But it seemed odd to me that Volin would throw that out on Twitter, no attribution, no setup, just a couple of quick hits.
It's also very odd that Volin stated the incorrect information of the officer being "out of uniform," when the prosecutor and the police officer both stated/testified that he was in fact a part of a 4 officer team who were on bicycles patrolling the bar area that night, had their radios, nightsticks, guns, and handcuffs on them--along with wearing all black with helmets on.
There seems to be some grey area to what some people consider "in uniform," so this would explain the controversy; but when an officer is part of a 4 cop team on bicycles who are communicating with their radios back and forth, and they are all carrying their handcuffs, one would lean towards them being easily identified in public.
"Out of uniform" would be defined in my opinion as an undercover narcotics agent who is on a buy/bust job that were wearing college sweatshirts and ballcaps, not a team of 4 officers who are wearing all black, but to each his own. Just thought I'd shed some light on why there has been so much controversy on this subject, but if you go back and read some of the earlier comments and court articles written this year in the spring from the local Nebraska newspapers they do make mention of this. I actually found one a couple of weeks ago and posted it in a thread, but I'm not going to go back and shuffle through multiple articles at 1:30 in the morning again. The official court testimony and statements from the ADA at the time stated that they were part of a 4 man team who were on bicycle patrol and apparently dressed in the usual all-black attire that we see in our towns every day.
If the officer wasn't in identifiable gear (as Volin seems to hint at), then 2 things come to mind:
1. It'd have been pretty difficult to honestly prove that Dennard knew that it was a cop, which would also mean that the charges of assaulting an officer would have also been more difficult to gain a conviction.
2. But much more importantly--Dennard certainly and obviously would have used this in his defense...and he didn't even try. His only defense was that he definitely resisted arrest when the cop tried to cuff him, and that he swung his arm around, but he claims that he doesn't think he connected at all.
That all said--I wouldn't dispute the fact for a second that the Lincoln cops have it out for him. That's unfortunately what happens sometimes, especially when you assualt one of their own.
Wasn't this recent incident in the off season? Sounds like he needs to just leave Nebraska for good. He may miss some friends, but if he flew them to MA for a week long visit he'd probably see them more than if he was relying on them to come visit him in jail, and it seems like that's where Nebraska is determined to put him.
Alfonzo Dennard currently has an apartment in Lincoln, Nebraska. I'm not sure where he lives full time )or what he considers "full time"), or how often he returns "home," but he definitely has an apartment there. It's been stated in at least a couple of articles that I've read. It appears that he has a girlfriend who lives in the town of Lincoln, along with many friends.
I agree that he should definitely consider staying away from there.
