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July 09, 2002
This movie wasn't good the first time
The Miami Herald, among other places, reports on the FBI joining the probe of a California teen's beating by police.
The FBI on Tuesday began investigating the videotaped beating of a black teenager by a police officer in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood, but the city's mayor demanded that the officer face assault, battery and child abuse charges without further delay.
[. . .] The videotape, made by 27-year-old Mitchell Crooks from a motel room across the street, shows Officer Jeremy Morse slamming Jackson, who was handcuffed, head-first into a squad car and slugging him in the face as other officers converge.
The incident sparked cries of racism and comparisons to the incendiary 1991 beating of another black man, Rodney King, by white police officers and triggered immediate investigations by three local law enforcement agencies.
Let's see: I predict condemnation from all but the extreme hard-liners, who will say the kid must have done something to deserve it; complaints from the police about how this makes their jobs all the harder; for every fucked-up thing the kid has ever done in the past, and anything he does in the future, to make the news as proof that he's no good; appointment of a blue-ribbon commission whose findings will be the same as those of every other blue-ribbon commission, and which will be ignored in the exact same way; and for this entire cycle to repeat itself the next time something like this happens.
The Scotsman has some additional details. Hey, I'm looking for sources slightly off the beaten track. Besides, since their biases are at least different than those of the U.S. media, they might be easier to detect.
The incident, which took place in the Inglewood area of the city on Saturday, was filmed by an amateur cameraman, Mitchell Crooks, who said he witnessed the incident from the nearby All Suites Hotel only 50 yards away.
"I saw the officer pick him up off the ground like a crash test dummy and slam him off the back of the car," he said.
"When he punched him at the time, I didn’t think anything would come of it because this is a daily occurrence with the Los Angeles police department and police in the United States.
"The kid was in the custody of the police and he has rights. What I got on tape was absolutely the crucial thing. He was already down, he was already subdued. He was already in cuffs, he was not fighting back."
CNN mentions that the -- am I allowed to use "victim" in this instance, at least? -- the person on the receiving end of the beatdown is "a developmentally disabled special education student with no arrest record who did not understand what was happening."
Well, at least the policeman involved has been suspended.
With pay, of course.
Still, things could be worse.
The kid might have ended up dead.
EDIT: The new Negro Tour Guide column is up, fixed the link to point to the one about Roger Owensby, Jr. He was another black guy killed by a white cop, this time in Cincinnati. I'm starting to think I should produce that set of trading cards after all.
Posted by Aaron at July 9, 2002 11:29 PM
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Comments
I'm all anxious to hear all of the justifications and excuse making that will no doubt link to this very post to point out what a police hating, troublemaker you are. Real, real anxious.
Posted by: goneaway at July 10, 2002 12:11 AM
I'm still in shock from seeing this beating. Am I truly naive in thinking that this type of behavior by police is preventable?
What strikes me as truly interesting is it appears that only one cop appears to have beaten Mr. Jackson, but his fellow cops waited before stopping him. Are cops allowed a certain number of blows/slams/choke holds before his buddies are required by department policy to restrain him?
A question for everyone else: is this a regrettable, but uncommon incident or business as usual caught on tape?
Posted by: Uppity-Spencer at July 10, 2002 09:19 AM
Whenever I try to answer, I just get pictures of Sanrio characters showing up. MaryMarubixCube, you out there?
Posted by: Aaron at July 10, 2002 11:08 AM
I'm still waiting for a pundit or 2 to suggest that without the video (w/o its broadcast) there was no wrong-doing, no crime, no foul, done by the cop.(At least nothing that would cost him his job) AND (as long as I'm wishing) How about a talking head asking (the camera or a police official),"How does a traffic stop for an expired sticker end in a beating & arrest?, No seriously I want to know." Meanwhile I'm wondering just how many people are in jail where 'resisting arrest' is the more serious offense. Jaywalking & resisting arrest? Public urination & resisting arrest? Loitering & resisting arrest?
(BTW I copied your 'prediction' & pasted it in the comments section for this link at the above url. Thanks.) In case you didn't know The LA Times links to the video (which I couldn't see, but the voice-over worked ok at 26K)
Posted by: Mr. Cieciel at July 11, 2002 12:51 AM
Living in Cincinnati Ohio I'm no stranger to police bloodlust. In response to Uppity-Spencer above, there is no way that this can NOT be an example of "business as usual" by the troops representing "our boys in blue." On a daily basis this travesty occurs, there's just no camera to record it happening 99.9% of the time...
Posted by: Joseph Ka'u at July 11, 2002 11:11 AM