The Most SADISTIC Cop Ever Sued For HORRIFYING Acts ($1.4 Million Lawsuit)

“You at least give me the satisfaction of knowing that you were out there beating right now?”

“Just got done with one.”

“Is that what you texted back?”

“Yes.”

“He said, ‘You got a car, I’ll blow your hair.’ And where did you go from the sink and took me a plate to the precinct, then go to the hospital.”

“No, I was bleeding real bad, my head was swelled up so big. I had begged him, ‘I need to seek medical attention.'”

A Michigan cop, Officer William Melendez, punched an unarmed 57-year-old driver in the head 16 times during a traffic stop, and it was the driver who got charged until the officer’s own dash cam was played for a jury.

On January 28th, 2015, Floyd Dent was driving his Cadillac through Inkster, Michigan. He had worked at Ford for nearly four decades and had no criminal record. His license was suspended. Melendez pulled him over for rolling through a stop sign. Dent spent the next three days in the hospital with broken ribs, a fractured eye socket, and bleeding on the brain. Then he was charged with assaulting an officer, resisting arrest, and possession. Police said he had threatened to unalive them. That was the official story for two months, until a Detroit TV station aired this:

[Video footage plays]

Once the footage went public, the charges against Dent were dropped, and Inkster fired Melendez. Then prosecutors charged him with three felonies: misconduct in office, assault with intent to do great bodily harm, and assault by strangulation.

In November 2015, his trial opened in front of Judge Vonda Evans, and the prosecutor started with a prediction. With the beating on tape, he said the defense had one move left.

“Isn’t just going to sit there and accept what I’m saying. I anticipate that the defense will be that somehow Mr. Dent deserved what he got. That’s the only defense that they can have. And how might they do that? They might say he’s a head. They might say he was under the influence of drugs. You’ll hear testimony that that’s not true. I want you to listen very careful, not only to my case, but…”

“Mr. Dent will be victimized down here, I guarantee you.”

Then defense attorney James Thomas stood up. His version: Dent had just bought substances, wouldn’t pull over, and fought the officers on the ground. The 16 punches, he said, took 4.4 seconds.

“You’re going to see Officer Melendez not in one second, as the prosecutor said to you in his opening statement. 4.4 seconds, which they’re going to slow down for you so that it extends it over a longer period of time. 4.4 seconds, he Mr. Dent is getting hit in the head for a period of approximately 16 blows—some with his hat on, some with it off. During that entire time, he’s struggling. But what I want you to see in the video, what I want you to look for in the video, is what happens after Officer Melendez stops. He didn’t submit. He hadn’t submitted for that amount of time. He didn’t submit to putting his hands behind his back, which is all that was necessary for him. He continued to struggle even after that. He had to be tased once, didn’t work. Twice, didn’t work. Three times. It was on the third that finally a second officer who came to get his arm that he was struggling with was able to get it behind his back. That’s not passive resistance. That’s active resistance. And you have to ask the question: What happens when somebody gets up and runs away, gets in a car and runs away high speed, gets in a car and goes through intersections after that, gets to some object that he might hurt the officers or some other person?”

First, on day two, the prosecution got its turn with the defense’s eyewitness: Melendez’s partner, John Zelenak, an unpaid auxiliary officer. His text messages had been pulled. The prosecutor opened by asking whether he had a problem with black people.

“There’s a question on the floor, sir, when we broke. Do you recall what it was?”

“Uh, the last question, excuse me?”

“The last question that we broke, yes.”

“Um, it referred to something about me knowing white people.”

“I asked you if, uh, that was true.”

“No, it’s not true.”

“Uh, sir, is it not a fact that, uh, you engage in conversations that involve the, uh, most racially derogatory term you can use against a black person?”

“Yes.”

“Uh, and what is that term?”

“Um…”

“Does he have to say it, judge?”

“Yes, he does.”

“Is this what you want me to say, judge?”

“Nigger.”

“Nigger.”

“And you use that on…”

“Judge, I would like the instruction to be given, if you will.”

“No, go ahead. I’ll do it at the end. At the end of his testimony.”

“You use it a lot, don’t you?”

“No.”

But the prosecutor had one specific exchange in mind. It was sent on March 15th, 2015, just six weeks after Floyd Dent was beaten, and he read it out loud for the jury.

“And we asked the question, ‘Yeah, at least give me the satisfaction of knowing that you were out there beating niggers right now.'”

“Judge, can we identify who the sender of this is and who’s receiving it? I’m not clear, and I don’t think the jury…”

“I think I said he received it. He received it.”

“But do we know who sent it? Did you… Did you receive that text?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right. And at this point, judge, I’m going to ask for a stipulation, okay? Dear Mr. Melendez is not involved in any of these texts.”

“I understand. And objection, these statements are limited only to this witness’s bad acts alleged, so…”

“You received, uh, a text message, ‘Yeah, at least give me the satisfaction of knowing that you’re out there beating niggers right now.’ Um, and you know who sent that to you, correct?”

“Without double-checking, no. I don’t work with the property, of course I know.”

“And your response was ‘Lol.’ What does ‘lol’ mean?”

“If I loved him. Just got done with one.”

“Okay. Is that what you texted back?”

“Yes.”

“In context, on what you read, that you were just beating the nigger?”

“No, ma’am, it didn’t mean…”

“By reading that?”

“No, ma’am.”

“What about the ‘lol’? What does that mean?”

“Okay. Is that a term used when something is funny?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You see, yes. So the fact you get a text just there that someone was beating niggers, you thought that was amusing. But you send back a text that said ‘lol.’ Yes or no?”

“Well, I guess I don’t understand. I don’t remember the entire…”

“Yes, ma’am, you understand you responded with that statement with the ‘lol.’ Did you find that funny?”

“Answer the question, witness.”

“I—I don’t find it to be amusing, but the text message I wrote, yes.”

“Okay, we can move on.”

Melendez was not part of those texts, and the judge told the jury they could only be used to weigh the partner’s credibility. But the prosecutor wasn’t done with him. He played video from the scene after the arrest and asked the partner to explain what three officers were doing with their hands.

“You can stop it, sir. Did you see three individuals put their fists together during the course of that for a fist bump?”

“Yes.”

“What’s a fist bump, sir?”

“Two fists coming together.”

“What does that symbolize?”

“Um, exchange like for a handshake.”

“Hold on, sir, can I—can I object to that? And the only reason why I say it is we haven’t identified who it is at fist bump, and now we’re going to ask the question, ‘What did they mean by it?'”

“Okay, you’re good. Um, what is… Oh, what does a fist bump mean?”

“A greeting.”

“A greeting. Okay, go ahead, next.”

Next came the booking room camera at the Inkster Police Station. Dent was in the building, bleeding, and had not seen a doctor. Dent’s lawyer had said publicly that the officers on this tape were making fun of his client. The partner had a different explanation for what one officer was acting out on a bench.

“Use your pointer, like right there, and what was he doing?”

“He was demonstrating a, uh, a bodyboard maneuver.”

“Okay.”

“We were discussing honeymoon, upcoming honeymoon with Officer Mendez, and he was talking about a trip out of Mexico.”

“Um, what are all the officers doing, uh, with, uh, with the wiping motions?”

“I believe they’re cleaning their uniforms, um, from what…”

“From what do you know, Derrick?”

“Um, maybe blood.”

“And, uh, is it fair to, uh, conclude that they were cleaning Floyd Dent’s blood off?”

“Objection! Can we have a foundation here? He’s tentative about what he’s saying. If they want to know what he did or what he was doing, I get it, I agree.”

“Were you clean—were you cleaning blood off your gear?”

“Uh, no, lady, I mean.”

“Okay, let me ask a question. From the time that Mr. Dent was brought in until this particular clip, how much time elapsed?”

“24 hours? Uh, 32? Uh, 5 hours? Hour?”

“It says in it, uh, should turn it up on the time the student was brought in, booked, and this display, how much time?”

“Would I believe this is actually the hero for asking? Maybe 10 minutes, 20 minutes.”

“10, 20 minutes.”

“So 10 minutes after Mr. Dent is brought, that’s when we’re on this particular, uh, video. Is that correct?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Okay, let me know.”

“I’m curious, you said you didn’t know if it was blood or dirt, if they were wiping off. What did you see? If anybody, did you see… Which officer?”

“All of them.”

“The one… the one that was doing a bodyboard, I mean, doing the moon, the, uh…”

“I really never paid attention to either one. If I was at your…”

“If you were including that through the fluid, but they are using a cleaning product, so I’m assuming they were cleaning something that didn’t wash on their uniform.”

“Oh, you… there was a cleaning product?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What was it?”

“Some generic cleaning product in a can.”

“What was the pain? I missed that part you were cleaning.”

“Floors. Okay, thank you.”

Cross-examination.

“Was that cleaning product a disinfectant?”

“Yes, sir.”

Up to this point, the jury had only heard other people describe what happened to Floyd Dent. Now he took the stand to tell them himself.

“And, sir, how old are you?”

“58.”

“And, uh, it’s probably, uh, they ask, I’ll call you first. I would… I’ll call you. I’m, uh, five foot and a half. I say that too.”

“How much do you weigh, sir?”

“I weigh… preacher, that’s not a fair question, but most… right around a little bit, but if it’s in the ballpark, right?”

“Yes.”

“And, sir, what do you do for a living?”

“Work at Ford.”

“And how long have you worked at Ford, Mr. Ford?”

“38 years.”

“And did you find yourself in the city of Inkster on the 28th day of January, during the late evening hours around 9:05 or thereabouts?”

“Yes.”

“And were you in a vehicle?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of vehicle were you in?”

“I can… pan cans.”

“And did it have a regular plate on it?”

“No plate.”

“And, sir, do you have a driver’s license?”

“No.”

“Uh, are we fair to say you have trouble having a valid driver’s license?”

“Well, I’m… yes.”

“You’re dead, yeah, right. And besides that, do you have any criminal record?”

“No.”

Dent told the jury what he did with his hands when he pulled over and what the officer with the firearm said back. Partway through, he starts to stall, and the prosecutor stops to ask him why.

“So when your window goes down and you put it back up, sometimes there’s streaks of water on it. Is that what you’re saying, or something different?”

“Uh, it’d be streaks of water on it.”

“Okay. So you opened your door. Did you throw your door open?”

“No, I… my door…”

“And how did you put your hands out?”

“I put both arms out.”

“Why did… why did you do that?”

“To let the officer know I didn’t have any weapons.”

“Okay. Were you screaming?”

“No.”

“All right. Were you reaching across the car trying to hide something or get a gun or something?”

“No.”

“How many cops…”

“When I, uh, uh, when I reach my, uh, put my arms at the, uh, door, when I open it, officer approached me on the, uh, right side, and another officer approached me with a gun to me.”

“I want to stop you for a second, sir. You’re—you’re hesitating during the course of your, uh, testimony. Um, do you have, uh, problems processing?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. And, uh, did you have problems processing before these events?”

“No.”

“Um, and you’ve had them since?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. When I—when I use the the term, uh, ‘problem processing,’ what does that mean to you?”

“Uh, what’s happening in terms of your recollection in your mind, uh, meaning that I can’t, uh, remember things, uh, takes me a while to catch up to think about what, uh, someone tell me financially.”

“Okay. Have you had any trouble with the questions I’ve asked you so far?”

“No.”

“Would you let me know if you do?”

“Okay.”

“Okay. Um, sir, when the two police officers, uh, uh, arrived, when you first noticed them, were they both on your side of the car, the driver’s side, or did you see them?”

“They both do the driver’s side.”

“And, uh, what happened?”

“Um, the guy with the gun was on the, uh, by the end of the door with another guy, uh, with a black ski cap on. They came to the car, and the guy with the gun told me, ‘Get out of the car or I’ll blow your…'”

“That ain’t what he said. He said, ‘Get out of the car, I’ll blow your motherfucker to hell.’ So as I hit at the car, the officer, the head car bones, she—she snatched me out of the car and threw me, um, to the ground.”

The intimidation charge came down to what Dent says next—where Melendez’s arm was and for how long.

“Uh, told you, ‘Get out of the car.’ That’s his word, right? And, uh, what happened when you hit the ground? What was he doing to you when you hit the ground?”

“He—when I hit the ground, he had jumped—jumped on me and grabbed me by the, uh, throat, and he just… go out. I’m sorry.”

“And he started—he started choking me, then he—and he started beating me in the head or something.”

“All right. When you say ‘beating you in the head,’ was he hitting you with an object?”

“Hitting you with his fist, or…”

“Judge, your honor, I would like him not to be led. I gave him choices or asked…”

“Well, you’re asking about an object. Nobody ever brought up an object.”

“I’m going to… because of his, um, inability to comprehend…”

“But you can’t move.”

“Go ahead, go ahead. You tell the jury what happened…”

“I don’t know. When he was at…”

“Tell me what you saw.”

“I saw a—a sharp object in his—in his hand when he, uh, was beating the side of the, uh, right side of my head. And that’s when I… I covered up my head, you know, and I… my left arm being out like this.”

“Also for the record, you have your right arm underneath your right knee near your belly, my face, and you’ve got your left arm extended about shoulder level out to the side that…”

“Okay, go. Extended, go ahead.”

“Right. And the officer was trying to… I think he put the handcuffs on me.”

“And was that the same officer?”

“No, there’s another officer over the, uh, glass club, and he was the one, uh, like I said, he had ran by the arm then, and I tried to protect my right side of my, uh, uh, face. That’s when, um, Melendez started—started beating me in the head, you know. And I told him, ‘Stop, I can’t breathe!'”

“Could you not breathe because he was beating you in the head, or for some other reason?”

“Cuz he was, uh, trying to kill me. I mean, he put me so hard, I couldn’t—I couldn’t catch my breath.”

“Right. So you—when you say he choked you, um, did you feel pressure around your neck?”

“Yes, sir. I felt pressure real… I mean, yes, I did.”

“All right. Again, I’m leaning, judge. Oh, and what was causing the pressure?”

“He had me in, um, strangling position.”

“When you say ‘strangling position,’ his trial of judges and effects, what you mean?”

“Uh, street had his, uh, right… he had his arm up under my throat, but, uh, kind of choked my, um…”

“Would you practice…”

“And for the record, what is the witness doing? Knowing he had his, uh, right arm, uh, crooked at the elbow, extended upward towards his chin area, forming a V area, and then he pointed to his neck as though that’s where it was.”

“Did you get tased?”

“Yes, I got tased a lot.”

“I heard somebody in the back say, ‘Tase him, mother…'”

“Well, you don’t know who that would…”

“Okay.”

“Certainly was in this little line that earred right there, right?”

“You know, I’m… are you okay?”

“After you were tased and kicked and beat and strangled, how many times were you tased?”

“Um, at least three to four times.”

“Can you describe how you knew you were being tased? What did it feel like?”

“It would drop, uh, like a burning sensation.”

“State trooper, I mean, with the police officer?”

“Yes.”

“All right. And, uh, did you get put in the car?”

“Yes, I got put in the car.”

“Okay. Uh, were you put in the car cuffed or not?”

“Yes.”

“And did they leave you in the back seat?”

“Yes, I was left…”

“She struck…”

“20-30 minutes.”

“20? I mean, from 20 to 25 minutes.”

“Okay. And where did you go from the scene?”

“Or thing took me, uh, straight to the precinct.”

“You didn’t go to a hospital?”

“No.”

“Had you been hurt?”

“Yes, I was bleeding real bad. My head was—was swelled up so big. I had begged him, ‘I need to, uh, seek medical attention.'”

“And who did you tell that to? Do you remember?”

“I told that to, uh… told to the officer that was in the front seat.”

“Okay. You don’t know that officer well?”

“He had a, uh, blank gun cap on.”

“Okay. Was it one of the two that you interacted with to begin with?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Not Officer Blondes, no.”

“Not every beat.”

“When you got to the precinct, what happened?”

“Well, when I got to the precinct, um, they—they took me to this, uh, jail cell. Then they—they started searching me. They totally stripped down to my, um… down to my, uh, shorts. And that’s took my, uh, photo… photo shot me holding the, uh, uh, paint with the numbers on it.”

“Did anybody render you any medical care before you had your photo?”

“No.”

“Now, you’re 57 years old? 58 now, right?”

“58.”

“Okay. You’re a big guy, aren’t you?”

“I’m big.”

“Okay. You’re big enough to struggle with those police officers for the time that you said that you struggled with them.”

“I didn’t struggle with them.”

“You didn’t resist in any way?”

“You didn’t resist?”

“Now, let me ask a question. I’ll let you answer. Go ahead.”

“No, I didn’t resist in any way.”

“Okay. So you didn’t refuse to put your hands behind your back?”

“I do refuse.”

“You didn’t refuse to submit to the police officer’s orders that you, uh, that you, uh, that you be still?”

“I didn’t refuse.”

“And, um, you were on the ground with the police officers for approximately, you say, 3 to 5 minutes. Would you agree if I told you it was a little bit more than that? It was about 2 minutes.”

“It wasn’t about 2 minutes. It was more than 2 minutes.”

“Was it not?”

“I’m not going to argue.”

“No, for me. Okay.”

“And during that whole time, you said you couldn’t breathe, correct?”

“And, uh, did you pass out?”

“Yes, I…”

“And after he had choked me for so long that I—I… he was choked me for so long, I gave up.”

“You gave up?”

“Cuz I—because I couldn’t breathe.”

“You gave up, you couldn’t breathe, and you passed out?”

“Well, I—uh, passed out for about a minute, you know.”

“You passed out for about a minute, right?”

“Okay.”

“And—and when you mean passed out, you mean like you were unconscious and you can’t remember anything, right?”

“Yes, a little bit.”

“All right. And during that period of time, obviously you would not have been struggling, correct?”

“I was struggling.”

“Passed out?”

“Well, he said he was passed out.”

“Well, then you all know he was struggling.”

“Well, okay. Are you telling me that you were struggling when you were passed out, or are you telling me you didn’t struggle at all?”

“No, you’re not…”

“I wasn’t struggling.”

“Okay.”

The prosecutor had told the jury Dent had no criminal record. Thomas had a number ready. He also had an explanation for the 16 punches.

“This is not the first time that you’ve ever been arrested by a police department, is it?”

“No.”

“You heard Mr. Donaldson say that you didn’t have any criminal record, right? But I don’t want to go into what the crimes were as much as to ask you the question: You have been arrested and taken in by the police on 13 separate occasions.”

“In a juror, he knows that a driving while license suspended…”

“And then he says, ‘No, no, I’m going to give him some latitude to establish something other than him being arrested if there’s another person.'”

“No, judge, we discussed this before the case even began, sir. You were arrested now, with the concession of the prosecutor, 13 times for driving while on a suspended license.”

“No, I’ve never been arrested 13 times.”

“You’ve been arrested 20… you’ve been stopped 28 times.”

“I’ve been stopped 28 times.”

“Okay, here, go ahead. Yeah.”

“How many times were you arrested for driving on a suspended driver’s license?”

“When they find a question, what’s the—what’s the reason? Because it—he knows how it goes when somebody stops him with the police, of course familiarity of dealing with the police when stopped. But we really don’t, you know, we’re done enough with… Why did you stop?”

“Okay. You’re getting hit in the head, and you say you’re not resisting, correct? Did you bite Officer Melendez?”

“Never bit him.”

“Did he tell you, ‘Stop biting’ before he hit you in the head?”

“Never bit him.”

“You never bit him?”

“No.”

“Did you tell him, ‘I’m going to bite you again’?”

“No.”

Melendez never took the stand. Other police officers did. Inkster’s police chief at the time of the stop, Vicky Yost, testified that what Melendez did was unnecessary. The defense’s paid use-of-force expert said it was reasonable.

After eight days of testimony, the prosecutor told the jury that none of the defense’s story about substances mattered—even if they believed it.

“I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, that the precursor events—the events that led up to Mr. Dent being yanked out of the car, thrown to the ground, and beaten senseless, being strangled—make no difference. If you believe that the proof supports, and they do not, that Mr. Dent was some sort of a deranged crackhead, he still wouldn’t have deserved what happened.”

“Things that made me think of it, uh, were… There’s an old Marks Brothers skit. There’s also a Richard Pryor skit where the man gets caught in bed with his parable, and the man says to his wife, ‘Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?’ I think kind of that’s what’s going on. You’re being asked not to look at the video. I suggest to you that the video tells the story, the entire story. Why else does Mr. Zelenak have some difficulty, and why did I expose him for what he is? Because he had a bias. He doesn’t like black people. He jokes about beating them up. We don’t know whether he’s joking about beating one up relates to Mr. Dent or somebody else, or whether it happened at all, but we know that he thinks it’s funny. There’s nothing funny about this.”

“The other curious thing about Mr. Zelenak’s testimony is he sees no evil, he hears no evil, he speaks no evil—sort of like the monkeys under Japan. He doesn’t see Mr. Melendez punching Mr. Dent 16 times. He doesn’t see that, but he sees a slap to his face. How can that be? He doesn’t see Mr. Melendez with his arm across the throat and across the mouth of Mr. Dent. He doesn’t see that either.”

The bag of cocaine: Dent said from the start that it was planted, and his fingerprints were not on it. The prosecutor stopped short of the word “planted,” but only just.

“There’s no evidence not that Mr. Dent was high—none. He had a medical examiner and a toxicologist both say so. But they won’t let that go. The [cocaine] came from the car, or we… it’s been suggested came from the car. Third time he goes in is the first time you ever see it, and you don’t see it coming out of the car. You only see it in his possession. Did he plant it? Didn’t he plant it? We don’t know. But it magically appears a third time in this… is just a desperate attempt to dirty up Mr. Dent.”

Then it was the defense’s turn, and Melendez’s own lawyer began by admitting how the video looked.

“I had a theory in this case, and the theory was that you have to look at the whole picture, and that you don’t look at it in a myopic view. The number of strikes is ugly. The number of strikes is, in a way, it’s uncomforting to watch. But it was my intention to show you that what led up to that put a reasonable police officer in a position to have done what he did.”

He spent the next hour on phone records, potholes, and a motel across the street, arguing that Dent had just bought substances and that Melendez saw him reach across the car.

The prosecutor got the last word, and he started with something he was taught in law school.

“In law school, they teach you, um, a lot of stuff, and some of it helpful, some of it not. One of the things that they teach you in law school is if you got the facts, you argue the facts. Got the law, you argue the law. Got neither, you attack your opponent. Argument: when the facts aren’t with you, you pick descriptors, you pick words to paint a picture that’s different than the reality. He keeps calling what Mr. Dent does a ‘struggle.’ It’s combative, that he’s fighting. Is that what you see, or do you see him getting beat in the head, pulling his hands up to cover himself, and trying to get that arm from around his neck? Do you see him pulling his hand away from Mr. Zelenak so he doesn’t go face down in the concrete? I don’t see a fight. If it was a fight, it wasn’t much.”

“You want… they used a script. What else might you do? You might try to get the defendant’s version of the facts out without exposing him to cross-examination. That is impermissible. That is impermissible. He has no obligation to take the witness stand. That is unfair. Let him finish, go ahead, counsel.”

“He has every right not to testify. But it’s hearsay, his story, unless he’s subject to cross-examination.”

“He tried, and he tried, and he tried to get it down, and he finally did. All right, what did he get at? He got in, and he bit.”

“Well, is there really any evidence that he bit him?”

“Crisler says he showed me a mark on the arm.”

“I think you see that in the video just about the time we’re doing the body-serving, and you see him throw his head back. You’re going to see a wind in there with the rags, and they disinfect it going up and down his arm. Crisler is right there. Doesn’t lift up his arm. Now, if you really got bit by somebody, don’t you think you would clean that off? Don’t you think at the scene you take a look at it, would it end that all in? Take a look. He doesn’t do that. He goes looking for the dope, and he can’t find it. That’s what he… he’s laughing, or at least it looks like he’s laughing back at what he’s talking about.”

“Some of the argument in the trial of this case in some ways is sort of like a magician performance. What I mean by that is don’t pay attention to the video, pay attention to the smoking mirrors over here. His whole argument: How often did he talk about $16 bucks? He wants to divert your attention. The other thing that he’s done during the course of this trial is he showed it to you a bunch of times. I submit to you that was a tactic as well. Everybody knows that if you start watching her flex with all sorts of blood and gore after a while, you get acclimated to her. I submit to you that’s going harmonious…”

“She’s out to get him. She’s only looking at one thing: ‘Did it to me.’ ‘I’m lying to you with a straight face.’ ‘Did it to the me.’ ‘He’s making this stuff up.’ ‘The lab’s incompetent.’ ‘The, uh, witness at the apartment complex, uh, she’s lying too.’ The only person who’s not lying to you, if you buy this theory, is Mr. Pimps.”

“If he were a witness, I’d love to cross-examine him, but I can’t. He’s not a witness. He goes after Mr. Dent. Mr. Dent sat here in front of you. You were able to get a flavor for who this man is. Does he really seem like a crackhead to you, or does he seem like somebody who’s a little bit slow, maybe because of the beating, is doing the best he could?”

“He wants to say, well, Inkster’s infested with boogeymen and thieves, and any cop there should be beating on any motorist that doesn’t do just what they want when they were… That can’t be so.”

“You beat me like this, how do I do that? Fuck.”

“Didn’t he like her?”

“Why did they beat out the wall there? Why did he beat her there? There’s no reason other than he thought he could do it and get away with and celebrate.”

“But he can’t.”

With closing arguments over, the jury was left to weigh the dash cam footage, the partner’s text messages, and Dent’s own account against the defense’s claim that Melendez acted reasonably. They deliberated into a second day. Then a note came out.

“First of all, let me just indicate this: I’m not trying to be difficult with the alternate jurors that now that those seats are available, but we have to keep you in the seat that you assigned, okay? So I’m not trying to be… We are not unanimous on count one. What should we do from here? Thank you.”

Count one was strangulation. Judge Evans told the jury to go back and keep deliberating, and at 12:52 that afternoon, they had a verdict. Before the jury came in, she had a warning for the gallery.

“I want them to feel that this is like any, no other trial, that they be given a respect that we would give anybody else. I don’t want you to applaud. I don’t want you to cry out. If you feel that this is just too much, I’m going to ask you to leave now, because I have to let them know that they’ve reached a verdict, they’ve come together, and they’ve made a decision.”

“Madam members of the jury, have you reached a unanimous decision? Would the foreperson please stand, please, and state your seat number only?”

“13.”

“Okay. How does the jury find the defendant, William Dale Melendez, as to count one, assault by strangulation against Dent?”

“Not guilty.”

“As to count two, assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder against Floyd Dent?”

“Guilty.”

“As to count three, misconduct in office?”

“All jurors, please stand.”

The jury had split its decision. Melendez was convicted of assault with intent to do great bodily harm and misconduct in office, but cleared of strangulation—the one count they had been stuck on.

That left one question for the judge: where he would wait for his sentence. With Thanksgiving a week away, his lawyer asked her to let him go home.

“Why it that the danger to the community that posed by the offense that had been occurred was always serving as a sworn police officer? He is no longer a sworn police officer. He doesn’t have power to arrest, and he’s certainly not going to be out on the street arresting people, judge.”

“There has been a, uh, a significant amount of work, trial and pre-trial in this case. He has appeared every time that he’s supposed to. I do not believe that he is a… In fact, he had been allowed to, uh, to travel to get married, um, uh, and he—and he—and he traveled out of the country to do that, um, and came back, facing the potential that he was going to be convicted and and the fact that he may be incarcerated by this court when sentenced.”

“We’re coming up on the Thanksgiving holiday. He is not a danger to the community. He doesn’t have any travel plans. He’s not a risk of flight. And so I ask the court to exercise your discretion and to make a finding based on his conduct in public service, his appearance in court as directed in this case, and the fact that, uh, that you’re not going to put this off too much longer, but it will give him a chance to be together with his family before, uh, before you implement…”

“Dear, judge, thank you so much. You guys out. Thank you.”

Judge Evans didn’t take long to answer, but the moment she did, someone stormed out of her courtroom, and she wasn’t about to let it slide.

“The court does have to look at the fact that this is an assaultive crime. I have to look at the fact that Mr. Melendez was a police officer, sworn police officer at that time. But the two things that are most prevailing at this point: there has been a decision, and it’s time for whatever the court is going to do for Mr. Melendez to accept responsibility and move on with his life so that this community can heal from this situation.”

“At this time, the court is going to remand the defendant to the Wayne County Jail. I’m going to revoke bond. Sentence date will be December the 17th. December 17th.”

“Bring his wife back in here.”

“Can we do it, girl? I don’t understand why he’s got to be get… We can get an earlier date. It shouldn’t take him two weeks.”

“Madam, don’t say anything.”

“Why would you… stor… my money… don’t…”

“Just don’t do my courtroom like that. That was disrespectful. And there’s a lot going on right now, and there’s appropriate way to handle that, but I’m expecting more from you. This is… Excuse me, Deputy Kern, this is your husband, and he’s dealing with a lot. And for you to storm out this courtroom like you a kid is unacceptable. Sit down.”

“Yeah, or December… Sure, that’s better. Can we do it then?”

Melendez did not go home for Thanksgiving. He was taken from the courtroom to the Wayne County Jail, and he stayed there until February 2nd, 2016, when Judge Evans sentenced him to 13 months to 10 years in prison. She told him he had forgotten that the eye of justice was recording him.

Melendez apologized to Dent in court. He was released in January 2017 after 14 months. The city of Inkster paid Floyd Dent $1.4 million. Dent told reporters he had already forgiven Melendez. He also said he still panics every time he sees flashing police lights.