Tyree Carroll’s trial set in incident defense attorney describes as police brutality

Supporters of Tyree Caroll are readying for pre-trial court battles before the young man faces a jury of his peers this fall. 

The 22-year-old was captured on video being roughed up by several Philadelphia Police officers after an arrest on drug charges.

Carroll was supposedly riding his bike the wrong way down a one-way street in Germantown when he was questioned by a plainclothes police officer, who stopped Carroll around 11:44 p.m on East Locust Avenue.

Police say Carroll incited a brawl with the officer, who says Carroll bit him three times during the altercation.

The officer called for back up and many answered. But before more than a dozen additional police arrived on the scene a nearby resident began recording most of the episode on her phone.

What began with just a handful of officers quickly morphed into more than a dozen flocking around him, some of them screaming obscenities.

As one officer approached a restrained Carroll, the officer said “here comes the Taser,” but police maintain that it was never used on Carroll.

Police said 5.3 grams of crack cocaine was recovered from Carroll.

Carroll’s defense attorney Michael Wiseman says it’s an egregious example of police brutality. Police, Wiseman argues, didn’t have probable cause to stop him in the first place.

“The entire basis for the stop is, we think, improper. And the way they threw him off the bike, and put him in a chokehold. All that stuff. He was defending himself at that point,” Wiseman said.

At a rally over the summer, Carroll’s sister-in-law Kia-Marie Benton said it’s episodes like this that are souring perceptions of law enforcement.

“How can we feel protected when we know at the end of the day we can’t even go to ya’ll for domestic violence situation, because ya’ll will look at it like, ‘Um, oh well,'” Benton said. “And ya’ll … can abuse people and get away with that?”

Carroll is behind bars in the House of Correction in Northeast Philadelphia. A trial date has been set for Oct. 3 over which Court of Common Pleas Judge Diana Anhalt will preside.