Van Buren Township Police Sgt. Charles Bazzy charged into a melee in the audience at the June 2 meeting of the VBT Board of Trustees and came out dragging a woman by a handcuff on one wrist.
Her father, who was assaulted, also left the meeting with the officer. The man who started the fracas by kicking the Vietnam veteran out of his seat was allowed to stay in the meeting.
There were plenty of witnesses to what happened and several already have signed witness statements, with many more saying they will be in court with her when she goes in for her appearance on the ticket for disrupting a public meeting, a misdemeanor which carries a possible $500 fine or 90 days in jail upon conviction.
The incident started after the fired public safety director Jerry Champagne got up to address the meeting, wiping tears from his eyes because he is now “unemployed.”
After his statement started and the crowd full of police officers, their families, and supporters got riled up, David Cushing kicked the bottom of the chair in front of him where MacArthur Black was seated, sending Black straight up into the air.
The kick also was witnessed by at least one township official at the board table.
Black’s daughter Bobbie Hnot was seated in the front row, a few rows ahead of her father in the standing-room-only meeting room and she leapt to her feet shouting, “That’s my daddy. I’m not going to let someone hurt my daddy.”
Black said he had been on a heating pad all day trying to nurse his ailing back so he could attend the meeting.
Black and Hnot support VBT Supervisor Paul White and Cushing, a special friend of Public Safety Director Administrative Assistant Pam Fleming and VBT police officers, supports Champagne.
Black, an Army veteran who served in Vietnam, said he had his arm cocked back to defend himself after the kick, but someone grabbed him. He reports Cushing pulled back and gave him the middle finger.
Black said Cushing taunted Hnot to touch him.
“Two more minutes and I could have had him,” Black said.
Witnesses say Police Captains Greg Laurain and Ken Brooks were seated one seat down from Cushing, on the other side of Champagne supporter Max Johnson. The witness said the two captains did nothing about the scuffle until he urged them to do something so no one gets hurt.
At that point, one of the captains gestured to Sgt. Bazzy, who was standing in the doorway with his partner, and Bazzy came charging in. He put Hnot in a headlock and one handcuff and pulled her from the room, followed by her father.
“I bitched a fit” about that because it wasn’t fair, Black said of Cushing being allowed to stay in the meeting.
“If I hadn’t got kicked, they would have arrested me, too,” Black said. Black said Cushing told police he was uncrossing his legs and accidentally kicked the chair.
“He kicked me and I flew out of the chair. I know the difference,” Black said, adding that Cushing had been using vulgar language throughout the meeting.
Black said he left his walking stick in the car when he came into the meeting and it’s a good thing he did. If he had the stick, “I would have had a felony charge against me,” he said.
Black reports that his daughter’s wrist was swollen and her arm bruised from the confrontation.
He said he feels bad about the whole situation because his daughter hadn’t been feeling well that day, but he urged her to come to the meeting with him to support Supervisor White.
Black said someone alerted Channel 7 News and he and his daughter received calls from the TV station that night. They didn’t return the calls and last week were thinking about whether they wanted to do so.
Black said Hnot got a ticket for disturbing a public meeting and a $100 bond was required. After police talked to the witnesses who voluntarily came forward to make statements, Black said he was told the bond would be waived if he took his daughter home and kept her in for the rest of the night.
By then, it was 1 a.m.
Black said he felt Sgt. Bazzy used unnecessary force. Black said he has talked to an attorney.
He said that two of Van Buren’s finest police officers were at the doorway and the public safety captains were seated just a seat away and “all four went blind and didn’t see nothing.”
Black said VBT called in two officers from off the road to deal with them. He said Officer J. Smith, who said he was a new officer and formerly served in Milan, was very professional.