Five Birmingham police officers have been fired for a January 2008 beating of an already-unconscious suspect with fists, feet and a billy club, a battering caught on videotape....
until a police officer turned off the patrol car camera, city and police officials said today....
the suspect, Anthony Warren, didn't even know he'd been beaten until the tape surfaced at his trial in March. Warren was ejected from the vehicle and knocked unconscious, and thought all of
his injuries were sustained in the wreck.
Police Chief A.C. Roper called the video "shameful." Mayor Larry Langford said it was "disgusting."
Roper said the video shamed the police department and the citizens served by the department, saying it was especially troubling because these were seasoned, veteran officers.
Roper hasn't identified the officers. Four of them worked in the department's Vice and Narcotics Unit; the fifth was a North Precinct patrolman.
The man who drove his car through City Hall last year was sentenced Wednesday to more than 10 years in prison. Marcus Johnson, 33, faces 122 months of incarceration after crashing through a set of
glass doors at City Hall in January 2008 and continuing through the building before slamming into the west wall of the parking garage. His sentence includes time for convictions of criminal damage to
property and two counts of criminal threats linked to the crash into City Hall, and one count of battery of a law enforcement officer later at the Sedgwick County Jail . Authorities said Johnson
became angered when a police officer told him to turn down the music in his car while he was parked at a south Wichita convenience store early on the morning of Jan. 7, 2008. Johnson drove downtown,
turned onto Main and then drove up a ramp into City Hall at an estimated 45 miles an hour. The incident caused about $200,000 in damage and prompted the installation of temporary traffic barriers
around the perimeter of the building grounds. Permanent security measures for the grounds are scheduled to be implemented later this year.