Nearby county praises crisis training; court hears assault-case arguments

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Six months to the day after Renee Boyd was arrested in Cape Girardeau during a mental-health episode, officers in neighboring Perry County, Missouri, found a man walking in the southbound lane of Interstate 55.

He was acting strangely when detective Jason Klaus and his partner, Matt Schamburg, arrived on the scene.

"There was something going on," Klaus said. "He was asking a person in his head, per se, or talking to someone who obviously wasn't there, and that wasn't normal."

The man was large, Klaus said, and paranoid. He feared officers would shoot him in the back of the head if he turned.

During subsequent investigation, police learned the man was high on PCP, was thought to suffer from an undiagnosed mental illness and had been on the road for more than eight hours.

Renee Boyd, left, and her girlfriend Rachel Hornback stand at the 1000 block of North Middle Street in Cape Girardeau where Boyd was arrested in January, 2016.

Laura Simon

In other words, Klaus explained, someone likely would have been hurt if police had tried to detain him physically.

Instead, after closing the interstate, the officers talked to him.

Klaus, Schamburg and Perry County sheriff's Sgt. Jason Kelley were trained in crisis-intervention techniques, as all Perry County law-enforcement agents have been since 2014.

Using the techniques, officers convinced the man to get in their car and consent to be handcuffed.

"CIT absolutely works," Klaus said, adding the techniques may have saved the man's life.

Law-enforcement training, Klaus said, teaches officers to think first about protecting themselves and others. CIT training builds on that, helping them to better read situations.

"Part of it," he said, "is asking, 'Is this a person with a mental illness or is this person trying to hurt me?' You have to figure that out pretty quick."

Every call is unique, he said, and the crisis-intervention techniques aren't always appropriate. But officers with the training are better able to make that call. Between May and September, the Cape Girardeau Police Department averaged three mental-health crisis calls each week.

Cape Girardeau Police Lt. Rodney Barker said CIT training, which his department began implementing early this year, improved how officers approach calls involving mental illness.

"I think we've got officers out there now recognizing people having some sort of problem instead of a legal problem," Barker said in July. "It will get officers to slow down."

"CIT has helped us tremendously," said Cape Girardeau patrolman Amanda Rhodes, who has used the techniques in the field. "It's about knowing what to say and when to say it or when to listen. It's just about being compassionate with the person and letting them know you care."

The department continues to use CIT training to prepare officers -- including patrolman Jonathan Ortmann -- to better handle mental-health-related calls.

But by the time they started, Renee Boyd already was facing charges.

Reasonable suspicion

With her client out of jail, public defender Arryn Carson filed a motion she hoped would force the prosecution to toss the case.

The point of a motion to suppress evidence is to render certain evidence inadmissible.

Carson sought to suppress all evidence arising after her client was detained by asserting the detention had been unlawful in the first place.

Since the alleged assaults occurred after the event in question, success in the motion would undermine the prosecution's case.

For the detention to have been legal, Carson's motion argued, it must have been the "result of an arrest, a consensual welfare check or under reasonable suspicion."

It pointed to Ortmann's probable-cause statement, claiming nothing the officer submitted should have caused him to reasonably suspect Boyd was breaking the law or had been about to do so.

When he tried to conduct a welfare check, Boyd declined by fleeing and telling him, "You don't know me" and to "leave me alone." At that, the motion argued, Ortmann should have stopped, rather than initiating physical contact.

It was an all-or-nothing gambit, but the defense seemed confident. After successfully getting her client's bond reduced in March, Carson said the plan was to "work to get [the charges] dismissed. ... If not, we're going to trial, and it'll probably be one you'll want to see."

One interpretation

The motion to suppress went before Judge Michael Gardner in June. Renee's family had helped her hire local private lawyer Gordon Glaus by then, but the defense still pursued Carson's filing.

To open, assistant prosecuting attorney Frank Miller posed a string of questions to the first witness, patrolman Jonathan Ortmann.

In uniform, Ortmann said he'd been a full-time officer in Cape Girardeau for about five years and on the morning of Jan. 27, he had responded to a call "for a person that had ran."

Dispatch hadn't mentioned intoxication, he said, but he anticipated having to conduct a welfare check or take the person into protective custody -- something he said happens frequently.

He encountered Rachel Hornback and Valik Schtolton at the residence, who told him Boyd had been off her Tourette's medication. He said they also mentioned Boyd was "possibly intoxicated." Hornback later denied one of them had mentioned anything about intoxication.

"Did they make any statements about her personality?" Miller asked.

Ortmann said they hadn't, but they were "very, very excited and concerned for [Boyd's] well-being. ... They were very concerned that she would possibly do something or get hurt because of her condition, the condition she was in at the time."

However, as Glaus pointed out in cross-examination, Ortmann mentioned neither possible intoxication nor protective custody in his probable-cause statement.

Ortmann then described locating Boyd, putting his spotlight on her and approaching her, calling her once by name when he got "15 or 20 feet away ... and she left. She took off."

He caught up to her, he said, grabbing her right arm with his left hand.

"She started resisting," he said. "Pulling her arm away. That's when I assisted her to the ground."

During this time, he said, he continued to identify himself as a police officer and tried to assure her he was there to help, despite Boyd kicking and using profanity.

During the scuffle, Hornback, Schtolton and another Cape Girardeau police Cpl. Richard Couch arrived to the area.

"And ultimately during your investigation," Miller asked, "did you learn any information as to whether or not she had consumed any substances that caused intoxication?"

He hadn't smelled alcohol or marijuana on her, he said, but in the ambulance she told paramedics she'd smoked pot twice in the past four days and had consumed three or four alcoholic drinks before coming into contact with law enforcement.

Glaus pointed out dispatch had mentioned only a missing female, not drugs or alcohol, and asked the officer whether Hornback and Schtolton had said anything about Boyd's mental state.

"I don't remember verbatim, but they were very excited," Ortmann said. "The male was almost crying. He was shaking, and he was concerned that he wanted her found."

How, Glaus asked, had Ortmann assessed Boyd's behavior? Why had he detained her?

The officer reiterated his belief she possibly had been intoxicated and she had run from the location.

"Well, an adult can certainly leave their home any time they want, can they not, sir?" Glaus asked.

"Correct, but an adult doesn't run from a police officer when they're advised to stop," Ortmann answered.

"And she doesn't have to stop for you," Glaus said. "Does she?"

"Yes," Ortmann said, "because I'm doing an investigation."

Glaus asked whether she had slurred her words.

"She screamed them at me," Ortmann said.

Glaus repeated the question.

"Not that I recall," Ortmann said.

Boyd's intermittent tics caused a quiet coughing sound from the gallery as Glaus questioned Ortmann about the point of contact.

"Was she on her way to the ground already?" he asked the officer. "'Assist' would mean she was trying to get on the ground herself."

"One interpretation," Ortmann answered. He said he'd then sent her for medical evaluation because "a normal person doesn't behave how she was acting."

"And I'm not trying to be flippant here, but do you have any training dealing with mentally ill individuals?" Glaus asked.

"Actually I do, sir. I'm a CIT officer," he answered. "That's a 40-hour course we go to that ... assists us in dealing with individuals who have mental illnesses."

"When did you first attend that course?" Glaus asked.

"It was approximately four weeks ago," Ortmann said, which meant it would have happened around early May.

"OK, so when this happened, you had no training or experience dealing with mentally ill individuals?" Glaus asked.

"I had no special training," Ortmann said.

Face-planted

Rachel Hornback, the only other witness to testify, gave her account of the night's events after Ortmann.

She'd been hanging out with Boyd and Schtolton at her house, she explained. But when Boyd's phone broke, she went outside.

"She just went down the road," Hornback said. "And usually I'd go after her, but she was really upset. ... I didn't know that she was going down there, and I figured she'd just go outside and cool down for a minute. And whenever I finally went out there to go check on her, she was gone."

Schtolton then had called the police.

When Ortmann arrived, she recalled, he asked from his police SUV whether she and Boyd lived there. She said yes.

He asked whether Boyd was violent, Hornback recalled. She said no.

According to Hornback, Ortmann never asked whether Boyd was intoxicated, and neither she nor Schtolton volunteered such information, though Schtolton said Boyd had no jacket or shoes.

Ortmann then drove around before finding Boyd and stopping, Hornback said. Before leaving the vehicle to run toward Boyd, she recalled, Ortmann trained his spotlight on her and Schtolton, not Boyd.

"All I seen was his spotlight was in my face. He never moved his spotlight. I seen his door open, and he started dartin' out of his car," she said. "I had to do this."

She put up a hand, palm-out, as if shielding her eyes. She denied hearing Ortmann or Boyd say anything.

"No, I just seen her running," she said. "Towards the house."

Glaus asked what happened next.

"Officer Ortmann tackled her to the ground," she said.

"Did he try to grab one arm?" Glaus began. "And--"

"No," Hornback interrupted. "He tackled her from behind, and she face-planted in the dirt."

Hornback said when she ran over to where Boyd and Ortmann were on the ground, she tried to help the officer calm Boyd.

"She was using profanity, and she was kicking," Hornback said. "I was like, 'Excuse me, officer.' I was like, 'I can help you calm her down.'"

Eventually, Boyd stopped struggling physically but was crying and asking why she couldn't just go home.

Hornback said Ortmann told Boyd she would "either have to go to the hospital, or you're going to jail."

"How did she respond to that?" Glaus asked.

"She got really upset again," Hornback said.

In cross-examination, the prosecutor asked whether Hornback, as the defendant's romantic partner, would "do anything for Renee Boyd?"

"Yes," she nodded.

Glaus later asked her to clarify.

"You wouldn't kill for her?" he asked. "Would you?"

"No!" she said, incredulous.

Glaus asked whether she would perjure herself for her girlfriend.

"No," she answered, shaking her head.

Gardner then ruled on the motion to suppress.

Denied.

Renee left the courtroom looking deflated and confused. Glaus walked out grimacing. The evidence would stand, meaning they could try for a plea deal or steel themselves for trial.

By this point, a few years of probation on a plea deal sounded tempting if it kept her out of jail. Trial held a chance for exoneration, but after what they'd just seen, that hope looked more distant than ever.

Coming next: After weighing the options, Renee makes a choice on how to plead.

Southeast Missourian staff reporter Ben Kleine contributed to this story.

tgraef@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3627

City attorney: Officer cited city ordinance in error

During the June 7 hearing, defense attorney Gordon Glaus questioned whether taking Renee Boyd into protective custody had been appropriate under the law. He entered as evidence text of Missouri’s protective-custody statute.

Prosecuting attorney Frank Miller objected, pointing out the officer had stated he’d stopped Boyd according to a protective-custody ordinance, not the state statute.

When asked what the protective-custody ordinance of Cape Girardeau says, patrolman Jonathan Ortmann said, “If somebody is a danger to themselves or others, we have the obligation to take custody of that individual until they’re sober or until they, a responsible party can come take custody, take control of them.”

Cape Girardeau, however, doesn’t have a protective-custody ordinance, Cape Girardeau city attorney W. Eric Cunningham said Monday.

The following is the Missouri statute allowing officers to take people into protective custody. It mentions incapacitation or intoxication as grounds for detention but does not mention being a danger to oneself or others.

Section 67.315.

1. A person who appears to be incapacitated or intoxicated may be taken by a peace officer to the person’s residence, to any available treatment service, or to any other appropriate local facility, which may if necessary include a jail, for custody not to exceed twelve hours.

2. Any officer detaining such person shall be immune from prosecution for false arrest and shall not be responsible in damages for taking action pursuant to subsection 1 above if the officer has reasonable grounds to believe the person is incapacitated or intoxicated by alcohol and he does not use unreasonable excessive force to detain such person.

3. Such immunity from prosecution includes the taking of reasonable action to protect himself or herself from harm by the intoxicated or incapacitated person.