A friend in need

By: Conner Drigotas

Jonny be good

Jonny McCoy is a good friend. 

That’s why, in October 2009, when he got a late-night call from a lawyer buddy asking to be picked up at a bar - Jonny got out of bed, got dressed, and made the drive from his home to downtown bar Red Hot Tomatoes in Columbia, South Carolina. At the time, he was an insurance lawyer, a patriot, and by all measures an upstanding citizen with a sense of duty to his community. Having come from a home where conflict was the norm, he knew the value of stability. A little drive to help a friend was par for the course in Jonny’s life, and he was happy to help.

As Jonny stepped out of the bar after making sure his friend's tab was settled, he saw that in those few minutes, his inebriated friend had dug himself a deeper hole. Jonny didn't know why, but his friend was in the process of being arrested on the sidewalk. “I saw three police officers taking him to the ground… I could hear him suffering. I wasn't entirely sure what my friend had done wrong,” Jonny says, “but as an attorney, I knew he needed my help.”

Again willing to step in and offer support, Jonny approached and asked arresting officers John K. Passmore, James Heywood, and Amanda H. Long to which precinct they would be taking his friend. “Boy,” Jonny says, “they didn’t like that. The look on their face wasn't concern… they were pissed that I said I was an attorney and I was questioning them.” 

The security camera footage shows less than 20 seconds between Jonny approaching police, with his hands up, and when, in response to his single question, officers put Jonny in handcuffs on the charge of interfering with an arrest, and took him to jail.

The next two days would fundamentally alter the trajectory of his life.

Wrongly Caged

"The police officers didn't turn in my paperwork,” Jonny says, “so I was shifted to a general holding cell in general population."

For two days, Jonny sat in jail and questioned his long-held belief in the justice system. “I thought the world made sense… I trusted the government and I respected the police.” he says, “I believed that as long as I followed the law and did the right thing, nothing too bad could ever happen to me.”

Yet there he sat. Court proceedings would later vindicate him - but he was caged nonetheless.

His incarceration ran afoul of the code he had sworn to uphold as an attorney. “I never broke the law, and eventually video evidence proved that in court, it clearly contradicted what the police wrote in the report about the incident, but they stuck to the false story anyway.”

The officer's behavior didn’t add up when compared to Jonny’s worldview, but he was starting to see that wearing a badge meant some people were getting a pass to do horrible things.

“We know that coercion is wrong, and anything that's wrong for ordinary citizens to do to each other, like kidnapping someone for asking a question, is just as wrong when the police do it. Yet we let it happen all the time.”

On his second night in jail, while Jonny was struggling to make sense of his situation, he was subjected to an even greater horror. Locked in close proximity, Jonny was forced to bear witness as another inmate, a man named Olin Taylor, hung himself, committing suicide right in front of him.

“It was hours that this dude lay in front of our cell. Hours.” Jonny says, visibly emotional, “I don't know how to explain it, really, but when you are restrained in a cinderblock room and the only window is pointing to a dead guy who took his life… I started banging my head against the wall… I lost it. That was it. That was the end of the person I was before.”

Though the city would eventually settle with Jonny over his wrongful arrest, there was a greater price to pay. He had mental struggles he kept quiet, worried it would get in the way of his career; “I was afraid that the BAR would find out. I was afraid my clients would find out. So I kept it in until I attempted suicide.”

That rock bottom was the result of PTSD, drug use, and anxiety that pushed him to a breaking point. "I've come to terms with the fact that it was an attempted suicide, but in reality, I really just wanted to go to sleep forever," he said. "I just didn't want to feel any pain any more."

Even now, with a vastly improved mindset in the years since attempting to take his life in 2018, the impact of those 48 hours is part of his daily life.

“I can't find peace, and I'm constantly afraid. I'm even scared to drive a car, panicked that I'll be pulled over and abducted again. It's exhausting.”

The arresting officers, meanwhile, seem to have faced no accountability. Jonny remembers that “I was exonerated, but I never got an apology, and those responsible were never punished.” City officials went to bat for these officers, even after they caused prosecutors to drop their case against McCoy by refusing to testify and said they would simply invoke their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Their police incident report accused McCoy of grabbing an officer and getting in their faces, a claim easily disproven by the video of the event. Local news station WACH Fox 57 reported that “Nearly a year after the State Law Enforcement Division announced an investigation into the City of Columbia Police Department over allegations of officer misconduct (during the McCoy case), SLED and the FBI both tell WACH Fox News there is no record that an investigation ever took place.”

According to information obtained via Freedom of Information Act request, Passmore separated from the department in 2011, Heywood in 2017, and Long (now Branham) left in 2015 as a Sergeant. Request for salary and pension information was not provided by the city of Columbia in time for publication, but Elizabeth Williams from the Office of the City Attorney wrote, “I only noticed one (1) record indicating a Sustained policy violation, which was for Passmore from 2007,” indicating that none of these officers were reprimanded for their actions in 2009 and there is no reason to believe they would not qualify for taxpayer funded pensions.

So, what can be done differently in the justice system?

“When you have an unregulated group of individuals who know there are no consequences and that they can always inflict more pain on you physically or emotionally than you could on them it makes it so it's not about being bad apples.” Jonny says, “It's about the fact that we only hire f*****g apples and we don’t allow other kinds of fruit into the basket. What that means is these police officers are all government employees. They all go through the same training course, the same preparation, and then they are sent out. Something is amiss here with the preparation, with the education, with the plight of a person becoming a police officer. Something is amiss.”

White Flag

Jonny McCoy is still a good friend. In the aftermath of injustice, lies, and bearing witness to hardship, Jonny has emerged with a new view on life and a mission to improve his community that starts with Human Respect.

He explains Human Respect by saying:, “I don't necessarily mean we're kind to each other. We might be, but more importantly, we recognize that hurting each other would reduce our mutual happiness, harmony and prosperity.”

This naturally occurring Principle is one of the cornerstones of Jonny’s current career as the Founder and CEO of WhiteFlag, an anonymous peer-to-peer mental health support app.

“I found a new calling helping people who have suffered from injustice and corruption like I have. What I'm doing now can't change what happened to me or take away my anxiety, but I'm hopeful that it can prevent someone else from experiencing the same things in the future.”

Despite building a growing community of support, Jonny admits he is “a totally different person than the man he used to be.” The impact of his experience still raises questions as he sees the same bad behaviors from police officers and so-called public servants exercising improper Agency Delegation.

“We all know that a badge is not a free pass for immorality, and I think most police officers know it too. Even the individuals who unlawfully arrested me probably practice Human Respect when they're not in uniform, just like the rest of us. I hope that by sharing my story with you, we can get everyone to adopt a Human Respect mentality in all areas of their lives.”