A woman burned on her kitchen stove last June during a forceful encounter with police was due to stand trial today for resisting arrest but has had her trial delayed for a fourth time until February 11.
KEMISHA SAMUELS: Scarred on her stomach and right eyebrow by cops…

25-year old Kemisha Samuels was asleep upstairs in her Powellhurst-Gilbert apartment off SE Division, on June 17, 2007, when East Precinct Police Officers Walker Berg and Jacob Clark came into her bedroom and woke her by shining a flashlight in her eyes, she says.

Samuels followed the officers downstairs. “They never told me I was under arrest,” says Samuels. “The next thing I knew, he was forcing my belly down onto the oven and I could hear it frying, the flesh frying. And I screamed at them that my stomach was burning, but the officer just forced me down even harder.”

Both officers then grabbed Samuels, and hit her head on the open kitchen cupboard as they were putting cuffs on. The officers later tried to justify their use of force in writing.

“As I stated earlier, Samuels was extremely thin and limber,” wrote Officer Berg, in his arrest report. “Being this limber made her extremely difficult to control while she was resisting arrest, despite her small size.” (Samuels weighs approximately 120 pounds.)

The officers then took Samuels outside while they waited for an ambulance to take her to Adventist Medical Center.

“They told me to shut the fuck up, and they were laughing at me,” she says. “When I told them ‘this isn’t funny,’ they laughed again, and when I asked for their business cards they told me, ‘We ain’t giving you shit.’”

Samuels originally faced trial for resisting arrest last July, but that trial date has now been delayed four times: three times by the state, and once by Samuels’ own attorney, who was too ill for court.

“It’s ridiculous,” she tells Blogtown. “It’s holding me back from moving on with my life, I just wish they would get on with it.”

Samuels, who says she now fears the police, says she feels like the delays are designed to intimidate her. She filed a tort claim with the city on October 9, announcing her intention to sue for excessive force.

“Our client is eager to see this case brought to justice,” says Samuels’ civil attorney, Benjamin Haile. “And she is frustrated by these numerous state setovers.”

It’s against police bureau policy to comment on open litigation.