WESTLAND, Mich. (WXYZ) — What a police video, recently obtained by 7 Action News, reveals about the arrest and death of a man in Wayne County has two families demanding answers.
When William Marshall was being questioned by the two Westland Police Deparmtent officers who pulled him over, he denied ingesting cocaine, but based on what was captured on police dashcam video, the officers had good reason to believe he had swallowed the drug.
7 Action News has obtained that police video from the traffic stop for an expired tag in 2017.
One officer can be heard asking, "Now, you want to be straight with me and try to get out of here?"
Marshall replied, "I'm telling you," claiming he just ate a doughnut.
The officer responded by saying, "That's not a doughnut, bro. Doughnut don't do that, bro. That's cocaine."
The video continues as officers direct Marshall to open his mouth and grab his tongue.
One officer can be heard saying, "It's all chewed up."
The second officer responded, "Yeah, he chewed it all up." The second officer then asks Marshall why he did it.
In his report that morning, one of the arresting officers wrote that he "observed numerous small pieces of crack cocaine on Marshall's tongue, gum, and lips. I was able to use a pair of gloves and retrieve several pieces of crack cocaine."
Westland police policy indicates that no prisoner can be booked or even held for interrogation if they have any injury or suffer from extreme alcohol intoxication or possible drug overdose.
Under oath, a police official would later testify that Marshall "should have been checked out."
But the arresting officers took Marshall to jail, where he would later die from an extremely high level of cocaine toxicity.
"The arresting officers knew that Mr. Marshall had ingested crack cocaine," said Tracy Buckley, the wife of then-Sgt. Ron Buckley. He was charged with manslaughter and misconduct in office along with two paramedics. Ron Buckley called to help Marshall at the jail when Marshall began saying he was having a seizure.
Neither Ron Buckley or the two paramedics were ever told that Marshall ingested any cocaine.
The veteran police sergeant, who declined to speak due to pending litigation against the city of Westland, was also fired.
Tracy Buckley said her husband was "scapegoated."
"It was easier to develop a strategy to blame one officer for the wrongdoing of five," she added.
The charges against Ron Buckley and the paramedics came almost a year after Marshall's death and after the city settled a lawsuit out of court with Marshall's family.
The manslaughter charges against Ron Buckley and the paramedics were dismissed by a judge at the preliminary examination, and Ron Buckley was later acquitted of the misconduct in office charge.
The family of Marshall never saw the video of his arrest until 7 Action News obtained it and showed it to them. Loved ones said they never got the justice they deserved.
"Hopefully, someone gets charged after seeing this video. Hopefully, somebody if not all of them," Marshall's brother Demond Marshall said.
William Marshall's fiancée KaLiece Simms said they always wondered why the arresting officers weren't charged in his death.
"That was one of the questions all of the family had. Why weren't those two who seen him the first time not the ones charged when they should have been the ones to take him to the hospital," Simms said.
7 Action News asked the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office why the arresting officers were not charged in the case. A spokesperson said it was "determined that there was insufficient evidence to charge the arresting officers with a crime."
During the preliminary examination for Ron Buckley and the paramedics, only video from inside the jail was played in court.
When 7 Action News asked the prosecutor's office why the police dashcam video was not played in court, the prosecutor's office responded by saying that the "preliminary examination was a probable cause hearing regarding the charges for the three people that were with Mr. Marshall in the jail. These people did not appear in the dashcam video."
The prosecutor's office went on to say, "The case was focused on the three charged persons when they were in the presence of Mr. Marshall in the jail. He (assistant prosecutor) did not show the arrest cameras at the trial because they were irrelevant in this case."
The Buckleys filed a lawsuit against the city of Westland alleging wrongful termination. The Buckleys are appealing a judge's decision to dismiss their lawsuit.
"They considered him to be disposable," Tracy Buckley said about the police department's treatment of her husband. "There is not an aspect of our lives that hasn't changed. It's been devastating."
The lawsuit also alleges that the police department engaged in a "conspiracy that would ultimately result in his (Ron Buckley's) termination and a groundless prosecution."
Shortly before William Marshall died, an officer wrote in his report that he "tested the cocaine that was recovered from Marshall's mouth." And after William Marshall died, Ron Buckley and his attorney allege that same officer went back into his report and removed any reference to being told that Marshall had cocaine in his mouth.
"Just ask yourself: in every case in the United States of America that deals with corruption, who knew what, when and what did they do?" the Buckleys' attorney Todd Flood said.
An attorney representing the city of Westland declined to comment on the case other than to say they were pleased that a judge had dismissed the lawsuit.
When 7 Action News first reached out to the Westland Police Department's new Chief Kyle Dawley, he said, "The department does not comment on matters related to pending litigation, so I am unable to provide any further response at this time."
On Monday, Dawley added, “When this tragic incident occurred, the Michigan State Police were contacted and their detectives conducted a criminal investigation. Once their investigation was complete, they presented their case to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office, who is the charging authority. Although not criminally charged, Officers ***** and ***** did receive discipline and received training.”
7 Action News removed the names of the arresting officers from the statement because they have not been charged with a crime.
The family of William Marshall is hoping that what is on the police video results in a new investigation involving the arresting officers.
"They should have called the ambulance immediately. Like, right there on the spot," Demond Marshall said. "They should have been like we need EMS to get him checked out and then deal with the situation from there. But instead, y'all just went home like everything was OK and my brother is just gone."
Simms shared a video recording of a meeting the family had with now-former Police Chief Jeff Jedrusik in which Jedrusik can be heard saying, "I can't apologize enough for your loss. You know there's no explanation I'm going to give you that's going to make you feel better. I wish he would have ended up at the hospital quicker."
Jedrusik did not respond to our requests for comment. An attorney representing the city said Jedrusik would not be commenting due to the pending litigation.
William Marshall's son Tija Marshall told Action News, "There's tons of cases of people ingesting things and they get taken to the hospital and they were saved. Unfortunately, my father wasn't."
Tracy Buckley said the damage done to her family by her husband's firing and prosecution has devastated them.
"My husband considered all of those men to be like brothers. He trusted them," she said. "And they betrayed him in the worst way."
