The FBI has opened a civil rights inquiry into the death of Linwood Lambert, a Virginia man who died in police custody after three officers repeatedly tased him in a hospital doorway in May 2013.
The FBI investigation began in early January, when federal agents visited Lambert’s sister, Gwendolyn Smalls, after video of the tasing was first reported by MSNBC. News of the investigation first became public last week, when the Associated Press reported a federal inquiry was underway. (An FBI official also confirmed the inquiry to MSNBC, but declined to offer details.)
On the morning of January 11, 2016, Smalls says two agents came to her home and told her they were “looking at your brother’s case.” A federal review of said case presents the possibility of the first charges in the death — the inquiry by a local prosecutor is approaching three years without any resolution.
“If they don’t find anything, I hope the FBI comes up with something,” Smalls said, adding, “It doesn’t take someone three years to come up with charges.”
Tracy Quackenbush Martin, the local prosecutor handling the case, confirmed she has been “in contact with the Department of Justice for several months. She expects a “parallel investigation,” she added, focused on potential federal violations, while her inquiry “is limited to violations of state law.”
The Virginia NAACP has criticized the length of the local inquiry and called for a federal investigation into the death. Executive Director Jack Gravely said he welcomed the federal inquiry, calling it necessary given “discrepancies” between statements about the tasing made by South Boston, Virginia police officers and what is visible in video of the incident. One officer said Lambert grabbed her taser and jumped up four times during the tasing, which never occurred on the video of the incident.
“Why does it take three years to investigate the death of one man in your jurisdiction – and you have a video of it?” Gravely asked. “Either you are incompetent, or you are hiding something, or a combination of both.”
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Martin responded in a new statement to MSNBC, saying she understood the “urgency” many feel about the investigation, and a “desire to know the course and substance” of the inquiry, but she cannot discuss its details until it is complete.
“Mr. Gravely implies that I am withholding a final report from the public,” she said. “Nothing can be further from the truth.”
“The death of any individual merits the highest level of consideration, and that is what I have given this case,” she continued.
Citing the state police investigation, Martin added that she “chose not to make a final determination” on charges based on the state police investigation, which she noted the NAACP called it into question, and instead “sought to expand the investigation to other sources of information.” RELATED: Virginia politicians respond to ‘disturbing’ police tasing at hospital “Demanding both speed and thoroughness is simply not realistic in this case,” Martin explained. “I have chosen to give greater weight to thoroughness over expediency in this weighty matter.” The state police investigation included conflicting reports about the incident, and internal files from that “suspicious death” report, first published by MSNBC, indicate one investigator cast Martin’s approach as “indecisive.” The slow pace of the local investigation has also drawn concern from Virginia’s top elected officials, including the governor and both senators. Lambert’s death raised a range of legal questions because he was taken into custody for medical care – not as a suspect – and was tased repeatedly while shackled in the doorway of the ER, and then again while shackled in the back of a police car. Police rules and federal guidelines bar taser use on a restrained subject. Police never took Lambert into the hospital for the medical care they originally offered. After he broke their squad car window, they tased him repeatedly at the hospital and drove him to jail, where he died. Several law enforcement and legal experts determined that the three officers’ use of force – discharging 20 tasings within half an hour – was excessive.
Ari Melber
Ari Melber, an Emmy Award-winning journalist, writer and attorney, is the host of “The Beat with Ari Melber” airing nightly at 6 p.m. ET on MSNBC. He also serves as MSNBC’s chief legal correspondent and an NBC News legal analyst. Before joining MSNBC, Melber practiced First Amendment law and served as a legislative aide in the U.S. Senate. He received a J.D. from Cornell Law School and is a member of the New York Bar. Recommended
