Bliss Barber Worrell, former assistant circuit attorney for the city of St. Louis, admitted to covering up the brutal assault in July 2014, as the detective was a friend of hers.
The cop and the victim are not named in the plea agreement, but a report by the St. Louis Post Dispatch found the details lined up with a case involving St. Louis police detective Tom Carroll.
The detective reportedly brutalized a 41-year-old man in connection to a case of fraudulent use of the Carroll’s daughter’s credit card, which had been stolen after her car was broken into.
The beating was so depraved that the officer injured his own foot and reportedly chipped his victim’s tooth after shoving the barrel of his gun down the handcuffed man’s throat.
Carroll had also reportedly told Worrell that "everyone" was laughing at the suspect, who was "screaming for help" as he was brought into the police station, as he had been informed that he would be beaten.
“An officer of the court allowed her friendship with a police officer to eclipse her public obligation to uphold justice,” Tammy Dickinson, US Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, said in a statement about the details contained within the plea. “This remains an ongoing investigation that extends farther than this defendant’s role in covering up an egregious civil rights violation.”
Worrell had reportedly been informed of the beating by the officer, but filed charges against his victim anyway. She was also informed by Carroll that other officers had joined him in the beating, including the shift commander who was on duty.
Worrell was asked to resign days after the assault, which she did. Carroll was initially suspended over the incident, but resigned two months later.
