Court Watching: Beasley bound over for assaulting police officers in VBT

After a preliminary exam before 34th District Court Judge Brian A. Oakley on Dec. 23, Samuel Roderick Beasley, Jr., 26, was bound over on two charges of assaulting a police officer in Van Buren Township on Nov. 29.
Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Doug Dwyer call VBT Police Officer Mark King as his first witness.
Officer King testified he and his partner were called to 48920 Denton Road, Harbour Club Apartments, on Nov. 29, because a man had assaulted his girlfriend. King said the suspect was a non-compliant sex offender with multiple warrants.
King said when they got to the third floor, the apartment door was open and a woman and her six-year-old female child were in the hall. He said she gestured with her head that Beasley was in the living room of the apartment. When they entered, he was on the couch and got up, King said.
When they said he was under arrest on the sex offender violation, Beasley attempted to run, King testified. The officers placed him against the wall and he was pushing off the wall and they were forced to take him to the floor, King said.
He kept struggling but they finally got him handcuffed behind his back, King testified.
King testified that he suffered a strained muscle in his neck – that he later described as a strained cervical muscle – and a one-quarter-inch laceration to his right index finger. He testified he went to St. Joseph Mercy Hospital emergency room for treatment and he was given a muscle relaxant and Motrin, which he later switched to Aleve.
He said his partner VBT Police Officer Eric Dougherty suffered scratches across his forehead. Daugherty was not called to testify.
Court-appointed defense attorney David Lankford cross-examined King. Lankford named the woman, who was holding the couple’s child in the hall, and asked if she didn’t say it was a verbal altercation only. King agreed that’s what she said.
Lankford said that the domestic violence report was called into dispatch by the woman’s mother who was not at the scene. There was no charge for domestic violence, he said.
Lankford pointed out the woman with their daughter was out in the hallway and did not run away from Beasley. He asked King if Beasley didn’t complain that he couldn’t put his hand behind his back for the handcuffs because of an arm injury and Dwyer objected to the question and the question was dropped.
Judge Oakley found there was enough probable cause to bind Beasley over to circuit court for an arraignment on the information on Dec. 30.
He is charged with: assaulting / resisting/obstructing/causing injury to a police officer (King), which could bring him four years in prison if convicted of the crime.
He also is charged with assaulting/resisting/obstructing a police officer (Dougherty), which could bring two years in prison, if convicted.
Beasley was designated a habitual offender on Dec. 1. He is lodged in the Wayne County Jail on the sex-offender non-compliance charge. VBT Det. Ken Toney is the officer in charge of the case.
Keith Eugene List
Keith Eugene List, 32, who was charged with fleeing a police vehicle, retail fraud, and driving while license suspended, was set for his probable cause hearing before Judge Oakley on Dec. 23. He was free after posting $10,000/10% bond.
But his court-appointed attorney Lankford said there is a “systemic problem with witnesses over the holidays” and so Judge Oakley set List’s preliminary exam for Jan. 6.
Roderick Gaston
Roderick Gaston agreed to a plea deal where he pled guilty to retail fraud, 3rd degree, a misdemeanor, on Dec. 7, when he said he took merchandise from Walmart without paying. In exchange, the 1st-degree retail fraud charge was dismissed. The case was deferred for 12 months and if Gaston stays out of trouble the case will be dismissed. He has to pay $500 in fines and fees and spend four days on the work program.
His court-appointed defense attorney was Jeff Bowdich.