Video of an ex-NFL player"s alleged mistreatment by Georgia police has activist groups crying foul as it shows officers slam him to the ground and choke him, while he is in handcuffs.
The post WATCH: Police Slam Handcuffed ex-NFL Player on His Head, Choke Him Out appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
"They know how he is and they just let him continue," multiple cops shared their concerns after a fellow officer mercilessly beat up a 16-year-old boy and blamed his injuries on a car accident.
The post WATCH: Video of Cop Beating 16yo Boy So Bad, Even His Fellow Cops Were Caught Calling Him Out appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
A graphic video shows a Texas cop unable to contain his rage and unleashing a fury on an intoxicated woman half his size, throwing her to the ground and strangling her.
The post WATCH: Raging Cop Throws Woman to the Ground and Proceeds to Strangle Her appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
A bystander"s video saved an innocent man from jail as it exposed the cops who savagely beat him for no reason by proving they lied in their reports.
The post Video Catches Cops Savagely Beat Innocent Man with a Flashlight, The Lie to Cover It Up appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
A police officer was just ruled justified after he shot and killed an 8th-grade Native American boy, prompting outrage from the tribe who is demanding justice.
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.
For trying to save his pets while his house was on fire, an innocent father was tasered in the back—twice—arrested, and charged with a crime.
NYPD cops were captured on video escalating a minor traffic stop into a gang-style beating in all stemming from a turn signal.
A Michigan cop was allowed to quietly leave the department with no charges after video showed him smashing a handcuffed woman into the concrete.
Body camera footage of a Las Vegas cop abusing a woman was so bad that the cop was actually sentenced to prison this week.
Police officers shot a man with a tear gas canister and then lit it on fire with a taser which caused him to burst into flames.
For questioning why the city cut off water to over 1,000 residents, a Kentucky man was choked out by a cop and charged with menacing.
Cincinnati police now stand accused of using excessive force after police repeatedly tasered two young men during a domestic call out.
Witnesses were shocked as they watched a massive cop taser a nonviolent hospital patient in the back for simply walking away from him.
Pinellas Park, Florida – Sheriff’s deputies in Pinellas County are reportedly under an internal affairs investigation after alarming dash cam video was released that clearly shows them beating and choking a man who appears to be complying with their orders.
The dash cam video starts with a police cruiser driving around 70 mph down the street, racing past surrounding cars at 11:30 p.m. on May 25. Fox 13 reported that deputies were responding to a call about a man with a gun in a residential neighborhood.
When the police cruiser reaches a stop, 25-year-old Jimarez Reed can be seen crouching down by the side of a parked car. He looks shocked by both the bright headlights speeding down the dark street and by an officer who is already on the scene approaching him with a gun drawn. But even as Reed hides near the car, it is clear that both of his hands are raised, and he is not holding any weapons.
“Get on the ground!” one of the deputies yells, and Reed complies.
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While the camera continues to capture the scene, one of the deputies mutes the audio, and it remains off for several minutes. As Reed lays flat on the ground with both hands out, a deputy jumps on top of him and punches him SEVEN times in the head.
Reed’s attorney, Michele Rayner, told Fox 13 that she believes deputies used excessive force while attempting to arrest Reed. “You see the video, you see the officer, the first thing he does he jumps on him and just starts wailing on him,” Rayner said.
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“Don’t kill me, please. Let me go, let me go, bro,” Reed pleads, as the deputy responds by pulling Reed’s head up by his hair.
Another deputy joins in and punches Reed as he tries to force his hands behind his back. A bystander then enters the footage and appears to try to help police handcuff Reed. The first deputy responds by placing Reed into a chokehold. The officers continue to hit and choke Reed until two more officers pile onto his body, which has been face down on the ground the entire time.
WFLA reported that according to neighbors, the first deputy on the scene “chased Reed for some time” before the other deputies arrived and began recording the scene on dash cam.
Reed was ultimately charged with battery of an officer and resisting arrest with and without violence. After he was arrested, he required medical attention and needed stitches for the cuts on his face.
“They are roughing him up. They are pulling his hair. And he’s not resisting” Rayner told WFLA. “When I watched this, it was like air was sucked out of me. And I looked at my client, I said, I don’t even know how you are alive.”
Rayner also noted that if the officers believed Reed was armed, they do not appear to be following protocol. “They have standard operating procedures to deal with people who may be armed and I don’t think that was their standard operating procedure,” she said.
Once Reed was handcuffed, the dash cam footage shows five deputies searching for the gun he reportedly had in his possession. According to Fox 13, a gun was eventually recovered, but it was found in Reed’s locked car. However, the dash cam footage paints a different picture.
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While the information has not yet been released showing Jimarez Reed’s conduct leading up to the time when the Dash Cam began recording, the fact is that Pinellas County Sheriff’s Deputies were using excessive force by repeatedly hitting and choking a man who was clearly surrendering, and they should be held accountable for their actions.
“I’m on camera,” Trenton Police Sgt. Charles Lamin said, attempting to warn his colleagues about the presence of his Body Camera, as they bragged about getting away with using excessive force.
The topic of conversation among the officers in the patrol car was on the best way to subdue a suspect. Prior to Lamin’s warning, city police officer Tim Miller had been bragging about using “veteran moves.”
“What was the veteran moves?” Officer Gloria Garcia inquired.
Another female officer responded, “He gonna pull out the flashlight.”
“I ain’t putting nobody in the hospital, bro,” Lamin said.
“Know what you do? You go for major muscles groups,” Miller bragged.
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“I’m on camera,” Lamin warned. As if he didn’t care about the presence of the camera, Miller repeated, “Major muscle groups.”
A report from The Trentonian noted that Miller has been with the department for 13 years and is paid an annual salary of $99,838 and Lamin has been with the department for 14 years and is paid an annual salary of $106,158.
Miller also appeared to reference Trenton Detective Travis Maxwell, who was responsible for the police shooting that killed Aaron Veh Carter in 2011. Maxwell claimed he shot Carter multiple times in self-defense.
However, Maxwell’s actions following the fatal shooting serve as a reminder that often times, when police officers are not held accountable for their actions, they go on to commit similar—if not worse—crimes against the public. In Maxwell’s case he was recently named in a lawsuit the city settled last year for $213,000, according to The Trentonian.
READ MORE: New Study: For Every 1000 People Killed by Police, Only 1 Cop is Convicted of a Crime
The recent conversation from the officers in the patrol car involving Maxwell was about an encounter with a suspect in which the officers involved threw up him up the stairs before arresting him.
“Boom, I hit him so hard I broke the battery inside,” Miller bragged, flaunting the fact that he used his flashlight to strike the suspect multiple times.
The officers also discussed their involvement in a shooting that could have claimed the life of a man who was shot in the head.
“Is it a bullet or a pimple?” Lamin said.
“Yeah, one of those,” Garcia replied.
“A big black head,” Lamin continued.
Watch the full video of the Body Cam footage below:
In response to the cavalier commentary from the officers, Trenton Mayor Eric Jackson called for the police director to expedite an internal affairs investigation into the conduct exhibited by Lamin, Miller and Garcia.
“I strongly condemn any use of excessive force and the boasting about it by police officers,” Jackson said. “This behavior is intolerable; violates the public trust and department policy; and erodes the goodwill police are building with city residents and community stakeholders. We will act quickly and deliberately to hold officers accountable for engaging in conduct that denigrates community relations and the police uniform.”
In a statement to the Trentonian, the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union described the video as “despicable” and called for “police accountability now.”
“There needs to be an immediate, transparent, thorough investigation, not just of this incident or these officers, but into whether the Trenton Police Department has a culture that encourages the use of excessive force against Trentonians. It’s chilling to hear officers bragging about beating people with flashlights until the batteries break and imparting lessons on the best ways to assault someone without leaving marks. At a time when officer misconduct has fueled police-community tensions nationwide, these abuses of authority only serve to further erode trust, damage relationships, and perpetuate serious harm, especially in communities of color disproportionately affected by police violence.”
Police Director Ernest Parrey Jr. did not respond to a request from The Trentonian. However, the newspaper noted that he has not responded to any of its inquiries since it published Body Cam footage that showed him “calling residents ‘hood rats’ and making an illegal traffic stop.”
As is evident in this story, the use of excessive force by police has become so common that in some departments, it is joked about openly among officers. The fact that the presence of a camera recording their commentary did not seem to deter the officers involved is a testament to the fact that in the majority of cases, even when officers are caught on video clearly using excessive force, they are rarely held accountable for their actions.
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Atlanta, GA — Warren Hill was walking through the parking lot of Mall West End last week when he suddenly found himself being run down by a police cruiser. An Atlanta police officer is now off the job after he was accused of running Hill over after mistaking him for a suspect.
“It hurt bad,” Hill told WSB-TV. “My head, my neck, my back, my whole body. You get hit by a car, what do you think is going to happen?”
According to Hill, the officer mistook him for a domestic violence suspect. Hill, who was afraid of the police, decided to try and get away from the officer. However, the officer apparently took the fact that Hill tried to avoid him as a threat or admission of guilt and decided to run over the man.
“I was trying to get away from the cops and I was scared of the cops, so I ran. So they thought I was the suspect and ran me down like a dog or an animal,” he said.
To add insult to injury, after police realized they had just run over the wrong person, they still arrested Hill. According to reports, they realized Hill had an outstanding warrant for missing his court date—for a broken taillight.
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Hill, who was left with multiple injuries including a severely hurt leg will now likely file a lawsuit against the Atlanta Police Department. While the officer who ran him down will likely receive a paid suspension, the taxpayers will not be so lucky.
Hill was unarmed, was not threatening anyone, had not threatened anyone, and was minding his own business when this officer decided to run him over. The use of force in this incident was entirely over-the-top and unjust. Even if Hill had been the domestic violence suspect, the officers use of force would have still been unjustified.
READ MORE: Breaking: El Cajon Police Release Video Footage of Cops Gunning Down Man For Holding Vape Pen
Sadly, however, officers running over alleged suspects happens all too often.
As TFTP previously reported, a Prince George’s County police officer was found guilty of 2nd-degree assault in May after dashcam video showed him try to kill an unarmed pedestrian with his patrol car. Although the incident happened in June of 2016, the dashcam video was kept hidden from the public. After viewing it, you’ll know why.
On June 13, 2016, officer Juan Hernandez was responding to an incident of an alleged armed suspect. When Hernandez and his partner pulled up, the partner got out and chased the suspect on foot. Hernandez, however, decided to pursue him with his vehicle.
When the man turned and ran into a field, Hernandez accelerated and ran him down, proving that this man had every reason in the world to fear the police and run. Luckily for the alleged suspect, he went over the car instead of under it.
After running over the man, police found no weapons on him. However, after being run over by a crazed police officer, the suspect, 23-year-old Ulrich Boaoutou was charged with possession of a controlled substance, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and failure to obey a lawful order.
These incidents are similar to one the Free Thought Project covered in from May of 2013 when the two officers pulled over 23-year-old Najee Rivera on his motor scooter.
Police say Rivera got scared of the officers and drove off. Both of the officers wrote in their official reports that Rivera fell off of his scooter and hit the pavement.
READ MORE: When Citizens Behave Like Law Enforcement They are Arrested -- Why aren"t Cops?
According to the officers’ account, Rivera resisted arrest, tried to grab a police baton, and that’s when one of the officers hit him in the face. Rivera was subsequently charged with resisting arrest and aggravated assault.
Their entire account of what happened was a lie.
After they ran over the innocent man, Officers Kevin Robinson and Sean McKnight were charged with Aggravated Assault, Simple Assault, Criminal Conspiracy, Recklessly Endangering Another Person, Tampering with Public Records or Information, False Reports to Law Enforcement Authorities, Obstructing Administration of Law, and Official Oppression.
Sadly, last year, after a jury saw video of two cops run down an innocent man in their cruiser, beat him to a pulp, lie on the report, and cover it up, the corrupt cops were acquitted.
White Plains, NY – Critics are saying police have reached a new behavioral low with the way they dealt with a 72-year-old man who is now suing the White Plains Police Department for unnecessary and excessive force, and has the injuries to prove it.
Charles Pateman was trying to intervene in a domestic dispute between his fiance’ and her daughter. The residential surveillance camera shows the elderly man attempting to get into the elevator to go up to his apartment when police grabbed the well-known businessman and developer, slamming him into the wall and then the floor. After several moments of rough handling, they then placed him in handcuffs.
The officers involved demanded Pateman “stand up or we’ll drag you out,” a command which arguably could be difficult for a person over the age of 70 to comply with.
After he got to his feet, and was taken to the squad car, Mr. Pateman asked the arresting officer to loosen his handcuffs. The reasonable request was answered rather sarcastically as the officer replied, “they’re not built for comfort, sir.”
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Even though Pateman politely asked repeatedly for the officers to loosen his cuffs, they refused. The mild-mannered businessman was reportedly respectful throughout the arrest but even asking nicely wasn’t enough to get the officers to release the compression on the cuffs.
As a result, the elderly man’s wrists began to bleed, saturating his clothes with blood, his lawyer said recounting the arrest. Randolph McLaughlin Esq. of Newman Ferrara LLP is representing Pateman in a federal civil rights lawsuit against the police department and the city. He addressed reporters saying:
“The officers viciously and brutally slammed him against the wall and then handcuffed him in such a tight fashion that when you see the video, you’ll see pools of blood dripping around his hands. His clothes were filled with blood.”
McLaughlin criticized the officers’ handling of his client. “They were cavalier. They were brutal and they were indifferent to this man’s medical needs,” he charged.
READ MORE: Innocent Woman Repeatedly Raped and Sodomized by Doctors, Nurses, and Police in Search of Pot
“Twelve times throughout the incident, I asked them to loosen the cuffs,” Pateman said. “I could feel the blood running down my hands. It was unbelievable to me.”
Pateman also said he had to wait several hours before receiving medical attention, and he defended his actions on that fateful night. He said:
“I’m 72, two officers with guns? I’m a threat to them? Please! You know…just unbelievable…I’m a very respectful man, have been my entire life…I’ve been a supporter of police my entire life and never had any problems whatsoever…Born and raised in Westchester County.”
Pateman said he fears that if he doesn’t speak up and speak out the police will continue hurting the elderly. “If this could happen to me it could happen to anyone and obviously the White Plains police are not trained appropriately or this would not happen,” he said.
The well-known real estate developer described how traumatic his rough handling and injuries have been to his emotional state of mind. “This has been a very traumatic event in my life, something I could not believe could happen,” he said.
As The Free Thought Project has reported, interactions with the elderly must be taken very seriously. Senior citizens are even more susceptible to suffering from both fractures and broken bones—injuries that could greatly impact their quality of life.
A California woman suffered a broken hip when a police officer ignored her demands for a search warrant before forcibly entering her home and knocking the woman to the floor. The injury led to her physical demise. Even though she won a nearly million-dollar lawsuit—paid for by taxpayers—she died before she was ever able to spend a dime.
READ MORE: Investigation After Cops Kill Unarmed Teen Reveals Epidemic of Motorists Killed by Police
Predictably, the White Plains leadership, instead of issuing an apology, vowed to vehemently defend the charges of police brutality. Karen Pasquale, Senior Advisor to the White Plains Mayor, issued the following statement:
“In matters of litigation it is our policy to not comment while litigation is pending. We have not yet received the papers in the lawsuit, but we are aware of the case and intend to vigorously defend it in court.”
An apology could possibly avoid litigation and a costly settlement with the city that will potentially cost taxpayers millions. But that will probably never happen, leaving many scratching their heads in disbelief as it remains to be seen whether the officers who arrested Charles Pateman will be held accountable for their actions.
Denver, CO — Two Denver Sheriff Department deputies have been suspended following an investigation into the use of excessive force on an inmate under their control. The deputies were seen on video using excessive force against their opponent — a single arm.
Deputy Daniel Trujillo, who’s been with the department since 2014, received a 60-day suspension for his role in the incident. Deputy Matthew Hammernik, who has only been with the department since 2016, received an 18-day suspension.
The incident happened last October when deputies were distributing food to inmates. The inmate in question happened to be mentally ill, suicidal, and was known as a problem in the jail. When it came time to get him his food, the inmate stuck his arm through the door and refused to pull it back in.
As seen in the video, once the inmate had his arm through the door, a stand off between the cops and the arm began. Lasting over 5 minutes, the deputies resorted to multiple violent tactics — instead of simply stepping back, calling a supervisor, or just waiting.
At first, the deputies began twisting the mentally ill man’s arm in an attempt to shove it back through the door. It looked as if they were going to snap his bone as they rolled it around in a futile attempt at shoving the arm back through.
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At this point, a supervisor should’ve been called. However, they pulled out their nunchaku instead.
The nunchaku is used by deputies for self-defense and to control people. However, they were used to beat an inmate’s non-threatening arm in this case.
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Trujillo pulled out his nunchaku and began striking the inmate’s arm repeatedly, but this had no effect.
During the struggle, the man’s arm became lodged in the door and the deputies helped him to free it. However, at this point, they wrapped their nunchaku around the man’s arm, continuously applying more and more pressure for several minutes. Finally, likely due to the fact that he was injured, the inmate pulled his arm back in the cell and the flap was closed.
According to FOX 31, Trujillo was also suspended earlier this year for not responding quickly enough to an inmate’s suicide attempt. Hammernik was recently hired as a deputy. His attorneys argue he never should have been assigned to this unit while still on probation.
As the Denver Post reports,
The incident was not the first time Denver deputies have used excessive force against an inmate who refused to keep his arms and hands inside his cell.
Earlier this year, Deputy Thao Nguyen was suspended for 10 days after he used his Taser to shock the fingers of an inmate who would not remove his fingers from a door flap. That incident happened in 2015.
In 2016, Deputy Steven Roybal was fired for kicking a cell-door flap and smashing an inmate’s fingers. The inmate had become agitated during breakfast and had thrown hot coffee and tray through the slot and had refused to move his fingers.
Trujillo and Hammernik claim that their incompetent and violent response to the man’s arm was due to the lack of training they received. Deputies told investigators they had not been trained in regaining control of door flaps from mentally ill inmates who may force their arms through them.
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Trujillo and Hammernik have since appealed their suspensions according to Daelene Mix, spokeswoman for the Denver Department of Public Safety.
“It remains the department’s view the decision by deputies Trujillo and Hammernik to engage with the inmate was completely unnecessary,” Mix said. “He was in a locked cell and that greatly reduces any threat he posed.”
The deputies’ punishment certainly seems worthy given all the facts and the ridiculous video above. However, it sheds light on the lack of punishment other officers enjoy for acts of brutality far worse this one.
Ehud Halevy, 22, is one such victim of brutality, in which his attackers, two NYPD cops, were not punished. Halevy was sleeping in a back room of the Aliya Institute in Crown Heights, when a security guard called police. Although youths were sometimes allowed to sleep there, the guard was apparently alarmed because Halevy was shirtless and not wearing pants.
“When we watched the video and saw some of New York’s finest behaving in a not very fine way, brutalizing an individual for absolutely no reason, it was just something horrible,” said Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind.
Despite having permission to be there, having broken no law, and police having no reason for their violence — only the taxpayers of New York were held liable — not the cops.
Ashland City, TN — A horrifying video was just released as part of a lawsuit on behalf of an 18-year-old man who was tasered over and over again while strapped in a restraining chair. The video looks like something out of horror movie.
The nightmare for Jordan Norris began last year, in November, when a SWAT team raided his home because he was allegedly selling drugs. Selling willing people a substance they want to voluntarily ingest, however, in no way justified the treatment Norris would receive.
After Norris was arrested, he had somewhat of a mental breakdown and began banging his head against the cell door. So, police dragged him out of his cell and strapped him in a restraint chair.
In the extremely disturbing video, Cheatham County Sheriff’s Deputies are seen holding Norris down with a gag while another deputy sadistically and repeatedly deploys the taser. Naturally, Norris squirmed as 50,000 volts ran through his body. His movement seemed to provoke the deputies who responded with more taser strikes.
At one part in the video, you can hear a deputy tell Norris, “I’ll keep doing that until I run out of batteries.”
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Norris said he remembered deputies asking him, “Do you want me to do it again? We got a whole bunch of batteries we can drain into you pretty much. We will do it over and over until we have no more.”
When Norris was released from prison, he was covered in burn marks from the taser. Somehow he made it through the torture without his heart stopping.
Willian Chapman, Norris’ stepfather, said he gave the police the benefit of the doubt when he saw his stepson’s wounds. He thought Norris must’ve been resisting in some way. However, once they saw the video, it was entirely clear that Norris was in no way resisting — as he was buckled down in a restraint chair.
READ MORE: Cop Beats and Pepper Sprays Pregnant Woman, Puts Child In Chokehold At Preschool Graduation
“I said, ‘Jordan what is that?’ It looked like he had the measles. And he said, ‘That’s where they tased me.’ I could not wrap my head around that,” William Chapman said.
Chapman told News Channel 5 that he counted more than forty burns.
“I was actually giving the police benefit of the doubt over my own child because I was thinking he must have been fighting back, he must have been resisting,” Chapman said.
He was not.
“When I found that he was actually strapped to a restraint chair, it was even more mind boggling. It didn’t make any sense,” Chapman said.
When you watch the video below, you will likely agree with Chapman. What the deputies were doing to Norris with the taser did not make any sense at all. Why on earth would they choose to torture this young man repeatedly with a taser?
Thanks to a post on the sheriff’s department’s Facebook page, we now have a possible answer to that question. The sheriff had a personal vendetta against Norris and took to publicly taunting him.
In the Facebook post, the sheriff called Norris “a drug dealer by trade and on the fast track to live the thug Life.” The sheriff even noted that Norris “peed a little bit,” while being handled by SWAT.
Sheriff Mike Breedlove even stood by his Facebook comments, claiming that they normally make humorous posts after busting people for selling substances deemed illegal by the state.
After he refused to back down for taunting Norris, the sheriff went on to justify the sadistic actions of his deputies by stating that it was necessary. He said his deputies had to taser Norris over 40 times because he kept flinching.
READ MORE: VIDEO: Police Shoot Man in the Back as He Walked Away — Execute Him as He Crawled for His Life
In the video below, you will watch — what looks like a scene out of Nazi Germany — however, this is taking place right in our backyard. When police can claim that torturing a man, who is restrained in a chair, is justified, the time for radical change is long overdue.
