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Accused police officers plead not guilty
Two Columbia officers dispute the excessive force claims by a USC football player
Columbia police officers Roger Gilland, left, and David Beddingfield Jr. appear in court Tuesday after a bond hearing in connection with a grand jury indictment against the pair.
Erik Campos/ecampos@thestate.com
CommentsThe Columbia police officers accused of using excessive force while arresting a South Carolina offensive lineman pleaded not guilty Tuesday during a bond hearing at the Richland County Courthouse.
Officers Roger Gilland and David Beddingfield Jr. deny the allegations made by Kevin Young, who claims the officers punched him and bloodied his nose while subduing him following a fight in Five Points in March.
Fifth Circuit Court administrative judge Thomas Cooper set a $25,000 personal recognizance bond for the officers, who have been placed on investigative suspension without pay until their cases are resolved.
Cooper ordered Gilland and Beddingfield not to have contact with Young, who attended the hearing with his attorney, Neal Lourie. Young did not make eye contact with the officers during the 20-minute hearing and declined to comment afterward.
“I’m not going to talk about it,” said Young, a redshirt sophomore from Clearwater, Fla.
Gilland and Beddingfield left the courthouse without speaking to reporters.
Fifth Circuit deputy solicitor John Meadors told Cooper that three officers responding to a fight around 2 a.m. on March 2 outside Red Hot Tomatoes on Harden Street found Young tangling with James Hewitt, whose shirt was pulled over his head during the scuffle.
Meadors said one of the officers arrested Hewitt without incident, while Beddingfield and Gilland dealt with the 6-foot-5, 312-pound Young.
“One of the officers held him from behind,” Meadors said, “and when he was on the ground, the other officer struck him four to five times in the face.”
Meadors said four witnesses told SLED investigators they saw an officer strike Young while another officer was behind him.
However, the witnesses disagreed on which officer hit Young: Two said Beddingfield struck him; two said it was Gilland.
Leigh Leventis, who is Gilland’s attorney, said the officers were doing what they could to corral the bigger man. Leventis said Gilland is about 5-11 and 200 pounds; Beddingfield 5-7 and 160 pounds.
“You guys saw Kevin Young in there. He’s 6-foot-4, 300 and however many pounds he is. And you saw the police officers,” Leventis told reporters. “They’re told to go in there and break up the fight. They don’t know Kevin Young’s a football player. All they see is a mountain of a guy with some guy’s shirt over his head. And they go to diffuse the situation. Adrenaline gets flowing. Who knows what happens when you’re breaking up a fight?
“I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t there. But they maintain that all they did was diffuse the situation. When you’re doing that, you’re going to have to be aggressive. You can’t go in there and soft-pedal things. They maintain they didn’t strike him.”
Police originally charged Young with fighting and resisting arrest but later dropped the charges.
The officers’ attorneys plan to request a speedy trial since Beddingfield and Gilland are suspended without pay. Gilland, who was accompanied at the hearing by his wife of 13 years, has two children. Beddingfield is single.
Leventis lashed out at Lourie and longtime USC trustee Eddie Floyd for suggesting publicly that campus police have targeted Gamecock athletes.
“I can’t believe what Dr. Floyd’s saying. I can’t believe what Neal Lourie’s saying. They don’t have any basis for it,” Leventis said. “And they’re going after these law enforcement agencies for doing their jobs.”
Lourie said he was disappointed that Leventis made the case personal.
“I have the greatest respect for the men and women of law enforcement,” Lourie said. “I’m a former prosecutor. Ninety-nine percent do an outstanding job, but given the recent events at the highway patrol, we know sometimes there are questionable actions that need to be looked into.”
Reach Person at (803) 771-8496.
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