Fired Michigan officer charged in Jaquwan Smith jail attack

August 29, 2024

As Jaquwan Smith stood inside the Warren, Mich., police station, awaiting fingerprinting after being arrested, he appeared to exchange words with Matthew Rodriguez, the jail officer processing him.

Rodriguez, 48, stood up from a nearby desk and approached the 19-year-old Smith. Then he swung his right arm, striking Smith in the head and knocking him backward, surveillance video shows. He then threw Smith to the ground and slammed his head against the floor.

Video footage of the June 13 incident prompted a storm of criticism from the community in the Detroit suburb. In the following weeks, Rodriguez was fired by the Warren Police Department and sued by Smith. He will also face a federal charge of deprivation of rights, a felony, the U.S. attorney’s office announced Monday.

The incident, Warren Police Commissioner William Dwyer said at a Monday news conference, brought “disgrace to the entire city.”

An attorney representing Rodriguez did not comment on the charge and said he will review records from the federal investigation. Rodriguez was previously facing misdemeanor charges out of Macomb County, Mich., in connection with the incident, but the local prosecutor agreed to dismiss the charges so federal prosecutors could proceed, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

Smith had been arrested early on the morning of June 13 to face charges involving carjacking and weapons possession, Dwyer said at a news conference last month. Shortly after he was brought to the Warren police station around 6 a.m., Rodriguez walked him to the fingerprint room, according to the federal complaint.

Surveillance footage did not capture any words exchanged between Rodriguez and Smith before the altercation, according to the complaint. Rodriguez was not wearing a body camera, Dwyer said.

The surveillance video shows Smith standing with his hands by his side and his thumbs hooked in his pants pockets before he is struck. He had already been searched for weapons and was not in an aggressive stance, according to the federal complaint.

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As Smith stumbled backward, Rodriguez pushed him against a wall. Rodriguez then grabbed Smith, lifted him up to waist height and slammed him to the floor, the footage shows. Rodriguez then struck Smith in the head again and, grabbing Smith by his hair, lifted his head and slammed it against the floor, the video shows.

After two other police officers helped Rodriguez restrain Smith, he picked Smith up from the floor by his hair and shoved him into a holding cell, sending Smith falling to the floor once more, the footage shows.

Smith did not resist throughout the encounter, the video shows.

“What happened there was uncalled for,” Dwyer said in a June 20 news conference. “There was no altercation between the two. Rodriguez immediately went up and punched him.”

Dwyer credited the two other officers with de-escalating the situation and reporting the incident to a supervisor immediately afterward.

Smith was taken to a hospital on Dwyer’s orders about three hours after being struck and returned to his cell later that day, then was transferred to the Macomb County Jail in the afternoon, Dwyer said. The police department began investigating the incident the same day, he said.

During the news conference June 20 addressing footage of the incident, Dwyer called the incident a disgrace. Rodriguez was fired on June 26.

The next day, Smith sued Rodriguez, the city of Warren and the two officers who responded when Rodriguez struck him — the latter two for not intervening in time to prevent Rodriguez’s attack.

Smith, who remains in jail in Macomb County, suffered a concussion and is struggling with his vision after the incident, said James Harrington, the attorney representing him in his lawsuit. Macomb County Prosecutor Peter Lucido said at the June 20 news conference that Smith did not suffer injury.

Harrington is petitioning for Smith to be examined by a physician.

“Fortunately, he will live,” Harrington said. “But this is one of the worst cases of abuse that I’ve seen in my career.”

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