Long Beach : Dissenting Juror Tells of His Own Police Search Incident

The only juror who believed that former Police Officers Mark Dickey and Mark Ramsey were guilty in connection with the Don Jackson videotaped sting said he had been mistakenly stopped and searched by police once.

Charles Woolery, 41, the lone black juror in the trial of Dickey and Ramsey, said that Los Angeles police stopped him about 15 years ago. Police had confused him and a friend for bank robbers.

“They told us to lay down on the sidewalk to search us,” Woolery said. They were released shortly after, he said.

Woolery was the dissenting juror in the case, which was declared a mistrial this week when the jury split 11-1 in favor of acquittal. Dickey was cleared of assault and both Dickey and Ramsey were cleared of falsifying a police report. Charges stemmed from a confrontational 1989 traffic stop secretly recorded by NBC. The tape showed Dickey appearing to push Jackson, a black activist, through a plate-glass window.

Woolery said that his own experience “had nothing to do with my decision . . . I’m not the type of person to harbor (resentment).” Woolery also said that he told attorneys that he had been stopped and that he had received traffic tickets. But defense attorney Al Ramsey, who represented Dickey, said he was not aware of the incident, which probably would have disqualified Woolery from the jury panel.