Trial Set for Activist in Long Beach Sting Arrest

Don C. Jackson, an activist against alleged police misconduct, pleaded innocent Wednesday to a charge of resisting arrest during a videotaped “sting” operation intended to uncover brutality and racism by Long Beach police officers.

A Hawthorne police sergeant who is on long-term administrative leave, Jackson was arraigned before Long Beach Municipal Court Commissioner Joseph W. Blocker, who set trial for March 15.

Jackson, 30, was confident he will be cleared of the misdemeanor charge, which he said was filed in an effort to divert attention from misconduct by the officer who arrested him Jan. 14 after a routine traffic stop on Pacific Coast Highway in Long Beach.

He and another man had donned shabby clothes, rented an old car and drove to Long Beach to document alleged harassment of blacks by the police. A television camera was hidden on the rear deck of the car.

Followed by TV Crew

They were followed in separate vehicles by a television crew from the NBC “Today Show” and members of the Police Misconduct Lawyers Referral Service, a group fighting alleged police brutality.

In a videotape shown nationally on television, Officer Mark Dickey spices his orders with obscenities when Jackson objects to submitting to a weapons pat-down. The officer then appears to push Jackson’s head through the window of a motorcycle shop and throw him against a police car for handcuffing.

Airing of the videotape has sparked investigations by the FBI, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office and the Police Department.

It has renewed calls in Long Beach for a citizens’ review board to probe allegations of police misconduct.

Working a Desk Job

Dickey is working a desk job as an auto theft detective pending outcome of the investigations.

Long Beach City Prosecutor John Vander Lans said in an interview that the charge was filed against Jackson because it appeared he was taunting the officer.

“As far as this office is concerned, we saw nothing affected by the race, creed or color of Mr. Jackson,” Vander Lans said. “We saw the acts of Mr. Jackson.”

After the arraignment, Jackson said the case will put the American justice system on trial. He added that he is only “guilty of being a black man in the United States.”

He said Dickey, not himself, should be put on trial. The officer, Jackson said, has “no excuse for the violence.”

If convicted, Jackson could be sentenced to up to a year in county jail and fined $1,000.