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Why didn’t Tampa police apologize faster to Brian Sterner?
By Lauren | February 23, 2009
On January 29th Brian Sterner, a wheelchair-bound quadriplegic, was arrested by Tampa police over a driving offense. When he was brought in for booking, officers ordered Sterner to stand up which, of course, he was unable to do. Unfortunately, Deputy Charlotte Marshall-Jones apparently thought Sterner was bluffing, and unceremoniously dumped him out of his wheelchair onto the hard police station floor. (Sterner suspected that he broke several ribs on the side where he landed but, without sensation in his body, couldn’t tell if he’d been injured or how badly.) Marshall-Jones and another deputy rolled him over and searched his pockets before several deputies lifted him back into the chair. The outrageous incident - police officers roughing up a quadriplegic, for Heaven’s sake? - was caught by surveillance cameras and posted on YouTube, where it was picked up by reporters and broadcast worldwide.
So, why did it take Tampa Sheriff David Gee two weeks to apologize to Brian Sterner?
Apologies often have legal implications, and that’s certainly true here. Marshall-Jones has been charged with one count of felony abuse of a disabled person and, while Sterner hasn’t yet sued the police department, it won’t come as any great surprise if he does. There’s no denying what happened in this case, though, because the whole incident was captured on film. The lawyers can argue about what it meant, but not about what happened.
The carefully-crafted public statement that Sheriff Gee finally delivered to the media on February 13th probably won’t do much to make things right with Brian Sterner. It came weeks after the event, it showed clear signs of having been developed with potential litigation in mind and, worst of all, it wasn’t delivered directly to the injured party. Damage control isn’t an apology, and Gee’s statement positively stank of spin management.
Sheriff Gee undoubtedly joins us all in fervently hoping that nothing like this will ever happen again in his department. If it does, though, I hope that next time he’ll apologize in person - and won’t wait for weeks before he does it.
To read Sheriff Gee’s statement, go to http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/feb/13/statement-sheriff-david-gee/.
Topics: Apologies, Business Ethics, Legal Ethics, Social Ethics, business communications, ethics |