Police officers arrested a man for the heinous crime of jaywalking after they forced him to the ground and repeatedly punched his head and hit him with a Taser.
The post ‘You’re Going To Get F—ked Up Hardcore’ Cops Beat, Tase Man Repeatedly For Jaywalking appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
A judge has ruled that police must release the Body Cam footage, 911 calls and other records from the night of the Last Vegas shooting—but the release of Mandalay Bay"s surveillance footage has been ignored once again.
The post Court Orders Release of Body Cams in Vegas Shooting While Ignoring Casino Surveillance Footage appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
A police officer was caught intentionally turning his Body Camera so that it would not capture the scene as he colleague used excessive force on a handcuffed man.
A police officer claimed a woman was using her driver"s license as "a weapon" and attempting to throw it at him, but Body Cam footage showed the opposite.
Buckeye, AZ — Following a national outcry surrounding the violent takedown of an autistic boy by Officer David Grossman, the Buckeye Police Department is in damage control mode. In a press conference, BPD spokesperson Tamela Skaggs addressed reporters in an effort to explain to the public why Grossman confronted Connor Leibel, a 14-year-old autistic boy.
Skaggs described Grossman as a “drug recognition expert” with the department’s patrol division. As The Free Thought Project has reported, officers can attend a weekend training seminar where they learn how to escalate traffic stops under suspicion of drug use and charge more motorists with “driving under the influence of drugs,” even though many who are charged had no drugs in their system at all.
Reporters immediately questioned how a so-called “drug recognition expert” could not immediately recognize that Leibel was first, a juvenile, and second, a person with special needs—instead of someone who was high on drugs as Grossman admitted he believed Leibel to be. Skaggs said she could not begin to speculate or “get into his [Grossman’s] mind,” but said Leibel’s behavior was suspicious enough to make contact with him, apprehend him when he pulled away, and detain him.
However, Skaggs stopped short of saying Grossman took Leibel violently to the ground. Instead, she said the two both fell to the ground together. Leibel’s family maintains their son was injured in the process — having the photos to prove it — and they are demanding an apology from Grossman, for the officer to undergo community service within the Autism community, and additional training for the entire department.
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When asked what are some of the things the Buckeye Police Department can and has learned from this, Skaggs said her officers may now be able to recognize stimming activity is a sign of autism and not drug use.
Another reporter brought up the hypothetical situation that could have played out if Leibel had put his hands in his pockets and refused to remove them. What would have happened in that case? Would he have been mistaken as having been in possession of a deadly weapon, and would he have been shot by the officer? Those questions and more were asked of Skaggs, but she said she would not be able to comment on the hypotheticals. She insisted that she wanted to focus on what did happen to the young autistic boy.
As TFTP reported on Tuesday:
Grossman approached Leibel and asked him what he was doing. The autistic boy responded with “good” and that he was “stimming” — short for self-stimulation — the often repetitive actions, movements, and sounds many if not most autistic individuals make to calm and stimulate themselves.
“I’m okay. I’m okay,” Connor screamed as the man he was likely always was told by his family was there as a protector, in that moment, became his tormentor.
Anyone who knows anything about working with autistic individuals knows how to spot someone who is likely autistic. There are the tell-tale signs of repetitive behaviors, rocking motions, awkward social interactions, and inappropriate speech responses in some. And one thing experts also know is autistic individuals get extremely agitated, anxious, and sometimes combative when they’re touched.
Grossman grabbed Connor as the young teenager attempted to walk away from the officer, an action which was well within his civil rights since he was not a suspect in any crime. But Grossman quickly told him not to walk away and attempted to place the boy in handcuffs after grabbing him by the arm.
When Connor attempted to pull away, Grossman took him to the ground and held him there until backup arrived, all the while Connor was screaming in agony and trying to mentally make sense of everything happening to him.
“Don’t move…Stop moving…Don’t you move, you understand?” Grossman told the boy as a dangerous situation could have quickly gotten out of hand. If the boy had reached back and grabbed Grossman’s gun, what would have happened then?
“Why are you acting like this Connor,” he asked. “Cause I’m okay,” the boy replied.
The young boy’s aunt, Diane, heard all the child’s screams and approached the scene. She told Grossman she was sorry if her nephew had done anything wrong but stated he had autism. “He’s fighting with me,” the officer said being completely untruthful with the boy’s guardian.
At that moment, the officer should have removed his hands from the boy and allowed him to get to his feet. Instead, he held him down (a no, no with autistic individuals) for what must have been agonizing minutes until his backup arrived.
“He’s doing something with his hands…I don’t know what that is,” the officer stated. “You don’t have anything (drugs) on you do you,” he ignorantly asked again.
Predictably, the Buckeye Police Department investigated the incident with Grossman and concluded “no use of force” occurred in dealing with the teen. But his body and the pictures of the damage to his body, tell a different tale. There are bruises, scrapes, and cuts on the autistic boy’s torso that were inflicted as a result of the fact that a poorly trained “drug recognition expert” could arguably not tell the difference between someone who is on drugs and someone who is autistic.
READ MORE: Trump"s Drug War to "Help Police" Only Puts More Cops in Danger, Enriches Cartels
Following the incident, which took place on June 19, the Buckeye Police Department conducted their own internal investigation and concluded Leibel’s autism led to “suspicious behavior” which gave officer Grossman “reasonable suspicion” to believe Leibel was under the influence of drugs.
Just like that, a young man’s autism was declared to be a justified reason for his detainment and physical assault — in the land of the free.
They cleared the officer of all wrongdoing but added he may need to get additional training in being able to detect the difference between drug use and behavioral issues.
Watch the Body Cam footage below:
Evansville, IN — Three Evansville, Indiana, police officers won’t face any charges for beating a handcuffed man and lying about it in official reports — even though body cam footage proves their blatant lies.
Nick Henderson, Mark DeCamps, and Marcus Craig said they confronted 36-year-old Mark Healy during an investigation of a garage burglary — but Healy, they claimed, resisted to the point a physical confrontation ensued. Healy then tried to flee — and stabbed one of the officers with a syringe of liquid methamphetamine — but the trio managed to restrain the man and place him under arrest.
As Radley Balko reports for the Washington Post, those officers filed that report with Sergeant Kyle Kassel three hours afterward, who reviewed the information and deemed the use of force justified.
And that account stood, according to local media citing the police use-of-force report — until the Evansville Courier & Press obtained body camera footage of the incident disputing nearly every facet of the story. Balko explains:
“In the footage, Healy doesn’t resist at all. And the officer who was stuck by the syringe wasn’t stabbed by Healy, he was pricked by the needle while Healy was handcuffed. Contrary to department procedure, the officer failed to ask Healy if he had anything in his pockets before searching him. As you can see in the video, as one of the officers searches Healy, he pricks himself on the syringe. He then calls Healy a ‘motherf—–’ and strikes him. As Healy lays on the ground, Henderson and another officer then spend about three minutes beating him, yelling at him and threatening to kill him. The third officer just watches.”
Evansville Police Chief Billy Bolin reacted appropriately after viewing the footage, accusing the cops of multiple department violations, including official misconduct and excessive force. Bolin immediately suspended the three officers involved and the sergeant who signed off on their report. Further, he recommended Henderson, DeCamps, and Craig be fired and Kassel be demoted.
But the cops beat the handcuffed man on October 29 — and they’re still on paid vacation otherwise known as administrative leave six weeks later.
Indiana State Police investigated the incident and sent Vanderburgh County Prosecutor Nicholas Hermann — and last Thursday, Hermann dropped the ball, announcing no charges would be filed against any of the officers.
“During the news conference,” the Courier & Press reports, “Hermann explained at length his reasoning behind the decision — without outright saying he wasn’t pressing charges until several minutes in. He said his office could not prove Henderson purposefully struck Healy in a malicious manner. According to talks with Henderson and his attorney, Hermann said the officer struck the suspect with his elbow after pricking his hand on a needle that was in Healy’s pocket.
“He said there was no evidence Healy was ever punched. Hermann played a statement Healy gave to police immediately after the incident in which he said there were ‘no punches thrown.’”
Whether or not punches, specifically, were thrown, Healy clearly was thrust to the ground after the officer exploded at having stuck his finger on the syringe. In fact, Hermann’s analysis of the body cam footage is disingenuous at best, as it ignores the officers attacked the man while he was in handcuffs, and fails to address that the cop who poked himself on the syringe did not follow proper search procedure.
But it gets worse.
Despite flagrant lies in the use-of-force report, the Courier & Press explains:
“Hermann was also asked about possible perjury charges related to a section of the report that states Henderson, Craig and DeCamps were all working to handcuff Healy while he struggled to get away. That section directly contradicts the video, which shows one officer handcuffing Healy without incident.
“Hermann acknowledged the contradiction but characterized it as a ‘discrepancy’ during the news conference, citing the three hours between the incident and the time the report was filed as a possible cause. He also speculated the officers who wrote and signed the probable cause affidavit under penalty of perjury, Craig and DeCamps, may not have watched the body camera footage before writing the affidavit.
“Because of this, Hermann said it would be difficult to prove the officers intended to give false information.”
Balko cautions the hasty charging of perjury would be remiss as actual discrepancies on police reports aren’t uncommon — eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable — and the trauma of an incident and memory colored by self-interest can worsen that effect. He continues:
“But these aren’t discrepancies. They’re lies. The police claimed Healy resisted. He didn’t. They claimed he broke free and tried to flee. He didn’t. They claimed Henderson was struck by the syringe as Healy attempted to flee. He wasn’t. He was struck while searching Healy, while Healy was stationary and handcuffed.”
Balko points out that, under Indiana law, “A person who makes a false, material statement under oath or affirmation, knowing the statement to be false or not believing it to be true commits perjury.”
Henderson, DeCamps, Craig, and Kassel, all indisputably — even to the casual observer — committed perjury.
Hermann went out of his way to, in essence, nullify the law in order to clear the four lying cops of all wrongdoing. By his particular interpretation of the law — or, more accurately, his gymnastics routine to thwart it — the officers would have had to view the body cam footage prior to writing their report in order to have committed perjury.
As Balko notes, Evansville police procedure dictates officers must write reports prior to viewing any video of an incident — by definition that would mean Hermann’s strictures effectively render the law moot. Further,
“Hermann’s interpretation would seem to suggest that no Evansville officer could ever be charged with perjury for mischaracterizing a use-of-force incident in a police report. And this case only underscores the point. If this isn’t perjury, there is no perjury.”
Hermann asserted, “I have to show that they knowingly or intentionally lied for some reason. It’s common that they not watch the video prior to writing supplements. That’s an issue that we get all the time. And if we start going after police officers because there’s a line in a probable cause affidavit that contradicts what we see in the video, quite frankly we wouldn’t have any more Evansville police officers.”
Evansville Police Department officials dispute Hermann’s creatively-interpreted narrative of the beating — as well as the suggestion there exists a stunningly high number of discrepancies between reports and video footage.
But, for now, it seems Henderson, DeCamps, Craig, and Kassel, to varying degrees, will get away scot free for beating a handcuffed man and arrogantly lying about it in official reports. Following is the body cam video that should have given Healy a shot at justice — instead it serves as further reminder of the definitive American Police State:
