http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/sfl-bn-0304video,0,1616907.story
First the cops attack the guy, then they lie about it and he is hit with felony battery on a police officer, the the video surfaces. The prosecutor amends the charges to resisting arrest, and eventually drops them.
"Fort Lauderdale police internal affairs investigators reviewed the incident more than a month ago and found no violations of policy or procedures, said Sgt. Frank Sousa, the department’s spokesman."
WTF is that?
If such behavior is allowed under department policy, the entire policy should be trashed.
These specific officers should be nailed with Perjury, False Arrest, assault, and civil rights violations, and spend some serious time in jail themselves.
There...is that more of what you were looking for last time you went fishing?
Sunday, March 8, 2009
This post is for Tim
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3 comments:
I'm wondering if this behavior has always been endemic to police forces and only now are we finally busting cops for it.
This is going to sound like a half-ass answer, but I think in some areas it was worse...a lot worse. In some areas it was better.
Generally, in larger cities with a more stratified society, it was worse. Part of this is the people who were getting the beat-down were powerless.
Move to a city with a very large base of middle class and just a few ultra rich and ultra poor and it was much less frequent.
Now, it seems because of a lot of new rules protecting police from prosecution, and the fact that the police are strangers to the community, it seems to be happening a lot
p.s.
Here's my take on it. We ask cops to put their butts on the line, and to frequently go into situaitons where the fight-or-flight reflex is kicking into high gear...and we demand they choose fight not flight.
I think we should be a little more forgiving of the occasional 'go too far' (within reason...a couple punches before you regain composure right after a struggle, not take him back to the station house and sodomize him with your nightstick)
We need to communicate this to the police. Tell them such behavior is unacceptable, but understandable. Hence, the punishment will be loss of 1 day of pay, and the guy getting the bad end of it will get some pre-established settlement.
Basically a system where it is discouraged, with a few teeth, but not so bad that officers figure it is better to lie, stonewall, whitewash, and snowjob a guy into a serious felony conviction rather than face the music themselves
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