Looks like Officer Friendly's due for a little vacation.. a PERMANENT one! [yt=Beating]tYg7aBSpopI[/yt]
That video is pretty damning. I hope both the officers involved are fired and the one that did the beating is charged with assault and sent to jail for a little while.
My son lived in Bergen County for a while. He wasn't aware of the zipper law either, but luckily he never suffered this fate. I can't figure out just why this cop went apeshit.
My guess is that the guy they beat smarted off to them... still doesn't justify their actions or reason for harassing him in the first place.
A video edit that goes from the cop car rolling up skipping straight to the beat down. You even have the mother stating her son is a schizo, so without the unedited recording, it's impossible to say what really happened.
There's a cut in the video between the cops pulling up and the initial altercation. We also can't hear what's being said by either party. While it does look like the one officer went overboard, we haven't heard his side of the story. And what the hell is a zipper law?
Doesn't matter WHAT the guy said, the officers response was waaaay the fuck out of line. No matter what a person SAYS, there shouldn't be a street curb beat down. There is a reason we have a court system.
I want to see unedited footage. I hate edited footage. What did the guy do to get the cop to react that way? Maybe he did nothing. Maybe he put his fists and took a fighting stance? Maybe he called the female some choice words which can get other officers all riled up very fast. As for the "beating" even the guy says he was hitting him on the thigh with the ASP. We are trained to hit you on the sides of your arms and thighs to get you to comply with instructions. Those are areas that can sustain hits without serious damage to a person. You can see the suspect is not on his stomach but on his back and trying to sit up while the cop is standing over him. The cop was more then likely try to get him to turn on to his stomach so he could cuff him. What I want to know is why the female cop stood there and did nothing? In fact I'd bet the guy said something to her and she just froze. It certainly looked like it as her partner came around to grab the guy while she stood there. Probably a rookie. She should have been the one to deck his ass if he needed it. Then her partner could have jumped in. Otherwise she should have been all over the guy with the other cop as soon as he acted. Her rep in the department has just dropped. IMHO. The zipper law is probably some dumb law that gives cops an opening to sweeping homeless people off the street. Down here in South Florida if you have a milk crate they can arrest you for having it. Same with a shopping cart.
No it does matter what the guy said. For all we know he said he would pull a knife out of his pants and gut the officer like a fish. If he did he earned the cops response. And it wasn't a beat down. He got taken to the ground, punched in the face and then hit with an ASP because he obviously was refusing to comply with the officers orders to lay on his stomach and put his hands behind his back. You may not like how he was taken to the ground but LEO's aren't trained to be nice about it. Once a decision is made to take you down we are going to do what we can to slam you into the ground. If we have an ASP we are going to hit you with it until you comply with our instructions. If we don't have an ASP we are going to hit you anyway until you comply with our instructions. (I can't carry an ASP in jail but we still trained on batons and we still trained that once we were going to take you to the ground you were going down hard. There is nothing soft about it. It's about taking immediate control of the situation.) It's way easy to sit there and watch a EDITED video with NO SOUND and make judgments regarding the interaction of police and a man who's own mother admits he is schizophrenic. Get back to me when you have the audio from the police vehicle and even the footage of the responding back up officers.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=7773867&page=1 Here's some better footage. Now we just need audio of what was said.
Word. Just what the blue fuck is a zipper law? Where do the police get off telling anyone to zip up their jacket?
IMO cops who commit physical abuse like that should get lethal injection. Being in a position of power over people requires a much greater consequence as a deterrent.
Without audio, I fail to see how you can take a schizophrenic's word that he officer said anything other than "nice dick."
Here you have a shirtless, schitzophrenic...outside a bar....wandering around acting weird in a notorious neighborhood. If the officer didn't have fore-knowledge the man is mentally ill..or even if he did..he has every reason to believe the man is either drunk or high. [YT="Better video with timestamps"]ZqVU8aGg7J0[/YT] Halloway is clearly lying when he claims he never said anything. Did the cop go too far? Probably, but I still think we don't have the whole story yet. Here is an even longer and pretty clear view as well: http://www.1010wins.com/VIDEO--Two-NJ-Cops-Suspended-for-Alleged-Beating/4571359
Do show me such a law on the books would you. Cops are not immune from contempt any more than anyone else. If they give you a legal command that you are required to comply with by law, then you must obey or face the music. A cop has no other right to tell you what you can do in general. If a cop ordered you to wear pink pants you ca tell him or her to fuck off. Whether you'll get a tuneup is another question.....
