Prison riot video of murder with “big gaps” may clear accused killer or prove his guilt

Aug. 7, 2018, 8:42 a.m. ·

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Did Eric Ramos cold-heartedly take advantage of a prison riot to murder a fellow prisoner or was he a “bystander” to the chaos and violence?


It is up to a jury of Johnson County residents to figure it out. The unique trial is underway in the courthouse three and a half miles south of the Tecumseh prison where the killing took place.

The Ramos trial opened in dramatic fashion on Monday, with the inmate’s attorneys claiming a “sloppy investigation” by law enforcement officers will not prove his guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Key evidence, including original copies of surveillance videos, vanished and other items were never processed by investigators, the defense claims.

RAMOS TRIAL

Judge Vicky Johnson consults with attorneys.

Asst. Attorney General Corey O'Brien

Defense attorney Tim Nelson

Eric Ramos
(All photos: Kent Sievers, Omaha World-Herald)

Ramos is accused of killing Michael Galindo, age 31, during the Tecumseh prison riot in 2017. Galindo was stabbed up to 130 times during three separate attacks. Able to crawl into an unoccupied cell, he died, according to an autopsy, suffocating on the smoke from burning towels and debris.

Prosecutor Corey O’Brien, with the Nebraska attorney general’s office, told the jury the case against Ramos is documented by a web of security surveillance cameras within the prison. Investigators will testify accompanied by a shot-by-shot breakdown of footage believed to show Ramos in a group of prisoners stabbing and beating Galindo. Later footage, O’Brien claims, indicates someone, identified as Ramos, brought burning towels into the housing area where Galindo lay dying. When security forces found Galindo dead, face down in the cell, a small fire still burned fueled by towels and other debris.

O’Brien speculated jurors might ask, “Why isn’t this an open and shut case?” It was his way of acknowledging the video evidence does not present a full accounting of Ramos’ movements. Corrections employees and other inmates will offer corroborating evidence he promised in his opening argument.

After the inmate thought to be Ramos removes a towel being used to hide his identity, “we get a pretty good view of his face” in one video, he claimed.

It’s not clear if anyone will testify they saw Ramos taking part in one of the three attacks. Some inmates in the vicinity of the attacks apparently are willing to testify and implicate Ramos.

A corrections officer in one of the guard towers testified Monday at the time of the disturbance he documented the scene in the prison yard using a corrections-issued handheld video camera. The footage supposedly shows Ramos and other inmates removing prison uniforms and burning the clothes in bonfires in the prison yard sometime after Galindo was died.

The defense says other inmates could still be charged for playing a role in Galindo’s murder. After a year and a half no one besides Ramos has been implicated. Attorneys from both sides may name some additional suspects in court during the trial.

Jurors will be asked to watch hours and hours of “grainy” surveillance footage showing different angles of the two housing units involved in the disturbance as it unfolded. O’Brien concedes much of the footage is “not of the highest quality and distant from the events” being recorded. At other times the state will take time to highlight and enhance certain segments of the video where investigators believe they can identify Ramos.

“Pay extremely close attention,” O’Brien advised the jury. “It can only be viewed (by you) one time.” Jurors will not have the opportunity to review the footage later during deliberations.

The defense of Eric Ramos breaks into three parts, as presented during the opening argument of public defender Tim Nelsen.

Nelsen claims his client had no motive, bringing to the jury’s attention the state’s prosecutors didn’t offer an early theory as to why Ramos would have wanted Galindo dead.

In the lead-up to the trial there were hints gang activity might have been a factor, but prosecutors didn’t reference either the accused or the victim having gang affiliations.

The defense also told the jurors what they will see in the low quality video from the prison security cameras does not clearly show Ramos taking part in the assault or the arson in the cell. Nelsen claims the recordings are incomplete and there are “big gaps” in the sequence of events shown on the recordings.

Nelsen also made the startling claim that the original videos of the disturbance “inexplicably were erased” by corrections employees. Recordings of all other sections during the riot remained intact, he stated. Only a single duplicate copy remained in the hands of the Nebraska attorney general’s staff.

There will be testimony, according to Nelsen, that the evidence collected “was infected by sloppy, shoddy work” conducted by inexperienced and inadequately trained law enforcement officials. He accused the Department of Corrections and the Nebraska State Patrol of failing to collect some important evidence and mishandling other items found at the crime scene.

Inmate clothing with blood stains, reported by corrections workers, was never collected, put into evidence or submitted for DNA testing, leaving the source of the blood a mystery, according to Nelsen.

Nelsen claims “the investigation was slanted from the beginning.” The prison’s security team leadership named Ramos as an early suspect before they reviewed the security system tapes, thus failing to build a broader picture of who might have been involved in the assaults and arson.

During pre-trial depositions, Nelsen says the investigator reviewing the tapes claimed she was “90 percent certain” she properly identified Ramos.

Nelsen said Ramos was not a murderer but “a bystander” to the chaos of the Tecumseh prison uprising.

The jurors in this case are not sequestered but will be hearing testimony for up to five weeks. For Johnson County, it was an exceptionally large pool of 100 potential jurors. Unusually tight courthouse security included all visitors on routine county business passing through a metal detector at a single entrance. Four Nebraska state troopers were also on hand.

In the weeks of preliminary hearings Ramos had always appeared in his prison jump suit, shackled hand and foot. During the trial he appears in court without the hardware in a shirt and tie.