A Pine Bluff Police Department school resource officer assigned to Jack Robey Junior High School did not follow PBPD policy when he discharged pepper spray on campus in an April 5 incident that sent three students to the hospital and several more home early, according to an investigative report.
Pine Bluff Superintendent Jerry O. Payne said that despite the action taken by Officer Anthony Brown he was returned to Jack Robey after the district held several meetings with PBPD leadership.
“I had a meeting with Assistant Chief [Ivan] Whitfield and Deputy Chief [Ricky] Whitmore as well as Jack Robey Principal Ronald Laurent on the Monday after the incident,” Payne said. “We discussed the incident in depth and they assured us that they were addressing it internally.”
Payne said that he also had a telephone conversation with PBPD Chief Brenda Davis-Jones about the incident.
“The police department reassured me that the officer involved in the incident had the best interests of the school at heart and had had no issues previous to this one,” Payne said. “It was by mutual agreement that we determined that the officer would be returned to Jack Robey and that there would be steps of intervention in terms of discipline of the officer by the police department. He is a sworn officer and any discipline would take place within the police department.”
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Police investigation
Pine Bluff City Attorney Althea Hadden-Scott released the incident report Monday that details the actions of Brown that day.
Brown submitted a Use of Force Report for the PBPD as part of an internal department investigation into the incident.
Brown said in the report that he was assisting school staff with getting students inside the school during the ninth grade lunch period.
“While in the hallway, I observed a large body of students standing in the hallway getting loud and rowdy and not moving to class,” Brown wrote. “I gave several directives to the students to move out of the hallway and to go to their classrooms and the students were not responsive and refused to go to class.”
“I took out my pepper spray and squirted a small amount in a corner on the floor in the hallway and students started to disperse afterwards,” Brown wrote. “During the time of the spray, I did not spray or aim at any student’s body or in the air. The intent of using the spray was to disperse the crowd and not to harm anyone.”
PBPD Investigating Supervisor Sgt. Lynn Wright found that Brown did not follow policy when he used the pepper spray.
“Officer Brown did not follow policy when using the O.C. spray,” Wright wrote in his report. “Policy states when verbal dialogue has failed to bring a person or persons in compliance and signaled an intention to actively resist the officer’s efforts to make an arrest. Policy also states whenever practical and reasonable the officer should issue a verbal warning prior to using O.C. spray. It is in my opinion Officer Brown did not act according to policy of the use of O.C. spray. Policy Number 555 of the Pine Bluff Police Department Policy and Procedures Manual.”
Payne
Payne said that he spoke with parents about the decision to return Brown to the school.
“I shared with them the fact that I agreed that the remedy being implemented by the city was correct and that the officer had remorse for what had occurred,” Payne said. “We will continue to work with this officer and the department to assure the safety of our schools.”
Payne said that some of the students who went home early after the April 5 incident turned out not to have been affected by the pepper spray but said that they had been in order to leave school.
“It is unfortunate but this is what appears to have happened in some cases,” Payne said. “So the initial number was a bit inflated.”