7917: Man dies in patrol car (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Man dies in patrol car after fight with police following traffic stop
BY ARNOLD MARKOWITZ
amarkowitz@herald.com

Marc Dorvil died in a police car after a scuffle with the police in North 
Bay Village, but investigators doubt that the fight caused his death.

While waiting for an autopsy report late Tuesday afternoon, homicide 
detectives suspected something must have been wrong with Dorvil, 48, before 
his car slowly weaved out of traffic, crossed a sidewalk and bumped a wall 
on the Kennedy Causeway at about noon Monday:

Detective Gus Bayas of the Miami-Dade County homicide squad told a police 
spokesman that Dorvil walked away from a North Bay Village officer who tried 
to question him about the accident. Then he began to run, pushed a 
pedestrian out of his way and started swinging when police caught up to him. 
When they put him in the back seat of a patrol car, he began kicking at the 
door.

``Homicide said independent witnesses told them the officers didn't use 
anything other than their hands to try to apprehend this individual,'' 
county police spokesman Rudy Espinosa said. ``Not their PR-24 batons, not 
pepper spray or Mace. No tools. According to the witnesses, it didn't appear 
that excessive force was used.''

Dorvil was arrested about noon in public view, on the driveway of the Crab 
House Restaurant at 1551 Kennedy Causeway, an extension of Northeast 79th 
Street.

Francois Etienne, a Crab House janitor, told The Herald that when he came 
outside Dorvil was already handcuffed, face down on the pavement.

Etienne said he saw officers pick him up and try to put him in a patrol car, 
but the man kicked the door so violently that they took him to a Fire-Rescue 
ambulance instead.

Some time after that, he was put back in the rear seat of a patrol car, 
Espinosa said. Two officers, both with minor injuries from the scuffle, were 
assigned to drive him to Jackson Memorial Hospital's jail ward. Espinosa 
said it isn't clear whether Dorvil was going to be treated for illness or 
for injury.

``They were in the area of I-95 and Northwest 79th Street when the officers 
noticed the individual was no longer breathing.''

Instead of stopping to wait for an ambulance, Espinosa said, they drove 
straight to the hospital emergency room. Dorvil, a carpenter and part-time 
Pentecostal preacher, died before they arrived.

Eight town officers were involved in the case, said Michael Spivack, the 
city attorney for North Bay Village. Spivack released this list:

Officers James McCready, 33, Shelley Taylor, 29, Amy Suarez, 27, Amador 
Alvarez, 34, and Craig Albertini, 30; Sgt. Steven Abramson, 38; acting Chief 
Alan Cole; and Assistant Chief Lonnie Cantor.

Spivack did not know which of them were involved at each stage of the 
incident. Espinosa said the county police had not sorted that out late 
Tuesday afternoon.

The first officer Dorvil met Monday apparently saw his Toyota 4-Runner leave 
the road at crawl speed and scuff the wall in front of the Benihana 
Restaurant at 1665 Kennedy Cswy.

``The officer approaches to interview the guy, but he starts walking away,'' 
Espinosa said. ``The officer starts calling him -- `Hey, come back here' -- 
but the guy keeps walking away.''

Another officer came along and told Dorvil to stop. Dorvil ignored him. More 
officers were summoned. When they finally stopped him in front of the Crab 
House, Espinosa said, Dorvil yelled again and again: ``I'm Haitian! I'm 
Haitian.''

Detectives wondered if illness or medication caused Dorvil's behavior.

Spivack, the city attorney and a former major crimes prosecutor, noticed 
similarities of Dorvil's behavior to that of people who have died in violent 
seizures caused by cocaine.

Impossible, said Dorvil's wife, Sylvanie:

``He's a preacher. He don't do drugs,'' she said between cries of ``Why? 
Why? Why?''

After midnight Monday, detectives came to her duplex in North Miami Beach 
and asked to search the house.

``They put some papers in their pockets,'' the widow said.

``They wanted to see if they could find any medication this individual could 
have been on, any kind of papers or prescriptions,'' Espinosa said. 
``They're trying to figure out why he was behaving the way he did.''

The Dorvils have three children, two boys and a girl, who were at the home 
of Sylvanie Dorvil's sister Wednesday. She didn't want them at home:

``How am I going to stand in front of them to tell them their daddy passed? 
My husband was serving the Lord, and whoever killed my husband, the Lord 
will judge that person.''



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