Two days after the Greensboro City Council released footage from a June 17 incident involving excessive force, the second officer involved in the arrest has resigned.
Officer Charlotte N. Jackson resigned yesterday, Greensboro police spokesperson Susan Danielsen confirmed this afternoon. Additional information about Jackson, including her hire date, rank and possible past disciplinary action were not immediately available but are a matter of public record and should be released shortly.
Officers Travis Cole and Charlotte Jackson responded to a possible attempted break-in and found Dejuan Yourse on his mother’s porch. Police body camera footage shows civil and polite interactions between Yourse and the two officers at first. Cole sharply escalated the encounter later, grabbing Yourse’s phone before hitting him and slamming him on the ground.
Yourse initially faced several charges — documents show Jackson accused Yourse of “using his shoulder to press her wrist against a door frame.” All charges have since been dropped.
Cole resigned on Aug. 19 amid two police investigations into the incident, one criminal and one internal. Yet Cole was promoted on Aug. 1, a move that comes with a salary increase, after the internal investigation began (but before the criminal inquiry started on Aug. 10). Chief Wayne Scott confirmed in a press conference on Monday that an internal investigation was still looking into Jackson for the Yourse incident, adding that he hoped it could be completed within the next two weeks. She had not been placed on administrative leave with pay, as Cole had, but continued to serve in a regular capacity.
But like her partner on the scene, Jackson has now resigned mid-investigation following the incident.
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Activists called for repercussions for Jackson as well as Cole at a special council meeting on Monday, saying that she was complicit in the injustice Yourse faced. The police department determined that Cole violated the department’s directives for use of force, courtesy towards the public, arrest, search and seizure and also compliance to laws and regulations. It is still unclear what the Jackson investigation will conclude.
Activists have also demanded a deeper investigation into the handling of the department’s review of the incident. In a letter delivered to city council today, former lawyer Lewis Pitts and the Rev. Nelson Johnson requested a complete review of the investigation by an independent panel, citing Cole’s promotion as one of the reasons such an inquiry is needed. (A copy of the letter was provided to Triad City Beat by Pitts.)
After TCB broke the news of Cole’s Aug. 1 promotion, City Manager Jim Westmoreland placed a 30-day hold on any promotions for officers involved in the Yourse incident or subsequent investigation yesterday. The Pitts/Johnson letter claims that Capt. JT Cranford, who heads the professional standards division, was due to be promoted to deputy chief.
Also of interest is Officer WF Sizemore, who is listed as the arresting officer on charging documents for Yourse while Jackson is described as a witness and Cole is somehow not listed. Chief Scott said Monday he wasn’t sure why Sizemore’s name appeared, hypothesizing that he could have been one of the officers who later responded to the incident and offered to help fill out paperwork. Scott said he would look into the reason, but an actual explanation is not yet available.
Activists and city council members criticized the extended timeline of the department’s investigation into the Yourse incident on Monday, and Scott agreed that it took too long. Attendees expressed particular concern about Cole’s history with the Scales brothers — a 2014 incident that resulted in a formal city apology and a $50,000 settlement — and the presence of clear body camera footage, arguing these factors made the length of the investigation particularly egregious. For some, that feeling only hardened after learning Tuesday that Cole had been promoted Aug. 1, well after the June 17 incident and Yourse’s complaint to the department.
Stay tuned: Triad City Beat will continue to cover this issue as it unfolds.
UPDATE Sept. 30 at 12:40 p.m. — This article has been updated with former Officer Charlotte N. Jackson’s first name, which we have confirmed with the police department. We are still waiting for additional details about the former officer.
UPDATE Oct. 5 at 10:15 a.m. — Read more about this case here, including details about Jackson’s record and her photo.
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Good! The woman cop who was in on that parade of tyranny is gone too. She stood and gloated while it was going on and gave aid and comfort to Cole. Good riddance to both of them.
Cole is a coward, a classless white cracker using his badge to bully and intimidate others. Good riddance to a loser cop. And Charlotte Jackson lacked the courage and professionalism to intervene and stand up to Cole. She needs a different career too.
Totally agree with you.
I’m shocked to discover Officer Cole has a history of violence and abusive behavior in his job performance. Except not. At all. In any way. Ever. A plague on both officers’ houses.
These two cops were fucked up in the head.
That Cole was nothing but a trouble maker. Good Riddance you POS.
And Jackson was just a dumb bitch…obviously not having a mind of her own. Good Riddance dumb idiot.
Damn, why are pd’s and so’s hiring these egotistic, mentally challenged racist assholes?
Wow. Just wow.
Now they should both be charged with assault and whatever else. This kind of police brutality sickens me to the core.
Both cops should go to jail and Mr. Yourse deserves a huge monetary award for having been abused like that. What a disgusting video!
North carolina, you are the most piece of shit state. just secede already
I usually support the police, unless there is incontrovertible evidence to show they were wrong, then they deserve to face severe discipline. That is the case here. Both of them deserve jail for violating this mans’ rights. Hopefully he sues the pants off them, and the city. They are both idiots, who should never wear a badge again. It’s cops like these who make the decent ones look bad.
Agreed. I am usually the harshest critic when it comes to these sensationalist “white cop versus innocent black man” videos (usually in support of the cops) but it’s pretty clear in this case that the cops were in the wrong here.
I’da tore off a hash mark as a souvenir.
Every situation is different, but these two fools were trying to cover their tracks. Jackson claimed he assaulted her by “using his shoulder to press her wrist against a door frame” which was when Cole had the dude in an arm bar punching him the face. Lying POS
Promotions mean that prior conduct was exemplary but that the Department will expect more of the same in the future.