Ex-trooper pleads guilty in Raleigh man's beating

A former State Highway Patrol trooper pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of willful failure to discharge his duties in the April 2018 beating of a Raleigh man.

Michael Blake will serve no jail time on the two misdemeanors as part of the plea deal, but he will spend a year on unsupervised probation and agreed to permanently surrender his law enforcement certification, meaning he will never work as an officer again. In exchange, prosecutors dismissed felony charges of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury, soliciting assault with a deadly weapon, obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

The charges stem from the April 3, 2018, arrest of Kyron Dwain Hinton. Officers were responding to reports of a man with a gun yelling at passing cars near the intersection of North Raleigh Boulevard and Yonkers Road when they confronted him.

Hinton, who was unarmed, said he suffered a broken eye socket, broken nose, multiple cuts on his head, "probably 20 bite marks" and memory loss during the incident when several officers pushed him up against a patrol car and hit him while a Wake County Sheriff's Office K-9 bit him on his right arm, side and head.

Dashboard camera videos from patrol cars at the scene show a former Wake County deputy hitting Hinton as his K-9 takes Hinton to the ground.

During the ensuing scrum with several officers, one officer is seen kicking Hinton, while another can be seen punching him as he refuses to give in to law enforcement.

In the audio for several dashboard camera videos, someone repeatedly issues an order to hit Hinton in the head.

Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said in court Monday that it was Blake who yelled more than a dozen times for someone to hit Hinton in the head with a flashlight. Under Highway Patrol policy, she said, such action is considered use of deadly force, and efforts to subdue Hinton didn't require such force.

"There are hundreds of law enforcement officers who get up in this county every day and go to work determined to uphold their oath and to serve the community, and there is no place for abuse of authority or for lack of candor in law enforcement," Freeman said.

After Hinton's arrest, she said, Blake and two other former troopers, Tabithia Davis and Rodney Goswick, agreed to file paperwork stating that no one with the Highway Patrol who responded to the incident used force.

Davis can be heard in her dashcam audio referring to "body blows" Hinton received and noted she had blood on her flashlight and her hands. She told Goswick, a sergeant who arrived at the scene a short time later, that she had hit Hinton in the head, and Blake said he had kicked Hinton in the ribs and had been the one to issue the command for Davis to hit Hinton in the head.

Goswick was then heard telling the troopers that he had reviewed video of the incident and that no use of force by them could be seen.

Charges against Davis and Goswick are still pending.

Defense attorney Joe Cheshire lauded Blake for his stellar record in the military, where he was deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo, and said he worked hard in law enforcement for years.

"He has acknowledged his wrongdoing," Cheshire said of Blake, calling Hinton's beating "a sad case for everyone involved."

Hinton died last February of an apparent cocaine overdose, which Freeman said would have made taking Blake's case to trial more difficult.

"This is a man who has served his country honorably and the state of North Carolina in the military and on the State Highway Patrol. He's being judged for events that happened on one day out of decades of service," Superior Court Judge Andrew Heath said before sentencing Blake.

Freeman then interrupted Heath to note that, had the case gone to trial, prosecutors would have presented evidence of other use of force incidents involving Blake.

Heath then added 200 hours of community service to Blake's sentence.

Former Wake County Sheriff's Office Deputy Cameron Broadwell pleaded guilty last May to failure to discharge his duties and likewise agreed not to work in law enforcement ever again and was placed on probation for a year and ordered to perform 200 hours of community service.

Cheshire said after the court hearing that he still believes Blake was doing what he had to do to protect himself and other officers.

"You have a suspect who refuses to stop doing what he is doing," he said. "I don't find that kind of activity to neutralize that situation to be criminal."

Diana Powell, executive director of Justice Served NC, who advocated for Hinton following the incident, said she understands the plea deals being negotiated with the officers involved.

"It is not exactly what we would have wanted, but we understand it," Powell said. "I do feel that our community may not understand it because they would want to see Blake do jail time or prison time."