SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) – Body camera video shows the father of a murdered child becoming emotional and frustrated after being stopped by Springfield police over a year ago.
Six police officers are named in a lawsuit stemming from the traffic stop. The father, Dartavius Barnes, claims the officers searched his car without consent and tested the ashes of his dead daughter, Ta’Naja Barnes.
"Bro, no, no, no that's my daughter," Barnes can be heard yelling in the body camera video after being show the item officers found the ashes in. “What you all doing bro? That is my daughter bro. Give me that bro."
It was on April 6, 2020 at 16th and Laurel when the Officer Colton Redding stopped Barnes. In the body camera video, it is revealed Barnes was stopped after being observed leaving the area of a shots fired incident.
“Someone shooting at you,” officer Redding asked. Barnes responded with a simple “yes”.
As the video progresses, it is revealed Barnes' car was hit by gunfire.
Following the traffic stop, Barnes filed a lawsuit against the city, officer Redding and five other officers who responded. The lawsuit claims the actions of the officers and testing of Ta’Naja’s ashes caused Barnes “severe emotional distress.”
The encounter between Barnes and the officers discussing the testing of the ashes plays out 30 minutes after the initial traffic stop.
Officer Redding can be heard telling Barnes that officer found "some weed in the car and there was something else, too."
Barnes looked confused, asking what it was and if it was tested. The officer can be heard saying they believed it was “Molly or ‘X’ crushed up" and that it had “tested positive for meth.”
It wasn’t until Redding showed Barnes what a different officer, Brian Riebling, found that he learned officers had tested Ta’Naja’s ashes.
"That is my daughter,” Barnes yelled out. “What you all doing? No, no, no, no. That's my daughter. That's my daughter in there. That's my daughter. She just passed two..."
Officer Redding told Barnes he knows and to “let me talk to the officer” before he shuts the door on a visibly upset Barnes.
In the lawsuit, Barnes and his attorney say the officers “unsealed this urn and opened this urn without consent and without a lawful basis” going on to claim the officers “desecrated and spilled the ashes” of Ta’Naja out.
Body camera video captures the officers addressing the situation.
"Riebling said it test positive for,” an officer can be heard saying before the audio becomes unintelligible. A second officer responded, “that guy”, referring to Barnes’ father who was at the traffic stop. “knew what it was immediately and got out and said it was the ashes of his granddaughter.”
Following the initial test by Officer Riebling, Officer Redding opts out of re-testing the ashes and tells another officer on scene that Riebling thought the ashes "tested positive for meth” and said he saw the results stating, “it was blue”.
Minutes after that discussion, Officer Redding appears to raise his own suspicions about the results while discussing the results with two other officers.
“It wasn’t like a bright blue,” one officer can be heard saying. “It was like purple,” Redding then said.
Springfield police policy lays out the procedure for field testing possible narcotics, but it does not say what should happen if the results come back questionable. It does, however, require the testing officer have “an additional officer monitoring the testing.”
The body camera video provided does not show the testing or the initial search of Barnes’ car. In an e-mail response to WAND News, the city attorney said despite the other responding officers having body cameras at the time of the incident, the only video not destroyed was officer Redding’s video. Under Illinois law, body camera video only needs to be kept for 90 days unless flagged.
“There was body camera footage at one point for the other officers involved in this incident,” an attorney for the city wrote. “Recordings can only be 'flagged' for retention if they fall under one of the specific exceptions listed in the statute. Arrests are one of the exceptions in the statute that allows body camera footage to be preserved. Accordingly, Officer Redding’s body camera footage was 'flagged' and preserved because he conducted an arrest of the arrestee.”
Springfield police will not talk on camera to WAND News about the case, citing the pending lawsuit and, aside from answering questions about body camera video, the city attorney would not either. However, in court documents, they responded to the allegations, including denying the claim Barnes’ car was searched without consent. The body camera video appears to show him giving it to the officers.
“You got anything in your car,” an officer asked. Barnes responded with “no,” and then “go ahead” when the officer follows up asking if they can search his car.
In its response to the lawsuit, the city stated the six officers are “entitled to qualified immunity as their conduct was justified.”
Barnes was eventually released from the scene and given a citation for marijuana found in his car. The charges would eventually be dropped.
"I am just going to give him a notice to appear on the weed,” officer Redding said during a conversation with another officer who responded, “aside from pissing off Dad and testing a dead babies ashes?"
WAND News asked the city and police department if any of the officers involved in the traffic stop were disciplined and requested their personnel files. Only records for two officers were provided and none of their disciplinary records were related to the traffic stop.
A third officer’s actions are currently a part of an internal review. It is unclear if they are related to the traffic stop of Barnes. The city said it would release the records when the report was complete, but WAND News has not received a copy of the report.
WAND News reached out to the attorney for Barnes but has not heard back.
A jury trial in the case is set for August 2022.
