A man who was arrested after a scuffle with campus police at San Diego State University was convicted Friday of a misdemeanor count of being under the influence of methamphetamine, but jurors deadlocked on four other charges of resisting officers and resisting arrest.
After declaring a mistrial on the deadlocked misdemeanor counts, Judge Yvonne Campos scheduled a status conference for Monday morning for 20-year-old Marquis Dejon Campbell.
Deputy District Attorney Oscar Hagstrom told the jury that Campbell — who was not a student at San Diego State — made a series of bad decisions the afternoon of Sept. 15.
The prosecutor said Campbell was under the influence of meth when he went into the area around SDSU’s Open Air Theater and ran away from a security guard who tried to question him.
After police were called, Campbell refused to cooperate with officers who asked him more than 10 times to sit down near a Starbucks, Hagstrom said.
When Campbell tried to walk away, the officers grabbed him and — in an incident recorded by a student’s cell phone — took him down to the ground. Campbell is heard screaming and claiming the officers were breaking his arm, the prosecutor told the jury.
A blood test administered after Campbell’s arrest confirmed he was under the influence of meth, Hagstrom said.
Campbell’s defense team told the jury that although their client had meth in his system, he was not under the influence at the time of the incident.
The defense asked the jury to determine if Campbell’s arrest was justified and whether the officers’ use of force was justified.
–City News Service
