‘Hope They Burn’: Family Outraged Over Man’s Horrific Police Beating in Arkansas
The family of a man seen on video being brutally beaten by a trio of Arkansas police officers over the weekend is furious over the incident and would like to see the cops held accountable.
“I hope they burn,” Eric Wedding, the stepfather of 27-year-old Randal Ray Worcester, told The Daily Beast on Monday, adding that the case must be “highlighted” by the media. “Enough is enough.”
Wedding, a U.S. Air Force veteran, said he raised Worcester from the age of 3 as his own son.
On Sunday morning, a witness captured shocking footage of Worcester being violently arrested outside a convenience store in Mulberry, Arkansas, by two sheriff’s deputies and a police officer. Since then, the video, which was posted to social media by the bystander’s sister, has gotten more than 7.2 million views on Twitter. Mulberry, which sits by the Oklahoma border, is about 130 miles from Little Rock, the state capital.
In the video, Worcester, who lives in Goose Creek, South Carolina, can be seen on the ground in the parking lot of the Kountry Xpress market, being punched in the head over and over again.
“Shit, dude,” the person filming the incident can be heard saying. “This is bad.”
In the ensuing moments, a second officer is seen striking Worcester repeatedly with his knee. The first officer then grabs Worcester by the hair, raises his head off the ground, and slams his skull into the concrete pavement.
When the bystander emerged from her car and yelled at the officers to stop, one of them replied, “Back the fuck up.”
The three cops involved were identified on Monday by authorities as Deputies Zack King and Levi Garrett White of the Crawford County Sheriff’s Office, and Officer Thell Riddle of the Mulberry Police Department.
Riddle, who served as chief of police in nearby Gans, Oklahoma, until 2017, stepped down for unknown reasons and joined the Mulberry PD as a patrol officer. According to Riddle’s LinkedIn profile, he began his law enforcement career as a Crawford County Sheriff’s deputy, then spent a year as an officer with the Kibler, Arkansas PD, followed by a one-year stint with the Sequoyah County, Oklahoma Sheriff’s Office, before taking over as Gans chief in July 2010.
King and White have been suspended pending an investigation. Riddle, the Mulberry cop, is on administrative leave.
Worcester bonded out on Monday afternoon from the local Crawford County lockup. According to booking records, he is charged with, among other things, second-degree battery, first-degree assault, resisting arrest/refusal to submit, criminal trespass, criminal mischief, and terroristic threatening in the second degree.
The incident began when police were called to a convenience store Sunday morning in Alma, Arkansas, where an employee claimed Worcester had spat on them and threatened to “cut off their face,” Crawford County Sheriff Jimmy Damante said. Worcester, who appeared to be in “mental distress,” according to witnesses, then left the scene on a bicycle, ultimately getting stopped outside the Kountry Xpress by King, White, and Riddle in Mulberry, local CBS affiliate THV11 reported.
After a “calm and civil” conversation between a shoeless Worcester and the three officers, Damante alleged Worcester got physical with one of the deputies, which apparently touched off the outsized response. Worcester was treated at a nearby hospital, then released and jailed.
In a Facebook post, Damante said, “I hold all my employees accountable for their actions and will take appropriate measures in this matter.”
https://www.facebook.com/mulberrycitylimits/photos/a.180136732119523/1035168203283034/
In his own online posting, Mulberry Mayor Gary Baxter wrote, “I, like many of you, was shocked and sickened by what I saw.”
In a news conference on Monday, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a former director of the Drug Enforcement Administration, called the incident “reprehensible. This is not what our law enforcement community represents,” he said. “It’s not the proper response and they will be reviewed and appropriate action taken.”
The FBI is reportedly joining the investigation, as well, along with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
Wedding, Worcester’s stepdad, told The Daily Beast the family had hired Ohio-based attorney Robert DiCello to handle the case. On Monday, Worcester was seen leaving the Crawford County Detention Center with local lawyer Carrie Jernigan. Neither immediately responded to requests for comment on Monday.
“We do not know what would happen if that person would not have been videoing…whoever that is, I think she could have saved his life,” Jernigan said at a press conference, according to Reuters.
In the meantime, a GoFundMe page has been set up for the bystander who shot the video of Worcester being worked over by cops on Sunday.
“I was asked by the community to start a fundraiser for the woman who stepped in today and helped stop a brutal police attack on a citizen,” her sister wrote. “She deserves help to keep safely hidden from those she exposed today! Shes [sic] a hero, when everyone else stood around and watched the horror taking place she got out of her car and approached the cops and told them to stop!”
It is unclear if King, White, and Riddle have retained legal counsel. They were unable to be reached by The Daily Beast on Monday.
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