Probe goes on into N.J. man's death

As the murky details of Keith Briscoe's death outside a Camden County convenience store become clearer, it has begun to look more and more like a crime, an attorney for his family says.

Yesterday authorities announced that a medical examiner last week ruled Briscoe's death a homicide by "traumatic asphyxia" due to the 36-year-old mentally ill man's struggle with five police officers and three civilians outside a Wawa in Winslow Township on May 3.

"It was a rogue, thuggish and brutish act," said Stanley King, a Woodbury lawyer representing Briscoe's family. "I don't think I've ever seen anything so egregious."

"That's not a surprise to me at all," his sister Sunny Briscoe said of the ruling.

Initially, authorities said Winslow Township Patrolman Sean Richards observed Briscoe, who suffered from schizophrenia, loitering outside the Wawa and asked him to leave. Briscoe refused, authorities said at the time, and when Richards tried to arrest him a struggle ensued.

Afterward, Briscoe's family insisted that he was a regular at the Wawa, where he would have a cigarette and a soda three days a week between his sessions at Steininger Behavioral Care Services, a few blocks away. A video showed that Briscoe had purchased something in the store, his attorney said.

During a recent meeting with the Camden County Prosecutor's Office, Sunny Briscoe said, her family got a different account based on Richards' statements. Richards initially had thought he heard Keith Briscoe asking for money but had mistaken his voice, Sunny said.

"Still, he told him to move on," she said.

When Richards exited the Wawa later and asked Briscoe "where he belonged," he allegedly told the officer that he was a patient at Steininger, Sunny said.

"He said to Keith, 'I'm going to take you down there,' and Keith told him, 'No, I'll walk,' " Sunny said. "Then he said, 'If you don't get in the car with me, I'm going to arrest you.' "

Then, according to Sunny Briscoe's recollection of the statement, her brother turned his back on the officer and started to walk away. "That's when he went in to arrest him," she said.

The prosecutor's office declined to comment on Sunny Briscoe's account of their meeting but said its investigation into the incident was continuing.

"The homicide ruling states that Keith Briscoe died as a result of the altercation," spokesman Jason Laughlin said. "Whether there was criminality remains a question to be resolved by our investigation."

Richards' attorney, Tim Quinlan, said Briscoe "refused a ride, then became noncompliant."

"For Briscoe the pain is over; for Richards the pain will stay with him forever," he said. "Officers just beat themselves up for the rest of their lives."

King, the attorney representing Briscoe's family, thinks that Richards simply "saw someone he didn't like" and acted on it.

"I don't think his own police report justifies why he confronted Keith," King said.