What a week for Cops and their Toys!
A man with a legitimate warrant gets busted and is quite cooperative, yet that's not enough for the cops. They put the dog on him and when their search of him comes up empty, they plant some weed in his pocket. All on videotape.
Before that there was the deaf and mentally disabled man in Mobile, AL who took too long in a bathroom being sick and so the cops kicked in the door, pepper sprayed, and tasered him. Fortunately the local judge refused to let the charges of "disorderly conduct" stand and threw it out during the man's booking.
Then we get the pregnant woman tased at a baptismal party for her older twins.
Then we get the 72 year old woman tased by a cop because she wouldn't sign the ticket.
Oh, and how bout this one. Cops in Boise got a man in custody - in handcuffs - and then put the taser in his anus, for kicks. Here's a transcript of the audio:
Cop: Do you feel this?
Suspect: Yes, sir.
Cop: Do you feel that? That's my …
Suspect: Okay
Cop: … Taser up your ass.
Suspect: Okay
Cop: So don't move.
Suspect: I'm trying not to. I can't breathe.
Cop: Now do you feel this in your balls?
Suspect: I do, sir. I'm not going to move. I'm not gonna move.
Cop: Now I'm gonna tase your balls if you move again.
(A full minute goes by)
Cop: Okay, I'm gonna take this Taser out of your asshole now. Are you going to fight with me?
Suspect: No, not at all, sir.
Cop: (to another cop) So far, for the last two minutes, he's been cooperative. But then my Taser's in his ass.
And people were saying Louis Gates was over-reacting to that business last week.
2 comments:
Couldn't Gates have been over-reacting while these cops were being weiners at the same time or is that a mutually exclusive proposition?
A. Possibility
It is always possible that Gates was over-reacting. But considering the rather commonplace stories listed in my post here, cops' tendencies to wield their power all out of proportion to the situation they are facing seems just as likely.
Considering that the officer's own report doesn't jibe with what the complaining witness said - she said the only thing she told the cop when he arrived on the scene was that she was the one who called 911; he wrote in his report that she had told him she saw two black males with backpacks breaking into the house (she denies that and even on her call did not mention race and said luggage) - one can certainly question the cop's story.
I actually don't think Gates' arrest was about race, but instead about pissing off a cop and getting punished for it. Any DA will tell you that Disorderly Conduct charges are rarely prosecuted successfully when the arrest is made in one's own home. That's because it is a private rather than a public place. The cop knew the charge would not stick. He just wanted to bust Gates' chops.
That said I think we can all imagine racist cops exist, even in Boston as evidenced by http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090730/ts_alt_afp/usracismarrestuniversitypolice_20090730023532
The email that got that cop suspended included this hilarious pair of oxymoronic (and apparently illiterate) statements:
"I am not a racist, but I am prejudice towards people who are stupid"
&
"He has indeed transcended back to a bumbling jungle monkey."
If that's what was getting emailed after the Gates nonsense, imagine the private conversations that took place.
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