FORT LAUDERDALE -- The police department on Friday released hundreds of pages of investigative material that provide detail about what happened to a 21-year-old man who died after running from police and getting pepper-sprayed.
However, the material does not clear up any of the lingering discrepancies between police and fire-rescue versions of what took place the night of April 19 outside the city jail. The Fire-Rescue Department's account comes from previous statements, as officials did not release copies of their reports into Raymond Sterling Jr.'s death.
According to the police officers' accounts given to internal affairs investigators, they fought violently with Sterling after he ran from a traffic stop. Officers John Clarke and Carlton Smith struggled to handcuff Sterling once they caught up with him in a back yard a few blocks away.
Officer Mark Renner told investigators that when he arrived to help: "I think they were both on top of his torso area. I'm not exactly sure which one was where, but they were trying to control his arms, trying to get his arms and hands behind his back."
Officer Allen Diamond said he pepper-sprayed Sterling in the back seat of a police cruiser, because Sterling continued to kick, even after he was handcuffed.
The combination of the fight with police, the pepper spray and a genetic condition Sterling didn't know he had proved fatal. Within an hour, he was dead.
The Police Department's internal affairs unit in August cleared all the officers of any wrongdoing, saying they acted properly from the moment the first officer attempted to stop Sterling for speeding to the moment a team of fire-rescue medics pronounced him dead. And a grand jury this week cleared the police officers and firefighter-medics of criminal wrongdoing.
Still, the internal affairs report paints a harrowing picture of a young man's final minutes of life.
Sterling showed signs of distress within minutes of being pepper-sprayed. Officer Michael Lopinot drove him from the spot where police captured him back to the scene of the traffic stop and told him to get out of the car.
"He did so and then fell to his knees," Lopinot told investigators. "Mr. Sterling then fell completely to the ground."
Officer Clarke then drove him to the jail. When they got there, Clarke wrote in his report, Sterling said, "Officer, Officer, I'm having some trouble breathing!" He needed the help of two officers to walk, because his legs buckled. He complained of being tired and thirsty and having sore knees.
Clarke called for fire-rescue medics, but he told the radio dispatcher only that Sterling was complaining of "exhaustion." When the firefighters were dispatched to the call, they had little information from police about Sterling's true condition.
When the firefighter-medics Michael Bucher and Keith Webster arrived minutes later, Sterling was lying down and rolling from side to side.
All of the police officers interviewed by internal affairs investigators concurred that Bucher and Webster did little more than wave ammonia inhalant under Sterling's nose. Sterling moved his head away, but he did not seem able to answer any of the medics' questions, the officers said.
Clarke, Officer Nicholas Coffin and Capt. Lee Spector told investigators the medics said Sterling was "faking his condition" and left after about five minutes.
Before they departed, Sgt. Greg Salters waved more ammonia inhalants in front of Sterling, because he could not sit up on his own and was not answering questions.
Sterling could not walk into the jail on his own to be booked, so officers decided to drive him to the hospital in a police cruiser. He collapsed before they could. The officers uncuffed Sterling and called the medics back to the jail -- three minutes and 43 seconds after they left.
Clarke said that when he raised Sterling's arm to check for reflexes, "his hand, literally from maybe 12 to 15 inches above his face, fell directly down on his face." Officers also noticed Sterling's pupils starting to dilate.
Despite Sterling's dire condition, four officers told internal affairs investigators that Sterling had a pulse until the medics returned.
"In no way, shape or form did I lose contact with that patient and see that he stopped breathing, and if I would have, and I can answer this with all the compassion considered, I would've performed CPR," Clarke told the investigators. "I've done it in the past. I'm comfortable with it in the past. I received a life-saving award from this department for it. If I would've felt there was a need, it would've been done."
The medics -- Bucher, Webster, Michael Hicks and Walter Schrubb -- maintain that Sterling was dead when they got there. Fire Chief Otis Latin fired them, because, he said, they violated protocols and procedures by not attempting to revive Sterling or take him to the hospital. But they say they are being made scapegoats and will win their jobs back.
"The police say he had a pulse and was breathing. The firefighters say he wasn't," said Joe Carter, Hicks' lawyer. "The cardiac monitor verifies what the firefighters are saying -- he had no respiration, no pulse, no blood pressure.
"Four firefighters were terminated as a result of a flawed investigation by the Fort Lauderdale Police Department," Carter said. "It is evident that the Police Department conducted its own self-serving investigation clearing its own officers by blaming Fire-Rescue for the tragic death of Raymond Sterling Jr."
The fire department administration believed the police version instead of the firefighters', Carter said.
Police spokesman Detective Clinton Ward would not comment on the discrepancies, saying the statements speak for themselves. Latin could not be reached for comment. Sterling's father, Raymond Sterling Sr., said he wants the truth and is hoping his lawyer, Willie Gary, will expose it during a civil trial. In September Gary informed the city that he would be filing suit.
