Kari Marchand: False Arrest? Police Brutality?

On Saturday morning around 4 a.m. my husband and I were walking home from a friend’s house by Island Park. We stopped by my husband’s practice space for a couple of minutes, then decided to go over the Tenth Street underpass by crossing the train tracks.

As we crossed, my husband noticed a flashlight coming at us from the west. We heard them yelling “Hey!” and “Stop!” We could not see who it was and my husband told me to run. The men did not identify themselves as cops until we were mostly down the hill by NP Avenue.

When the cops made it into the light we immediately stopped and followed their instructions. We were quickly put on the ground and handcuffed. We tried to explain that we were scared and we didn’t know who they were. They searched our persons and the ground around us and found nothing.

In most cases, we would have been talked to and released but we were separated and arrested.

Before either of us was questioned, we were told our stories did not match and that we were being charged with resisting arrest.

The booking process was cruel for me. I had four piercings in my ears that were yanked out with a pair of pliers. My ear was bruised and hard because it was pinched, and half of the jewelry was dropped on the floor and not returned.

The police said they were looking for someone else, and in the police report we obtained it said it was a male who was seen entering a truck on the north side that was not his. When they searched us, we were clean of weapons, drugs, etc. Neither of us was asked about being in a vehicle that wasn’t ours.

My husband was Mirandized, and I absolutely was not. We were both given maximum bail, costing $1000.

We feel we are being taken advantage of. We both have clean criminal records and will not plead guilty just to make it go away.

This treatment happens all too often here. Stealing people’s time and money and wasting tax dollars should not be tolerated.

Below are the names and badge numbers of the police involved.

Joshua Loos #322

David Cochran #295

Patrick Fylling #331 (did not give any statement in police report)

The original charge they said would be given was trespassing. It was then changed to resisting arrest, which we are not guilty of.

-Kari Marchand
Chris Marteny
Fargo