Tag: missing cell phone

Timeline backs student’s retaliation claim DA’s probe tracked missing phone all over Chico

Madeline Hemphill

photo by Bianca Quilantan

Madeline Hemphill points to the bush along the Esplanade where she says she was “tackled” by a Chico police officer.

by Dave Waddell

While ruling out officer involvement in a missing cell phone mystery, Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey also has disclosed details to ChicoSol that bolster a student’s claim of retaliation by Chico police.

Chico State senior Madeline Hemphill has maintained that five minutes or less elapsed between an initial confrontation with officer Steve Dyke and her arrest in front of her nearby residence. Chico Police Chief Mike O’Brien, in contrast, issued a press statement two days after the Aug. 27, 2016, incident indicating a gap of 28 minutes between the two encounters.

At ChicoSol’s request, Ramsey looked into the time discrepancy. The district attorney said dispatch records reveal that Dyke, at 2:07 a.m., drove away from a sobriety check that Hemphill had been filming on the Esplanade with her phone, while Hemphill and her roommate, Nicole Braham, were arrested just three minutes later, at 2:10. read more

Student now fears cops, has no phone Officer Dyke ‘traumatized’ driver with gun in 2011

photo courtesy of Madeline Hemphill

photo courtesy of Madeline Hemphill

by Dave Waddell

If Chico police officer Steve Dyke’s intent last summer was to get Madeline Hemphill to quit filming police with her cell phone, that mission definitely was accomplished.

One reason is practical: Hemphill no longer has her cell phone. Police claim it was lost when they arrested her in the early hours of Aug. 27, 2016, and accused her of resisting arrest. No charges, however, were ever brought against Hemphill by Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey.

In a ChicoSol exclusive, Ramsey said Friday that his 10-month investigation into what became of the phone determined that police never had it. Most likely, Ramsey said, the phone was carried around town by a “transient.” The DA promised more details this week.

“I find it interesting that I am completely out of the loop with all of this,” Hemphill said when informed by ChicoSol of Ramsey’s ruling. “The DA wants absolutely nothing to do with me. I don’t believe that a transient took my phone, nor do I believe that the DA’s investigation was unbiased. We all know whose team they’re playing for.”  read more

DA: Chico cops never had cell phone ‘Tackled’ student claimed retaliation for filming

photo by Karen LasloButte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey

photo by Karen Laslo

Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey

by Dave Waddell

Chico police never had the cell phone of a Chico State student who says the phone contained video showing excessive police force, Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey told ChicoSol late Friday.

In a telephone voice message left for ChicoSol, Ramsey said he suspects a “transient” had the phone in the days after it left student Madeline Hemphill’s possession as she was arrested last August. Hemphill was filming officer Steve Dyke as he arrested her roommate when she was suddenly ordered to jail by Dyke, “tackled” to the ground by other officers, and accused of resisting arrest.

However, Ramsey never brought any charges against Hemphill and her phone has never been found.

After 10 months and “hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars,” the “investigation into the Hemphill phone is pretty much winding, winding down,” Ramsey said in his Friday phone message to ChicoSol. read more