PATROLMAN INVESTIGATED IN ASSAULTS

Criminal charges are being considered against a Cape Girardeau police officer disciplined for allegedly assaulting two people in separate incidents, authorities said.

Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle said his office is reviewing the incidents involving Patrolman Louis Jordan after receiving results of an internal investigation by Cape Girardeau police. Swingle said the department asked him to review the matter to see if criminal charges should be filed.

Assault accusations against Jordan, who has worked on the police force about eight years, are not new. Last July Jordan was disciplined for punching a handcuffed prisoner who spat in his face. And in November 1990, an internal police investigation found Jordan violated departmental regulations but not city law after a 73-year-old Cape Girardeau man filed an assault complaint against him.

The latest incidents involving Jordan pertain to complaints reportedly filed against him in the last 2 months by two Cape Girardeau men who claim Jordan, in both incidents, flung them to the ground. One man, at the time 182 pounds, says Jordan threw him down after lifting him by the throat with one hand. The other claims Jordan pulled him out of his apartment, throwing him eight to 10 feet.

A source in the Cape Girardeau Police Department said Jordan was placed on administrative leave for five days following the incidents. Jordan was on leave until last Thursday, said the source, who requested anonymity.

City Personnel Director Geoff Riches confirmed Jordan returned to work last Thursday. A police spokesman said Monday that Jordan did not wish to talk with a reporter.

City Police Chief Howard Boyd Jr. declined to discuss the matter, citing restrictions of law in commenting on the disciplining of officers.

The man who claims Jordan lifted him by his throat, Billy Brown, 20, of 45 S. West End Boulevard, is upset with the action taken by the city against the officer. Brown said the department's internal-affairs officer, Lt. Dale Ratliff, had told him Jordan received the time off without pay.

Said Brown: "I mean, what's five days without pay? That's a week's vacation without pay. That's no big deal."

Brown said he hopes the matter "goes a lot further" than it has so far. "I think if a citizen is going to get arrested for (an assault) or summoned to go to court, a police officer shouldn't do the same thing," said Brown. "We face jail time; why can't they?"

Brown said he filed a complaint against Jordan with the police department after the incident, which occurred about 2 months ago. The incident stemmed from a misunderstanding, he said.

Brown said Jordan ordered him and some other people to leave the intersection of Whitelaw and Broadway after Brown had argued with an intoxicated man at the site. Brown said he called the intoxicated man, who was black, a racial epithet three times, and that Jordan, who also is black, mistook the slur for himself.

Jordan then followed a car Brown was riding in, Brown said, and confronted him on Clark street. Brown said he was halfway out of the car when Jordan grabbed him by the throat and threw him down.

Brown said that when he asked Jordan what the problem was, Jordan replied he would "kill" him if Brown ever called him the epithet again.

"He pushed me down twice and then grabbed me by my throat and threw me down," said Brown. "At one time he had me in the air with one hand choking me by the throat, and then he threw me on the ground."

The second incident occurred about one or 1 months ago at Cape La Croix Apartments, said the alleged victim, Chad Kistner, 25. A Cape Girardeau studio photographer, Kistner said he also filed a complaint against Jordan.

Kistner said Jordan, while standing outside his apartment, jerked Kistner outside after accusing him of "screwing around" by calling the department's 911 emergency phone line three or four times. Kistner claimed he had only called the number once after his girlfriend fell down steps at his apartment.

After he called the number, he said, his girlfriend, who jammed her neck and at first had just lain there, began moving around and declined an ambulance.

"I disagreed with him three times," Kistner said of Jordan. "The third time I disagreed with him he grabbed me by my shirt collar and jerked me out of my house.

"He threw me about ... 8, 10 feet," he said. Kistner said he landed on concrete and scratched an arm but did not seek medical treatment.

The episode "shocked the hell out of me," he said.

Kistner said if similar episodes involving Jordan have happened he should be relieved of his duty as a police officer.

"I think pretty much all officers have to have an attitude, but I think he's got a bad attitude," said Kistner. "You've got to be firm and everything, but I don't think you have to be that firm especially when you're not even doing anything."

Because of state law, Riches said he too could not discuss the particulars of Jordan's case. But he said the administrative action taken against Jordan was in line with new city personnel policies and "would have happened with any other officer who was put in that situation."

"We would have done this with anybody without regard to who they were race, creed, color, anything like that," Riches said. Riches said he had advised Boyd to take the action against Jordan.

Swingle said additional witnesses needed to be interviewed in the prosecuting attorney's review of Jordan's case. He said he didn't know when a decision on the matter would be made.

In a related matter, the elderly man who filed the assault complaint against Jordan, John Martin, said he requested last Monday that the Cape Girardeau City Council ask Gov. John Ashcroft to appoint a task force to look into the police department.

Martin contended that a handful of city police officers use excessive force and sexually harass women, and that a pornographic "ring" is operating in the police department in connection with some evidence photos seized in investigations. Martin said he's picked up some of the information through police department sources.

Boyd refuted Martin's claims. Anonymous rumors about the evidence photos started in 1985, he said. Boyd said the rumors, which have no foundation, have been looked into each time they surface.

Boyd also said he has never received a complaint of an officer sexually harassing a woman and that people are quick to complain on perceived indiscretions by police officers.

"If an officer stops someone and requests a date," he said, "I would be most pleased if they would report that to me."