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Several people hold s left over from the Walk for Freedom civil rights march three weeks earlier. Cynthia Scott was walking down the street when DPD Patrolman Theodore Spicher accosted her, sought to arrest her without cause, and then shot her twice as she walked away, ending her life. Scott, a year-old African American woman, was walking home accompanied by Charles Marshall, a year-old African American man, when the encounter began at the intersection of John R.
Spicher, a year-old white police officer with four years on the force, was working the graveyard shift with his partner, Patrolman Robert Marshall, also a white man, when he made the decision to pull over and seek to place Cynthia Scott under arrest, setting the events that led to her death in motion. From that moment, the official police differs substantially from the s of eyewitnesses, and also differs substantially from the preponderance of evidence in the historical record, which reveals a cover-up by the DPD and the Wayne County prosecutor, as outlined below.
She also was a sex worker--a "known prostitute" in the unsympathetic portrait of Detroit's white newspapers, "a colored female I recognized as a known prostitute" in the report of her homicide submitted by Theodore Spicher. In an extraordinary turn of events, the killing of Cynthia Scott by Theodore Spicher led to a major escalation of the anti-police brutality movement in Detroit.
One week after the incident, on the day after the county prosecutor ruled the shooting a justifiable homicide, around 2, African Americans ed a demonstration at the DPD's downtown headquarters to protest police violence right.
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The traditional middle-class civil rights organizationsthe NAACP and Urban League, had nothing to do with this outpouring of anger on the streets, the first in a series of anti-police brutality demonstrations in the summer of Patrolman Spicher and Patrolman Marshall fabricated a cover story that portrayed her as the armed aggressor, and the DPD Homicide Bureau ignored and suppressed countervailing evidence to promote this version, including multiple eyewitness testimonies and contradictions in the initial s of the two officers.
The Wayne County prosecutor, Black woman dating an Wayne MI man Olsen, ruled Theodore Spicher's shooting of Cynthia Scott a "justifiable homicide," as always happened when police officers killed African Americansand indeed almost every time DPD officers killed anyonein the city of Detroit.
But this time, a segment of the African American community refused to accept the prosecutor's judgment, even for a victim with a criminal record as a "known prostitute. Historical responsibility for the death of Cynthia Scott does not lie with Patrolman Theodore Spicher alone. As analyzed below and on the nextthe Detroit Police Department's longstanding, pervasive, and illegal policy of making investigative arrests precipitated the encounter. Spicher's effort to arrest Cynthia Scott on suspicion of larceny was a clear violation of the Detroit Police Manualrevised inwhich did not allow an officer to make a misdemeanor arrest without a warrant, unless committed in the officer's presence, and required "probable or reasonable cause" for warrantless felony arrests read full policy here.
Most if not all of Cynthia Scott's nine prior arrests on prostitution-related charges were also illegal, as the DPD and the Wayne County prosecutor belatedly conceded in There is also evidence that Spicher's harassment of Cynthia Scott was part of a broader police corruption racket that collected payoffs from sex workers, drug dealers, and others involved in the so-called vice markets. Multiple police investigators, not just Spicher and his parter Robert Marshall, discounted eyewitness testimony and advanced the cover-up story that blamed Cynthia Scott and not Theodore Spicher for her death.
There is smoking gun evidence in the DPD file of discrepancies between Spicher's and Marshall's initial s that the Homicide Bureau helped the officers belatedly reconcile.
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The mainstream newspapers, the Detroit Free Press and Detroit Newsalso criminalized Cynthia Scott and reflexively took the side of law enforcement, skewing public perceptions of the encounter. The DPD's permissive use of force policies and pattern of failure to investigate police misconduct in black neighborhoods, combined with the prosecutor's perfunctory investigation and automatic exoneration of police accused of criminal acts of brutality and murder against black citizens, mean that the killing of Cynthia Scott cannot be attributed to the actions of a single 'bad apple' police officer on the street.
The city government, under the liberal Cavanagh administration, then moved to indemnify police officers from personal liability in civil lawsuits involving their official duties, again sending the message that the state sanctioned police violence and would justify even murder when the victims were members of the African American community in Detroit. Charles Marshall was with Cynthia Scott when she died, and since she cannot speak directly for herself, the story starts with him.
Marshall told his to the DPD's Homicide Bureau investigators, who dismissed it as "biased," to the Michigan ChronicleDetroit's African American weekly, and also to Cynthia's distraught mother Lillian, at right. According to Marshall, who was a friend of Cynthia's, he was out late celebrating on the 4th of July when he ran into her on the street at a. On their way, Patrolman Spicher jumped out of a car and ordered Cynthia to get into the vehicle.
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Cynthia Scott objected, saying she had done nothing wrong, and Charles Marshall told Spicher he would have to arrest him as well then. Patrolman Robert Marshall no relation then frisked Charles Marshall against the side of the police car and took his jackknife. During the search, Patrolman Spicher grabbed Cynthia, but she broke away, saying "I'm not getting in the car. I haven't done anything, why should I get in the car? Cynthia kept walking away, and Spicher fired twice more, and then she fell face down onto the sidewalk. Charles Marshall then saw the two officers put Cynthia Scott in their patrol car to take her to the hospital.
Marshall continued to Cynthia's residence and told her husband, Oates, about the shooting. They went to Receiving Hospital together and found out she had died. Then Marshall went to the police station to give a statement to the Homicide Bureau. While there, he ran into Patrolman Robert Marshall, who claimed that Cynthia Scott had cut him with a knife and showed him a torn shirt sleeve as evidence.
Charles Marshall disputed this and told the Homicide Bureau that Cynthia Scott was unarmed and shot in the back while walking away by Theodore Spicher. The DPD arrested Marshall for carrying a concealed weapon, the jackknife, which was not illegal to possess, but later dropped the charges.
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The other eyewitnesses, all but one African American, tell similar versions of Marshall'sexcept for the single white witness. Several also state that the two officers gave themselves minor cuts with a knife, presumably to concoct a cover story.
Readers are invited to review these and decide for themselves what happened. Alfonso Campbell, in coverage that was skeptical of the official law enforcement above top left.
The Chronicle also interviewed Lillian Scott and used a family photograph of Cynthia Scott, along with the sympathetic photograph of Cynthia's mother and Charles Marshall, both reproduced here, in its coverage. The Chronicle additionally reported that Officer Theodore Spicher had recently assaulted a close friend of the Scott family, James Grendaws, a year-old African American factory worker, after pulling him over on the highway. According to five witnesses, Grendaws asked why he had been stopped, and Spicher beat him and then arrested him for resisting arrest. The DPD dropped this charge against Grendaws when he agreed to withdraw his allegation of police brutality.
By contrast, the Detroit Free Press 's main investigative piece, "Cynthia Scott: 9 Versions of How She Died" above, top middle did not run until much later, after the street protests elevated attention to the case, and it relied exclusively on the police and prosecutor reports.
The Free Press article started by calling Cynthia Scott "a big, tough woman--she stook six feet tall, weighed pounds--and she pursued the world's oldest profession. Next, the Free Press article provided the official DPD photographs of Officers Spicher and Marshall and included their s first, before the contradictory eyewitness testimony. The Free Press also reported that Theodore Spicher was a military veteran and had no disciplinary record on the DPD--portraying him as a model police officer.
The brutal murder of cynthia scott
Prosecutor Samuel Olsen dismissed eyewitness s from African Americans who contradicted the police version as "too biased. The Detroit Police Department and the Wayne County prosecutor's office covered up Theodore Spicher's murder of Cynthia Scott by portraying her as a career criminal and framing her as an armed aggressor and "fleeing felon. According to prosecutor Samuel Olsen, Patrolman Spicher had "a legal right to take the necessary steps to apprehend the fleeing felon.
The DPD Homicide Bureau also smoothed over clear discrepancies in the initial statements by Patrolman Spicher and Patrolman Marshall, in particular regarding what happened after Spicher shot Cynthia Scott and she fell "face down" on the ground, as multiple police officers and other witnesses reported see below. The Wayne County prosecutor's "investigation" made no attempt to ask either officer any questions deed to do anything more than validate their cover stories.
Patrolman Theodore Spicher stated that he and his partner were taking a woman [Frances Mae Jones] to the station on suspicion of being a "disorderly person" [translation: suspected prostitute illegally arrested without evidence] when he "saw a colored female and a colored male" walking down the sidewalk at John R. Spicher pulled over and searched the man [Charles Marshall] and found a knife. He then told the women she was under arrest "for investigation of larceny.
While Patrolman Marshall restrained the man, Spicher started to put the woman in the squad car when "she turned around with a knife in her right hand and she slashed at me," cutting his finger. Then the "colored female" started running away. Spicher caught up with her, and "she kept slashing with the knife. Spicher, notably, never says anything in any of his statements about Cynthia Scott slashing at his partner from the ground after the third shot.
Patrolman Robert Marshall stated that he "observed a known colored prostitute" with a wad of cash in her hand and asked Spicher to pull over to investigate. The man [Charles Marshall] became "indignant" and stated that Cynthia Scott was his girlfriend. Patrolman Marshall then searched the man while Spicher began to arrest "the girl. Spicher caught up to her, and "she was swinging back and forth at him with the knife in her hand. He fired a third shot and she fell. The DPD Homicide Bureau 's initial investigative report gallery, above rightfiled July 10, presented the exact story as recounted by Spicher and Marshall as the objective and factual of what happened in the encounter: Cynthia Scott resisted arrest, cut Patrolman Spicher with a knife, started to flee, and slashed at him again when he caught up to her.
Spicher fired two shots as she was running away, and a third after she turned around, and she fell "face down. Did Cynthia Scott turn back around? The question of whether Cynthia Scott turned around before the third shot is contested.
All of the eyewitnesses stated that the officer shot Cynthia Scott multiple times in the back while she was moving away from him and did not mention her turning around, and Rev. Campbell, who told his story to the Chronicle after release of black woman dating an Wayne MI man officialspecifically insisted that she had never turned back around. Officers Spicher and Robert Marshall, on the other hand, stated that the "known prostitute" did turn around to confront Spicher before the fatal shot, which could be interpreted as an extension of the cover story to portray her as the aggressor.
The Wayne County Medical Examiner report found that Cynthia Scott was legally drunk at the time of her death, with a blood alcohol content of. According to the coroner's report, one shot entered from the front, in the abdomen area, and exited the back. Another shot that entered her back pierced the heart and killed her immediately. This conflicts with Spicher's that the final shot was the one that entered from the front. The coroner's report did provide support for Spicher's insistence that one shot entered from the front, although it is relevant that protesters also raised questions about whether the medical examiner was involved in a cover-up.
After the fatal shot through her heart, according to Patrolman Marshall's statement and the DPD Homicide Bureau's attempt to make the cover story fit the facts, Cynthia Scott somehow managed to slash Marshall with the knife and cut his shirt before being subdued.
How did Cynthia Scott attack Officer Marshall after the fatal shot? The DPD Homicide Bureau's five- report above gallery included a crucial detail, as recounted in Robert Marshall's initial statement rightthat is incompatible with Spicher's initial and is not easily reconciled with the medical examiner's report. After Spicher fired the third shot, when all witnesses, initially including Spicher, said that the woman had fallen face down on the ground and appeared motionless, Patrolman Marshall allegedly "walked across the street and attempted to disarm Cynthia Broady and she slashed at him with the knife, cutting the left sleeve of his shirt.
He finally had to put his foot on her hand and take the knife away from her" see above right. The most direct and compelling evidence of a smoking gun in the cover-up has been buried in the sealed archives of the Detroit Police Department until the release, under the Freedom of Information Act, of the Homicide Bureau's file on Cynthia Scott.
The statement recounts the story of Cynthia Scott's alleged knife attack and concludes that after the final shot, she "then fell on sidewalk, face down. The second statement changes one crucial detail, eliminating the words "face down.
The officers' tactical mistake in claiming that Cynthia Scott had slashed at both of them with the knife meant that Spicher had to adjust his testimony, with the apparent assistance of Homicide Bureau detectives, to reconcile how a dead woman lying "face down" had managed to cut Marshall's shirt with a knife.
Spicher made the change in the rewritten, a.
Recall from a section that eyewitness Robert Farr stated that one of the officers cut the other officer's shirt with a knife after the shooting, and he also stated that an officer took a knife out of Cynthia Scott's purse and cut his own hand. Witnesses Bernice Garland and Donald Johnson also described these cover-up efforts by the officers after the fatal shooting.
Two other police officers who responded to the scene after the shooting also submitted ed statements that the deceased woman was "face down" on the sidewalk when they arrived see gallery below.
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Patrolman Spicher and Patrolman Marshall gave statements to the assistant prosecutor, Max Silverman, in the early morning of July 5, about three hours after the shooting gallery below. Silverman asked leading questions deed to help the officers reproduce the stories that they had given to the Homicide Bureau. He made no effort to ask any skeptical questions deed to seek the truth impartially, which was theoretically his job.
He did not ask Spicher whether Cynthia Scott was lying "face down" on the sidewalk, as the eyewitnesses recounted and as the two police officers who responded to the scene also stated. He did not ask either officer to respond to the directly conflicting testimony from multiple African American witnesses, whom Silverman had questioned earlier that morning. Silverman did not even ask any probing questions deed to help the prosecutor's office make an independent assessment of whether the use of deadly force was justified under either Michigan law or DPD policy.
By contrast, Assistant Prosecutor Silverman asked the African American witnesses extensive questions seeking information that Cynthia Scott was armed with a knife and had attacked the officers, which all of them denied seeing.
