Cops behaving badly (2.4)

Last updated on: February 4, 2015 at 12:20 pm by Fred Clark

Cops behaving badly (2.4) 2015-02-04T12:20:00-05:00 Fred Clark

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• “NYPD officer will be charged with misdemeanor for stomping on head of handcuffed man.” Just guessing, but I’ll bet that someone charged with stomping on the head of an NYPD officer would be facing more than a misdemeanor.

• Police in St. Ann, Missouri “apologized to a college student after they admitted to causing severe injuries to his face after accusing him of a crime he didn’t commit.”

Joseph Swink was driving home when a police chase got confused and crashed his car. Officers threw him to the ground, injuring his face, because he “fit the description” of a suspect wanted on 17 warrants. Apparently, the St. Ann police think it would have been perfectly fine and dandy to have injured that guy, because years of TV have them convinced that slamming a suspect’s face onto the ground is just part of the justice system.

• Police in North Miami Beach, Florida, were practicing. They were using mug shots of real defendants for target practice at their shooting range. Just any mug shots of just any defendants? Well, no. Just the black males.

Practice makes perfect. These officers were training themselves — fine-tuning a habit until it became an instinct. See and shoot. See and shoot. See and shoot. Repeat the process until the visceral fear and the lethal response become instantaneous and unthinking.

Lutheran pastors appalled by this practice came up with a terrific response: #usemeinstead. ELCA ministers flooded the North Miami PD with photos of themselves in their best Sunday work clothes, inviting the police to use their pics for target practice. (I should probably cross-post this item under Pastors Getting It Right once I collect enough of those stories for a full post.)

• Derrick Hamilton was released from prison and cleared of murder charges after serving 21 years of a life sentence for a crime he did not commit. Hamilton says he was framed by retired NYPD Det. Louis Scarcella, whose cases are being investigated by the Brooklyn DA because, it seems, Scarcella may have put a lot of innocent people in jail over the years.

• New York’s Finest poised to cost taxpayers another $5 million because they just can’t seem to understand that whole Bill of Rights thing.

• “Wilhite said the officer claimed he feared for his life and thought the dog was going to bite him.” This brave police officer was terrified he was going to be killed by a golden retriever. None of the other people present — including children — were at all afraid of the dog, but the police officer says he thought he was about to die.

This was, of course, in Missouri. A brave Missouri cop is kind of like an ivory-billed woodpecker. It’s possible such creatures exist, but no one has seen one for a long time.

• “We looked at this video — believe me we looked at it numerous times,” Pittsburgh police official Maurita Bryant said of a video showing two officers repeatedly beating an unarmed suspect 17 times. “We do not see anything inappropriate or wrong at this time.”

I believe both of those statements from Bryant. I believe that police officials “do not see” what every normal human sees. Rather than seeing something shameful, ugly, unnecessary and sadistic, I believe some officers watch something like this and, frankly, enjoy it so much they can’t resist watching it “numerous times.” Something important is broken or missing in such people.

• “Shelby County [Tenn.] Sheriff’s Office detective James Bishof, 58, told a 22-year-old woman who was accused of assaulting her boyfriend that he could help her by taking nude photos of any possible injuries.” It gets worse from there.

• Police Lt. Terry Shawn Williams of Charleston has resigned in advance of a scheduled termination hearing. Williams produced a series of videos featuring his daughter dancing to KKK music. “Those who have seen the seven videos … describe them as ‘disgusting and unspeakable,’ Charleston station WCHS reported.”

Asked about the “racially insensitive” videos, Charleston Mayor Danny Jones said they were “a whole lot more than racially insensitive.” In response to Williams’ resignation, Jones said, “Now all he can do is go back to his klavern.”

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