Is it a matter of potential life and death in which
only police can save the day? If it isn’t, you should
really think three times before calling them. Utah man Mark Byrge
has learned this lesson.
William Grigg
tells the whole sad story at the Freedom in Our
Time blog.
Byrge, driving a delivery truck, back in 2012 hit a tree branch
protruding in the road; he reported the non-injury incident,
involving only his vehicle, to the police. Who arrested him for an
outstanding warrant on a previous traffic issue. When he asked them
to cuff him in front because he had a very expensive and important
medical device implant in his back, a Spinal Cord Stimulator, they
refused.
Because of what Byrge insists–and which his wife, who overheard
some of the actions on his live cell phone, corroborates–was
pointless rough treatment from Officer Andrice Gianfelice, he ended
up cuffed in back, slammed into the back of a police car, and then
wrestled to the ground later in front of a hospital with
Gianfelice’s knee pressing into the place in his spine the device
was implanted.
At the end of the experience, the device was ruined.
Why did Byrge have that device? Details from Grigg’s blog:
The SCS was designed to send electrical impulses along Mark’s
spine in order to neutralize pain receptors. This allowed him to
ramp down his dosages of narcotic prescription pain medications.
This, in turn, is what made it possible for him to run his courier
delivery business, which required both the physical capacity to
load and unload cargo, and the mental acuity to drive his truck and
fill out paperwork. Without the stimulator, Mark would either be
too crippled to lift, or too doped-up to focus.Subsequent medical scans of his stimulator documented that it
went inactive on April 18, 2012 – the day that Officer Gianfelice,
after arrogantly dismissing Mark’s entirely reasonable request to
be cuffed in the front, shoved him against the rear seat of his
police cruiser.
What’s life like for Byrge after he made the terrible error of
calling the police?
Since that incident, “the patient’s pain as gotten worse and his
right leg is now showing signs of possible Complex
Regional Pain Syndrome,” observed Gary Child of the Utah Pain
Relief Center in April 2013. CRPS is a serious degenerative
condition that has left Mark unable to work – and is rapidly
depriving him of the ability to walk.Mark is a 43-year-old former football player and wrestler with a
compact, muscular build and low center of gravity. He walks with
the assistance of a cane as his right leg atrophies. Dark
striations are inscribed in his right foot, ankle, and shin. His
toes are splayed at wild angles owing to involuntary muscle
contractions and spasms that convulse his right leg without warning
or relief.His body slowing cutting off circulation to his lower extremity
“as if it is trying to break off my foot,” Mark explained to me.
CRP Syndrome can
lead to other severe complications, including major organ
failure.
After complaining through channels, Byrge found local police in
American Fork, Utah, strangely unhelpful, and even claims to have
had a threatening visit to his home by a local cop encouraging to
forget the whole thing.
By wild coincidence, although every officer in that town is
supposed to be equipped with uniform video cameras, nothing
that happened with Byrge that day was recorded by them.
And how did complaining do? From Grigg’s blog:
As Mark attempted, unsuccessfully, to recover from the trauma
inflicted on him by Officer Gianfelice, he filed complaints with
the American Fork Police Department. He collected witness
statements from several people who had been on the scene, as well
as his wife and brother, who had overheard the incident over the
open cell phone connection. He assembled statements from health
care professionals about the damage done to him by Gianfelice’s
assault. When the AFPD didn’t respond, Mark took his evidence to
the Utah County Sheriff’s Office.Mark’s persistence didn’t endear him to AFPD Chief Lance
Call.“You’ve run to every agency on the Wasatch Front,” groused Call
when Mark contacted him to demand that action be taken against
Gianfelice. “I already investigated it – and I cleared the
officer.”“You didn’t talk to any of the witnesses or review any of my
evidence,” Mark plaintively replied. “How can you `clear’ him just
by reviewing his side of the story?”“I told you `no’!” Call responded, hanging
up…..The official inquiry, which was
conducted by Sgt. Scott R. Finch of the Utah County Sheriff’s
Office, was the typical preordained exercise in validation. In his
interview with Finch, Gianfelice repeatedly claimed that he “could
not recall,” “could not remember,” or “could not recall from
memory” several critical details of the incident.
Byrge is still fighting over the incident:
Fully disabled and unable to make a living, Mark is pursuing a
civil rights case against the AFPD. He is also a candidate for the
Utah State Legislature.“My campaign is going to focus entirely on abuse of power by
public officials, especially the police,” Mark told me. “I’m in
constant pain, and my body is literally devouring itself. I want to
do anything I can to prevent this from happening to somebody
else.”Meanwhile, the assailant who left Mark an invalid, Andres
Gianfelice, is receiving a salary of $83,682 a year as
part of a 33-officer force patrolling a
city of 21,000 people with a negligible violent crime rate.
….
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