Article Courtesy of The Panama City NewsHerald

By Ed Offley

Published July 18, 2007

The Panama City Beach Police Department is conducting an internal investigation into a confrontation at the Fontainebleau Terrace condominiums on June 9 in which two city police officers forcibly intervened in a dispute between several dozen owners and the condo manager, City Manager Richard Jackson announced Tuesday.

An advocate of the condo owners involved in the brief melee immediately renewed a call for a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation, charging that Police Chief Richard Harding already had spiked one internal probe several weeks after the incident occurred.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement announced in a statement Tuesday that Harding had informed the agency that his department had initiated an internal affairs investigation. Upon completion, Harding has agreed to submit a copy of the report to Jackson and FDLE officials, FDLE spokeswoman Kristen Perezluha said late Tuesday.

“They are going to conduct an internal (review) and provide us the report,” Perezluha said. “We will review that report.”

The incident generated publicity after condo rights activist Lynda Grant Killingsworth released video of the encounter between Officer Donald Nichols and owners Steven Bell, Wanda Ford and Linda Pender. The videotape showed Nichols and condo manager Ray McDonald pushing through a doorway and in the collision, knocking Ford and Pender to the ground. Nichols then arrested Bell on charges of “resisting a law enforcement officer without violence” and committing battery by “intentionally touching or striking” McDonald.

Deputy Chief Maj. David W. Humphreys, who acts as spokesman for the department, declined to answer questions from The News Herald for this story.

Killingsworth on Tuesday renewed her call for an independent state investigation into the police conduct.

“I must ask that the FDLE not allow the Internal Affairs of the Panama City Beach Police to investigate the fiasco that took place on June 9,” Killingsworth wrote in an e-mail to FDLE Commissioner Gerald Bailey on Tuesday that she made available to The News Herald. “To say that that would be a travesty of justice would be the very least one might say about this situation.”

But State Rep. Julio Robaina, R-Miami, said Tuesday night that for the Beach police to conduct the internal affairs report is the normal process in such instances, and the FDLE review will encourage a good effort by Beach officials.

“They know other people are watching,” said Robaina, who personally called on the FDLE to probe the June 9 incident after he saw the video.

“I understand peoples’ concern,” Robaina said of the condo owners’ suspicions. “But this is not over when they present their findings to the FDLE. They (the state agency) can either accept it or decide to investigate further.”

Several residents involved in the June 9 confrontation said Monday that they had decided to pursue an FDLE investigation because they did not have confidence Beach police officials would investigate the incident objectively.

Pender, a condo owner who had organized the dissident owners’ meeting, said Beach police immediately after the encounter refused to allow her to file a complaint.

“Lt. (Jeffrey) Heath said he would not take the complaint,” Pender said. “He said the only report that would be filed was that filed by the police officer. I asked for a copy of that report — I asked if he would fax it — and he said ‘no.’ He said, ‘Give me your addresses and I’ll mail it,’ but we still haven’t gotten a copy.”

Ford said she and her husband also went to the Beach Police Department to register a complaint against the officers, only to be snubbed by the desk officer as well.

“Chief Harding later called me,” Ford said. “I told him I wanted to file a complaint, but he said, ‘From what I heard, you were just in the way.’”

Jackson said the internal review could be completed as early as today. “It’s pretty much fact-finding,” he said. “The complaint was that the police mishandled the situation.

“I will make a determination,” Jackson added. “If any of the officers violated any department policies or procedures or laws, we will deal with them.”