s demeanor.
The man told the jury that Brown never became aggressive toward Waters and could be heard repeatedly asking why he was being arrested, though Waters gave no clear answer before slamming his head.
Body camera footage from Waters, shown for the first time in court, when he moved Brown outside the convenience store to against a building wall was also presented as evidence to the court. Brown said cuts on his face came from being pressed against the wall by Waters outside the store.
A Wilmington police officer that trains cadets and active officers on how to properly use force in their police work told the jury Thursday that Waters’ handling of Brown was not necessary, not within the department’s policy and could have seriously injured Brown.
What happened before the arrest
Malik also thoroughly questioned Brown on the circumstances that brought him into contact with Waters. Waters approached Brown after workers at a day care center near the convenience store made claims that Brown was harassing them, according to court testimony.
The police report filed by Waters and presented as evidence noted that workers at a day care facility said Brown had made sexual comments toward them and had done so previously.
Waters responded to the scene after a 911 call was made by a worker. Waters spoke with the woman who made the call and then headed to the corner store to arrest Brown.
Brown claimed he had been walking away from the day care facility with another woman before the two then split off in separate directions. According to Brown, a sexual comment was directed at the woman he was walking with, not the day care worker.
Malik asked Brown to name the woman, but the witness could not provide the woman’s name in full.
After his arrest, Brown was charged with two counts of harassment, resisting arrest and possession of marijuana, all of which were later dismissed.
The defense attorney also made it a point to emphasize that Brown was carrying a pocket knife during his interaction with the day care workers, as well as when he was arrested, though he was never accused by anyone of brandishing it at any time.
Examining the lies prosecutors say Waters made
Whether Waters knew Brown and regarded him as a dangerous person before making contact is the key to the most serious charges against Waters — the felony perjury and tampering with public records charges.
According to the police report written by Waters after the incident, the officer was shown a picture of Brown by the woman at the day care and immediately knew it was Brown.
He wrote in the report that Brown had an extensive criminal history that included resisting arrest.
Prosecutors contrasted this to body camera footage from the day of the arrest in which Waters says he did not know who he had arrested.
The camera footage shows Waters admitting that he doesn’t know Brown’s identity when escorting Brown to the hospital after the arrest and detainment at the police station. Waters told a constable, “I have no idea; he won’t give me his name and his fingerprint scanner isn’t working,” in regard to the man’s name.
Prosecutors claim Waters lied in the arrest report about recognizing Brown to help justify the violence during his arrest.
Malik raised the idea that Waters knew of Brown from his police work in that specific area of Wilmington, but that it may be logical for Waters to not know Brown by his name. This, according to Malik, could explain the report’s discrepancy with the body camera statements.
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Robert Fox, a Wilmington officer who at the time investigated internal policy violations, along with all uses of force, disagreed with Malik’s assertion that the discrepancies between the report and the camera footage may have been a careless omission or simply negligence.
“It was a little bit more than just careless,” Fox said. “In my estimation, it seemed intentional.”
Fox conducted an investigation into Waters’ conduct during the weeks after the Sept. 21, 2021, incident. He found that Waters did not turn on his body camera when approaching Brown to arrest him in the store, nor did the former officer run any system inquiries on Brown’s name in the 18 months prior to the internal investigation.
What’s next
While the majority of the trial has focused on the reported assault of Brown, Waters is also charged with an assault that occurred nine days prior to Brown’s arrest.
The jury was shown body camera footage of the Sept. 12, 2021, incident, which depicts Waters pressing a nightstick against the man’s neck and using it to press the man’s face against a car as the man was being handcuffed by other officers.
That man did not appear before the jury during the state’s case, though another officer from that arrest took the stand Thursday, describing the incident to the jury.
A different officer responsible for training Wilmington police in uses of force also told the jury that Waters’ use of the nightstick was unnecessary, improper and dangerous.
The defense plans to have its own police expert witness Monday who is expected to defend Waters’ tactics and uses of force during the arrests.
The defense has already called character witnesses, who told the jury Friday that Waters has always been a law-abiding and truthful individual. One of them was his wife.
“Sam is known as someone who is always and completely totally honest,” she said. “He’s honest to a fault.”
It is unclear if Waters, who started street patrol in Wilmington in July 2018, will testify as the defense wraps up their case Monday. He had been fired from a Maryland police department five years prior.
