Houston Chronicle

Sat 05/26/2007

Jersey Village officers cited in complaint by rapper rep

Manager for artist Mike Jones says pair assaulted him, held him for more than an hour

By PAIGE HEWITT

A Houston man who manages one of the rap industry's hottest-selling artists has filed a formal complaint that he was abused by two Jersey Village Police Department officers.

Terrance Flowers, who manages platinum-album-selling rapper Mike Jones, also of Houston, says officers Virgil Thomas and Mark Zatzkin assaulted him May 20 after they arrived at his girlfriend's apartment while the two were arguing outdoors about 7 p.m.

"They just jumped out of their cars and pulled their pistols," Flowers said.

Flowers said Thomas, who is black, and Zatzkin, who is white, ordered him to drop to his knees, then forced him to the ground.

Flowers said Zatzkin handcuffed him while Thomas, whom he described as more aggressive and using threatening "street talk," put his foot on the back of his head.

Flowers said the officers "threw" him into a patrol car for a total of about 20 or 30 minutes, and that one officer pushed an on-off button on a camera inside the vehicle while he was in the back seat. Flowers said he never used profanity, raised his voice or resisted the officers' requests. They held him about 75 minutes before releasing him, Flowers said.

Jersey Village Sgt. Stephan Ruff said the department first heard the allegations Friday and the officers had never filed an incident report. Ruff said an internal inquiry has been opened.

Neither officer has ever been disciplined, Ruff said. Thomas has been with JVPD about five years, Zatzkin one, he said.

Flowers' girlfriend, Latisha Prudhomme, said her boyfriend "has never posed a threat to me," and that the officers were out of line and frightened her.

"I was like, `damn,' " she said. "Here it is something small turned into something big. They didn't have to handle him like that." The officers, she said, should have pulled the couple aside and "talked it out."

Flowers said that though there is no racial element to the accusations, "it hurts that (one officer) was somebody of the same race."