BILLY JOE JORDAN, an uncle of Jim Rogers, and his wife, Myrtle Jordan, watch the video of Rogers being apprehended and subsequently left in a police vehicle for more than 17 minutes without medical attention. Rogers died in October 2021. (Photo by J.L. Martello)
The New Pittsburgh Courier has learned that a ruling could be made on or before March 30 on whether fired Pittsburgh Police Officer Keith Edmonds will be eligible to get his job back. He is the officer who used a Taser multiple times on Jim Rogers during an altercation in Bloomfield in 2021.
Currently, there is a labor arbitration case occurring between the City of Pittsburgh and the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 1, the union that represents Pittsburgh Police officers. The FOP is arguing that Edmonds, who is Black, should be permitted to get his job back as a Pittsburgh Police officer, after he and numerous other officers were terminated by the City of Pittsburgh following the death of Rogers.
There have been other officers who were fired who have since returned to the force, but not Edmonds, who is the officer that had the initial interaction with Rogers on Harriet Street in Bloomfield on Oct. 13, 2021. Officers were originally called to the area that day because of reports that Rogers stole a bike. Turns out, the bike was left for someone, anyone, to take, but police were called anyway.
OFFICER KEITH EDMONDS
Edmonds’ own police worn body camera showed the use of his Taser on Rogers numerous times as Edmonds was trying to get Rogers into custody. There was some resistance by Rogers, but ultimately the Taser took him to the ground. Rogers, who was unarmed, eventually was placed into a police cruiser after police backup arrived, but was not taken to a hospital for more than 30 minutes after he was in custody. Officers who were different from Edmonds drove Rogers through various city neighborhoods and then ultimately to UPMC Mercy Hospital in Uptown. However, those like attorney Todd Hollis, who represents the family of Rogers, said that Rogers could have easily been transported to the nearby West Penn Hospital, which is in Bloomfield.
Rogers died the following day, Oct. 14, 2021. He was 54 years old.
About six months later, Pittsburgh’s first Black Mayor, Ed Gainey, who was under pressure from some of Pittsburgh’s Black community to speak out on Rogers’ untimely death, announced in March 2022 that the city would move to terminate five officers following an internal investigation.
The City of Pittsburgh ultimately settled with the family of Rogers for $8 million in a civil wrongful death lawsuit in April 2023.
“Mr. Rogers deserved to live a life of joy. He deserved to live a long life. He didn’t deserve to lose his life at the hands of police officers. What his life could have been will stay with me as long as I am the mayor of this city,” the mayor said.
But two months before the mayor’s comments, the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office, led at the time by Dr. Karl E. Williams, ruled that Rogers’ death was an “accident,” that he died from ‘Acute Global Hypoxic-Ischemic Injury of the Brain'” due to a seizure disorder.
“The manner of death is the circumstance that led to the cause of death. It is based upon all available knowledge of a particular case including terminal events, scene investigation, police report, social, and medical background information. These are not criminal determinations, but medical ones,” read a statement from the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office following the ruling. The release said that Pennsylvania recognizes five manners of death; homicide, suicide, accident, natural and undetermined. While “homicide” is a death “caused at the hands of another,” the medical examiner ruled accident, defined as death that “occurs as a result of an event with unintentional consequences.”
The FOP has maintained that the findings of the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office, along with the hiring and opinions of its own medical expert, Dr. Benjamin D’Souza, should lead the arbitrator to rule that Edmonds should get his job back.
As expected, attorneys for the City of Pittsburgh fought back.
DR. BENNET OMALU
The city hired its own medical expert in the labor arbitration case —Dr. Bennet Omalu, the renowned forensic pathologist who’s widely known as the doctor who discovered and published CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) in American football players. Dr. Omalu was hired by the city to investigate the circumstances regarding Rogers’ death. He was paid $10,000.
In the wrongful death lawsuit brought forth by Hollis, Dr. Omalu was retained as an expert witness. However, the report and/or commentary that Dr. Omalu provided in the wrongful death lawsuit was not used by the city in the labor arbitration case. Dr. Omalu produced a report specifically as it related to the labor arbitration case, which was sent to attorneys representing the City of Pittsburgh on Dec. 21, 2023, the Courier has learned exclusively.
Dr. Omalu’s 32-page report for the city was also obtained exclusively by the New Pittsburgh Courier.
Dr. Omalu wrote in his report that “Jim Rogers, a 54-year-old African-American male, died as a result of ‘Global Hypoxic-Ischemic Brain Injury’ due to ‘Restraint Asphyxiation’ suffered in the hands of the police while he was in custody. The manner of his death is a homicide.”
In other words, Dr. Omalu completely disagrees with the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office’s ruling.
“It is ridiculous, laughable and ludicrous for anyone to determine the cause of death of Jim Rogers to be a Seizure Disorder,” Dr. Omalu wrote in his report. “There is no prevailing evidence whatsoever in the video and body camera clips I watched and, in the terminal, forensic scenario in this case to suggest or even insinuate that Jim Rogers died as a result of a Seizure Disorder. Given the generally accepted principles and common knowledge of medicine and science in 2021, and given the prevailing terminal forensic scenario in this case, it is an embarrassment. It is pertinent to note that the brain of Mr. Rogers revealed acute global hypoxic-ischemic brain injury (acute asphyxial brain injury), and not the selective vulnerability of neuronal excitotoxic injury associated with status epilepticus. Mr. Rogers did not suffer any status epilepticus whatsoever.”
“Status Epilepticus” is defined by Johns Hopkins University as a seizure that lasts longer than five minutes, or having more than one seizure within a five-minute period, without returning to a normal level of consciousness between episodes.
THE COMMUNITY SPEAKS
On Jan. 31, Hollis showed to about 50 people inside the Community Empowerment Association in Homewood the body camera and police cruiser video that had been publicly released to the media two days prior. Hollis maintained he fought to get the videos released in the name of transparency, so that everyone, namely Pittsburgh’s Black community, could see for themselves what happened on that fateful October 2021 day to Jim Rogers.
NICKY JO DAWSON WAS ONE OF MANY COMMUNITY MEMBERS WHO EXPRESSED FRUSTRATION WITH HOW JIM ROGERS WAS TREATED IN THE RELEASED VIDEO.
When Hollis opened the news conference to questions, media members, as well as community members, jumped on the microphone. While about 70 percent of those community members in attendance seemed to show no support for Edmonds in his quest to get his job back, the other 30 percent showed some support for Edmonds.
ANITA DRUMMOND
Among those supporting Edmonds was Anita Drummond, leader of the annual Harambee Festival in Homewood.
“Everybody that played a part in this, did a wrongful thing,” she said, reported by the Courier exclusively. “And so when the outcome comes out for all the police officers,” Drummond said either they should all be working or they should all not get their jobs back. But it’s Edmonds who still doesn’t have his job back, when others do, she said. “We’re all sitting here because Keith (Edmonds) came from this neighborhood, and we know a different side of him outside of what we’ve seen,” Drummond said.
Drummond continued: “One of my daughters, this is her brother (Keith Edmonds), the only one that did not get reinstated to the force. So yes, I have a stake in this, because I love this young man, and when you talk about African Americans and anyone, I have a good heart, I don’t want anyone to die under the hands of the law, or under the hands of anybody.”
Criminal charges have not been filed against any officers involved in the handling of Rogers on Oct. 13, 2021.
Billy Joe Jordan, an uncle of Rogers, told the Courier exclusively that if Rogers would have been White, he feels there definitely would have been criminal charges.
“We (Black people) know that if we attack a Black man, we know we can get away with it,” voiced Jordan.
Jordan also said that if Rogers were White, nothing would have happened because no one would have called the police about a person stealing a bike in the first place.
Specifically about Edmonds, Jordan said: “Nine or 10 times he (Jim Rogers) was tased…that man (Edmonds) should know better than to tase somebody nine or 10 times…I think he should have been (criminally) charged.”
“I believe the evidence will demonstrate that this was an unfortunate death and that the officers did not … contribute to (Rogers’) death,” FOP Union President Robert Swartzwelder said, reported in December 2023 by WESA.
“With a reasonable degree of medical certainty therefore,” Dr. Omalu’s report countered, “we can conclude that if Jim Rogers did not encounter the police on October 13, 2021, he would not have died on October 14, 2021, and was not expected to die.”
ATTORNEY TODD HOLLIS
NAACP PITTSBURGH BRANCH PRESIDENT DAYLON A. DAVIS
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