A police officer was relieved of duty after he was caught on video kicking a man"s head like a soccer ball, while the man was handcuffed and being restrained on the ground.
The post Cop Fired After Video Shows Him Kick Handcuffed Man’s Head Like a Soccer Ball appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
Detroit, MI — A Detroit police officer has come under fire after video was posted online that shows him beating an innocent man with a baton after accusing him of shoplifting—but the city’s police chief says the force was justified and the officer “acted appropriately.”
The 65-year-old officer, who has not yet been named, was off-duty at the time of the incident and was still in uniform while working security for a local Meijer supermarket. He claimed he was responding to reports of shoplifting.
The officer apprehended a 23-year-old man who was near the entryway of the store and began questioning him about the items in his backpack. As The Detroit Free Press noted, even after “a female acquaintance of the suspect meanwhile, showed up and claimed she had a receipt for the merchandise. She was taken elsewhere by security personnel.”
Failing to acknowledge whether the piece of paper in the woman’s hand was, in fact, a receipt for the items in the man’s backpack, the officer continued to question him, while the two were left alone in the store’s entryway. Police reports claim that the man then “became agitated and made profane, hostile remarks to the officer.”
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The officer also made profane remarks and could be heard by witnesses yelling “Don’t be f—king with me!” at the suspect.
After the officer warned the man that he could be arrested for disorderly conduct, he attempted to place the man in handcuffs, and when the man resisted, the officer “struck him three times on the thigh with his baton.”
Police claim that the man then grabbed the baton from the officer and a struggle ensued as the officer tried to regain control of the weapon, which led the two out to the parking lot. However, bystander video shows the officer trying to grab ahold of the man with one hand, while using his other hand to strike the man repeatedly with the baton.
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The officer also hit the man’s face and head with his baton, which sent the man to the Emergency Room, where he was treated for a broken tooth and a contusion at the side of his face.
In a statement, Detroit Police Chief James Craig said that although the officer was off-duty at the time of the incident, “he is subject to all the rules and regulations of the Detroit Police Department and we are treating this as a Detroit police incident.”
As with many “Detroit police incidents,” Craig was quick to defend the officer’s actions, claiming that “it appears the force was proper,” even when the officer used his baton to strike the man’s face.
“I can understand that, if you’re stopped and you’ve done nothing wrong, you’re going to be agitated,” Craig said. “But this officer had the right to investigate, based on the information that was coming to him. So please, I would ask everyone, cooperate with us.”
There were several bystanders who witnessed the incident, and they can be heard on video making comments such as, “that officer can go to jail, hitting that boy like that,” which Chief Craig claims was enough to make the officer “fear for his safety”—a common excuse used by police when they are caught using excessive force.
“I believe the officer acted appropriately to de-escalate the situation,” Craig said, noting that the man was eventually arrested, and is in jail on charges of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.
It should be noted, as Craig admitted, that an investigation found no evidence of the man shoplifting anything from the store. This means that if the officer would have taken the time to listen to the woman who tried to intercept the situation with a receipt that proved the man’s innocence, the entire incident could have actually been “de-escalated” and ultimately avoided.
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Watch the video captured by a witness below:
Police officers in Tulsa, Oklahoma, were caught on video commending each other on their use of force in the arrest of a suspect—but the man they put in handcuffs was an innocent man they beat to a bloody pulp, after trespassing on his property. Now, he is the one facing criminal charges.
Jack Morris, a 53-year-old man from Tulsa, is charged with a felony count of assault and battery on a police officer, and misdemeanor complaints of assault on an officer, obstruction and resisting an officer.
When Morris was brought to jail on Aug. 16, his face was bloodied and swollen, his shirt was covered in blood, and he was eventually taken to an Emergency Room, where he received nine stitches and was treated for a broken arm. However, there are still questions as to how Morris became a police suspect in the first place.
According to a report from the Tulsa World, the Tulsa Police Department recently responded to an open records request by releasing 14 videos that gave insight into the events surrounding the arrest. While video evidence of the physical altercation was not included, the comments the officers made in the aftermath were included.
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At the time, Officers Joshua Dupler and Anthony First were responding to reports of a stolen vehicle. They were searching for two suspects, and they claimed they entered Morris’ property on the suspicion that one of the suspects was hiding in his barn.
Morris told the Tulsa World that he received a call from his neighbors about the officers’ presence on his property, and he drove out to the field to check on one of his horses. Once he got there, the officers told him that he was not allowed to go near his horses and he needed to leave.
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According to the officers’ reports of the encounter, Morris responded to their commands by balling his fists, squaring his shoulders and yelling, “Take me to jail, motherf—kers.” However, Morris claims that he made no attempts to assault any of the officers on the scene, and said they were ones who assaulted him.
In the video footage that showed officers commenting on the incident, one officer can be heard describing Morris as “one of those guys that does not understand how things work.”
“At some point he either head-butted me or threw an elbow,” Dupler said, describing the altercation. “I don’t know but I got a little mark on the side of my face. Then I remember him pushing up [and] you and I—he’s a strong bastard—he’s pushing up, and I fired off three or four closed-fist hand strikes, but they were, you know, medium force, literally just in an attempt to bring his hands back up so we could get access to his hands again.”
Dupler continued, “And then later on I think (Sgt. Kurt) Dodd or I put a knee into him, and me and you finally got both hands behind his back even though I know there were like four different times when he got his hands away from us.”
Despite the fact that the officers’ use of force—which included an abundance of pepper spray and physical strikes—sent Morris to the hospital, Dupler commented on what an excellent job they did. “Like literally, it was just a good [use of force]. You sprayed him. We got him in custody. He’s probably still gonna try to sue us just because he’s an asshat and he’s got money,” he said.
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As The Free Thought Project has reported, Tulsa Police have come under fire for a number of incidents, including reports of collusion among officers intending to steals guns and cash from citizens.
While it remains to be seen whether the officers involved will be held accountable for their actions, Sgt. Shane Tuell told the Tulsa World that the incident “will be subject to an internal use-of-force review, which occurs every time an officer uses pepper spray, an impact weapon or less-lethal option, as well as when an officer causes great bodily injury in another way.”
Morris pleaded not guilty to the charges at his arraignment, and his preliminary hearing is scheduled for Sept. 25.
