The Spokesman-Review is reporting this morning that the federal trial of Spokane police officer Karl S. Thompson, Jr., has been moved from Spokane to Yakima. Thompson was indicted in June 2009 for allegedly using excessive force and lying to investigators following the March 18, 2006 arrest of 36-year-old janitor Otto Zehm. Zehm was beaten, tasered, and hogtied during the arrest and died of his injuries two days later.
The trial is still scheduled to begin on October 11th. According to the S-R, Federal District Court Judge Fred Van Sickle granted several motions in Thompson’s favor today, not just the change of venue but in forbidding federal prosecutors from telling the jury that Zehm had not committed a crime before the encounter and barring former acting Police Chief Jim Nicks to testify that Thompson’s use of his baton in the encounter with Zehm violated departmental policy.
The Center for Justice represents Ann Zehm, Otto’s mother, and the Zehm estate in a pending federal civil rights case filed against Thompson, the City, and several police officers involved in the incident and its aftermath.
Read more here: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2011/oct/06/yakima-decision-challenged/
