The Police Brutality Thread

[wuapinmon]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/...e64_story.html

[TexTechCoug]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/...e64_story.html

That is disgusting and terrifying. I don't want to imagine suffocating while hand-cuffed.

This is along the vein as the 7 cops who killed the homeless schizophrenic.

[dabrockster]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/...183111733.html

The death of a man with Down syndrome while in police custody was ruled a homicide by the chief medical examiner’s office in Baltimore.
The 26-year-old, Robert Ethan Saylor, was so enamored with law enforcement that he would call 911 just to ask questions. About a month ago, he'd gone to see "Zero Dark Thirty” and immediately wanted to see it again. When he refused to leave the Frederick, Md., movie theater, security was called, and three off-duty deputies arrived: Lt. Scott Jewell, Sgt. Rick Rochford and Deputy First Class James Harris.
According to the Washington Post, "Saylor cursed at the deputies, who weren’t wearing uniforms, and began hitting and kicking them. The deputies restrained him using three sets of handcuffs linked together and escorted him from the theater." At some point, he "ended up on the ground ... suffered a medical emergency and died."

[wuapinmon]

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/...n-away/274692/

[Tim]

Not brutality, per se, but a blatant misuse of police power. Congrats to the Sun Sentinel on the Pulitzer.

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/201...ase-journalism

[The_Douger]

There's a cop that lives up the street from me that speeds non-stop through the neighborhood. He also flashes his lights to get through the street lights at night if it's red.

I think it's disgusting behavior, but you get hesitant to call on them because I don't feel like they exactly police their own.

[wuapinmon]

WARNING: HAS HARSH LANGUAGE NEAR THE END OF THE VIDEO.

This arrest makes me cringe. How is he supposed to know that he's a police officer?

[Eddie]

WARNING: HAS HARSH LANGUAGE NEAR THE END OF THE VIDEO.

This arrest makes me cringe. How is he supposed to know that he's a police officer?

Seems pretty crazy - I'd be curious to get more information.

Like - did the store ask the cop to tell the people to leave or did he determine that on his own? And if he did it on his own, how does the store owner feel about police charging paying customers with trespassing? Even more importantly - if he isn't the property owner and the property owner didn't ask him to intervene, what right does he even have to tell the guy to leave?

I suspect if the property owner wanted someone gone and called the police, they would send in the uniformed guys in marked cars rather than a random guy on his own with no partner or backup.

Hopefully there are some consequences for the officer if he is in the wrong - and it appears he is.

The one thing very clear from this (and a number of other videos) is that POST is failing to train cops to recognize that they live in a world of video cameras - and that they need to consider the Miranda warning themselves when getting in dick measuring contests because everything they do and say may be recorded and used against them. If not in a court of law, certainly in the court of public opinion.

[SoCalCoug]

The guy's not even a cop. He's a security guard for the state-run liquor store.

[SoCalCoug]

Apparently, this happened at an ABC liquor store, which is a state-run liquor store (you guys in Utah know what I'm talking about).

Also, this was a security guard employed by the liquor store, and therefore a state agent.

Some big problems here for the security guard.

1. First, he assaulted the guy without identifying his authority. Trying to take away a possession of another person is an assault, if I remember my law school stuff correctly (it would be a battery once he actually touched the guy). He did attempt to grab the iced tea before identifying himself as the "PO-lice"

2. He falsely identified himself as police. He is not a police officer, and while I doubt he will be charged with impersonating a police officer there in North Carolina, I think he should. He was not a police officer and exerted false authority over the guy as such. So to get a trespassing charge to stick, the owner of the property has to rescind permission to be there. The security guard never indicated he was acting on behalf of the owner, so I don't know how a trespassing charge can stick. Even so, it is the real police who have the authority whether to arrest someone for trespassing.

3. Even if he had the right to ask the guy to leave, as a representative of the store owner, he never identified himself as having that authority - in fact, when asked who he was, he instead falsely identified himself as a police officer.

4. False imprisonment. I'm not so sure that premises owners are allowed to detain someone who they do not reasonably suspect has stolen something from the premises. Apparently in North Carolina, the law is: "Detention is permitted where probable cause exists that one has committed a felony, breach of peace, physical injury to another person, or theft or destruction of property." Not sure that a "breach of peace" can be instigated by the person doing the detaining.

5. Finally, given that this is a state-run property, you have to deal with constitutional issues - such as in rescinding someone's invitation to be on the property, it can't be a violation of any of the person's civil rights - i.e., because he is black). A state-employed security guard better be very sure he's got probable cause of an actual crime being committed before detaining someone, or else he's subjecting his employer (the state) to a civil rights lawsuit.

In my opinion, the rent-a-cop was waaaaay out of line, and the guy did nothing to warrant being handcuffed.

[il Padrino Ute]

Police action beyond brutality in Bakersfield.

If heads don't roll, there is a huge problem.

[wuapinmon]

Police action beyond brutality in Bakersfield.

If heads don't roll, there is a huge problem.

Whether or not this is called criminal, these people should never be allowed to police again.

[myboynoah]

Answers needed in death of Tamerlan Tsarnaev acquaintance

I agree, this doesn't make sense now and it didn't when it was reported.

Of course, it does fit the Obama response to terrorism suspects, "Kill first, interrogate later."

[statman]

Seems pretty crazy - I'd be curious to get more information.

Like - did the store ask the cop to tell the people to leave or did he determine that on his own? And if he did it on his own, how does the store owner feel about police charging paying customers with trespassing? Even more importantly - if he isn't the property owner and the property owner didn't ask him to intervene, what right does he even have to tell the guy to leave?

I suspect if the property owner wanted someone gone and called the police, they would send in the uniformed guys in marked cars rather than a random guy on his own with no partner or backup.

Hopefully there are some consequences for the officer if he is in the wrong - and it appears he is.

The one thing very clear from this (and a number of other videos) is that POST is failing to train cops to recognize that they live in a world of video cameras - and that they need to consider the Miranda warning themselves when getting in dick measuring contests because everything they do and say may be recorded and used against them. If not in a court of law, certainly in the court of public opinion.

The store owner is the State of North Carolina. It's an ABC Package store the guy is standing out in front of. And knowing that changes the whole equation. The cop could have been working there legitimately, but even if he wasn't and was there as a customer, it's not a crazy assumption for a cop to think that someone standing outside a liquor store drinking is drinking alcohol - regardless of what the container says it is. The guys were being stupid. Perhaps the cop was too. The whole thing could've been defused by either one of them not bowing up their chest and refusing to back down. In such a case, the cop is going to win...

[SoCalCoug]

The store owner is the State of North Carolina. It's an ABC Package store the guy is standing out in front of. And knowing that changes the whole equation. The cop could have been working there legitimately, but even if he wasn't and was there as a customer, it's not a crazy assumption for a cop to think that someone standing outside a liquor store drinking is drinking alcohol - regardless of what the container says it is. The guys were being stupid. Perhaps the cop was too. The whole thing could've been defused by either one of them not bowing up their chest and refusing to back down. In such a case, the cop is going to win...

This right here illustrates a bias in your thinking that I have a big problem with. Cops can't assume without (depending on the circumstances) either reasonable suspicion or probable cause. It absolutely is a crazy assumption, because there was nothing about the guy's behavior that would lead to a reasonable suspicion that there was alcohol.

Your bias here leads you to think it's okay to trample on someone's constitutional rights, because in your mind it's not a "crazy assumption" that a black guy with an Arizona Ice Tea can has alcohol. That fact that you don't see it as a "crazy assumption" is evidence of your bias either in favor of the cop or against the black guy. The guys were not being stupid. Give me one example of what they were doing that was "being stupid." This wasn't a cop (he lied about that) - he was a security guard, and he had no authority to do what he did. What's worse for the security guard is that he was employed by the state, which means as a state agent, he has a particular duty not to violate someone's constitutional rights. The fact it's a state-owned property makes it worse for him, not better. The guy had every right to refuse to give up his can.