Los Angeles, U.S. — A police officer
removed a sheet covering Whitney
Houston’s naked corpse and remarked,
“Damn, she’s still looking good, huh?”
according to another officer at the
scene.
The accusation against the Beverly Hills
Police detective was revealed in a labor
dispute filing made last week by Brian
Weir, who was the senior patrol sergeant
called to Houston’s hotel room after she
was found dead in a bathtub on February
11, 2012.
Weir claims the Beverly Hills police chief
and others retaliated against him when he
complained about the alleged actions of
Det. Sgt. Terry Nutall at the death scene on
the fourth floor of the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
“We will be looking into the allegations
made in this claim, but we were not aware
of any inappropriate behavior or comments
made by any officer at the scene,” Beverly
Hills Police spokesman Lt. Lincoln Hoshino
told CNN Wednesday.
No formal complaint was ever filed with the
police department by Weir or anyone else,
Hoshina said. “How can we retaliate against
him for reporting misconduct if we weren’t
aware of any misconduct?” he said.
Houston drowned face down in a hotel tub
of “extremely hot water” about 12 inches
deep, the final autopsy report on the
singer’s death said. The Los Angeles County
coroner ruled that Houston’s death on the
eve of the 2012 Grammy Awards was an
accidental drowning with the “effects of
atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine
use” as contributing factors.
Weir’s complaint, filed on September 11
with California’s labor department, said he
covered Houston’s body with a sheet “to
prevent contamination or potential DNA
and other potential evidence on the body”
and to “preserve the dignity of the
remains.”
It said that Nutall — who was assigned to
investigate fraud, forgery and auto
burglaries — “knelt beside and leaned over
the decedent, removed the sheet and/or
other covering from the body of the
decedent to an area below the pubic region
of the decedent’s body and came in close
proximity to touching the body of the
decedent while making inappropriate
comments to the effect and substancethat
the decedent ‘looked attractive for a woman
of her age and current state’ and ‘Damn,
she’s still looking good, huh?’”
Nutall “did properly respond to the scene,”
the police spokesman said. “It is
appropriate for a responding detective
sergeant to briefly examine the body upon
arriving to a scene like that.”
Weir, who had been in the “coveted
positions” of sergeant with the SWAT and
K-9 units, claims he told Beverly Hills
officials about the incident, which he said
he believed violated state and federal laws.
After complaining to his superiors and
others in the Beverly Hills government,
Weir was removed from his “coveted
positions” of sergeant with the SWAT and
K-9 units, denied promotion to other
positions, removed from supervisory duties,
denied special pay, denied training,
harassed and ostracized, given
inappropriate and harassing comments an/
or documents, and subjected to conduct
undermining his authority as a superior,
the filing said. He also lost overtime pay,
the filing alleged.
The complaint accuses Police Chief David
Snowden, Capt. Tony Lee and Nutall — who
has since been promoted to lieutenant —
of taking “reprisal actions, including acts of
intimidation, restraint, coercion,
discrimination, punitive, and/or disciplinary
actions” against Weir.
Weir’s lawyer Christopher Brizzolara is
demanding economic and non-economic
damages for his client, who has suffered
damage to his law enforcement career and
emotional stress.
Houston was last seen alive by her
personal assistant in her Beverly Hilton
room at about 3 p.m. that Saturday, the
autopsy report said. The assistant left to
run errands after telling Houston to take a
bath in preparation for a pre-Grammy
Awards party at the hotel that night, it said.
When the assistant returned to the locked
room at 3:35 p.m., she found Houston
“lying face down in the bathtub filled with
water, unresponsive.”
“The assistant called for her bodyguard,
and together they pulled the decedent out
of the bathtub,” the report said.
When paramedics arrived about 10 minutes
later, they moved Houston to the living
room floor. At 3:55 p.m., 20 minutes after
she was found by the assistant, paramedics
concluded she was dead, the report said.
Houston won six Grammys and sold 170
million albums, singles and videos over her
career.
In recent years, the singer’s
accomplishments were overtaken by her
struggles with drug addiction.
Source: CNN
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