<p>Rogers</p>

Rogers

<p>Daniels</p>

Daniels

<p>Graham</p>

Graham

LUMBERTON — The $500,000 bond for the person captured Friday on video during an assault of a Rowland police officer will remain the same, the county’s chief District Court judge ruled Monday.

Judge Judith Daniels kept unchanged the bond given 26-year-old Jamel Alphonso Rogers, who was charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, felony kidnapping and resisting public officer in connection to the Friday assault of officer Michael Ethan Sale. The bond was added to the $500 Rogers had on record for failure to appear in court in 2019, according to information from the Robeson County Detention Center.

During Rogers’ first appearance in court Monday, which was made via video call, Daniels read aloud the charges that stated he “unlawfully, willingly and feloniously” assaulted Sale with his fists and kidnapped the officer “for the purpose of facilitating felonious assault and doing serious bodily injury.” The judge also said Rogers was charged with resisting for refusing to be handcuffed.

“I’m going to appoint the Public Defender’s Office since you’re still in custody,” Daniels said.

Video footage of the assault was not provided to the court.

“The state’s opposed to bond reduction given the severity of these charges,” said Daniel Braswell, an assistant county district attorney.

A Rowland Police Department representative was not present at the hearing. Rowland Police Chief Hubert Graham said he had been working to encourage a witness to attend the hearing, but was unsuccessful.

The alleged assault took place after Sale responded alone to a report of domestic violence at Benton Court Apartments about 11 p.m., Chief Graham said Monday after the hearing. The assault was recorded and uploaded to Facebook. It was later removed.

In the footage recorded by a bystander, Rogers can be seen assaulting Sale after he attempted to place him in handcuffs, Graham said.

“This continued on for 10 minutes,” he said.

Rogers held Sale down and began to punch him repeatedly until someone pulled him off, the police chief said. A Rowland police officer who was off-duty and other agencies, including the Dillon and Robeson County sheriff’s offices, State Highway Patrol, and Fairmont and Maxton police departments, went to the scene to provide assistance to Sale.

Sale suffered a broken nose and an eye injury and was airlifted to a hospital for medical treatment.

He was released from the hospital Saturday, but will be off-duty for an undetermined amount of time, Graham said.

The police chief said he was frustrated with bystanders who filmed the encounter, and the disrespect shown the officer.

“Society feels like that’s just part of our job, to be in confrontations like this, which it’s not,” Graham said. “It’s not OK.”

The incident could have been prevented, and because of a scheduling error, Sale was on-duty alone, the police chief said.

But that will not happen again on his watch, Graham said.

“If we would’ve had a second officer there this would’ve never happened,” he said.

The police department is in the process of hiring two new full-time officers, and is working with its auxiliary and part-time officers to place more officers on shift, Graham said.

The process of hiring a new officer can take about two months, and part-time and auxiliary officers are sometimes working for other agencies, which adds challenges to placing officers on the road.

The department is also working on a grant to buy body cams, which are expensive for a small department, the police chief said. Officers wore the cameras until the equipment became unusable.

Graham said he was grateful for the help from other responding agencies and for numerous calls of support from people and other law enforcement as far away as Montana and California.

“We’ve had lots of calls,” he said Monday.

This is the second time in 10 months that Sale has been seriously assaulted and the assault filmed by bystanders, many of whom did not provide help. While serving on the Maxton Police Department, Sale was attacked Dec. 28 at the Minit Shop, located at 207 Middle St. in Maxton, after responding to a call at the store. A 31-second video of the assault was recorded and widely circulated on social media.

Sale did not wish to make a statement to the media, but is eager to get back to work, Graham said. Sale has not expressed interest in quitting or ending his career in law enforcement to the chief.

”That’s been the furthest thing from his mind,” Graham said.

Reach Jessica Horne at 910-416-5165 or via email at [email protected].