Slashdot Mirror
Youtube Video Prompts FBI Probe of LAPD
PachecoJ writes "The AP has a story of a Youtube video showing police brutality that has sparked an FBI probe of the LAPD. A group called 'Cop Watch LA' placed the video online to draw attention to the actions by officers. The officers pictured in the video are now being defended by police defense attorney John Barnett, who defended the officers in the 'Rodney King' trial of 1991." From the article: "A search on YouTube for the terms 'police brutality' found more than 500 videos, including ones that claim to show police violence in the U.S. and as far away as Egypt and Hungary. A search of Google's video site also yielded hundreds of videos. In response to the surge in amateur videos, some law enforcement agencies have installed cameras in squad cars to protect officers against false allegations."
A little background regarding this incident that I can recall (covered days ago on other places, can't remember where);
1. Offender is a known "Gordon Street" gang banger in Los Angeles.
2. Offender had a warrant out for his arrest for accepting stolen goods.
3. Offender was running from the police officers before they had tackled them.
4. In the video, you can see the offender grabbing the officer's inner thigh before the officer started to punch the offender.
In my opinion, although this offender did get what he deserve regarding the first set of punches, I believe the officer went a little overboard on the second set of punches (first set is to let go of his inner thigh, the second set was to get him to submit to a roll-over for handcuffing).
Thats just my thoughts, please excersize your independant thinking!
We have it pretty good in the USA, you should see the other places in the world
Yeah... your obviously white and middle class... I recall being in Oakland and SF in 2003, the amount of homeless was disgusting. Come to think of it, I think on the TV there was a proposed plan to relocate the homeless out of public view...
Get your head out of the sand.
Excuses Are Like Assholes - Everybody's Got One
One officer has his knee on the guys neck, they both have his arms. While the officer on the left is calling it in, the officer on the right begins punching the guy while he is saying he can't breathe, It does not look to me like the guy is continuing to struggle at that point. They should be completing the handcuffing, but instead the other officer punches him several times in the face. I think you are just trolling. Go look at it again if you aren't.
Is there heaven? Is there Hell? Is that a Tuna Melt I smell?-Primus
The systems in use today in many jurisdictions record continuously to a hard disk, and mark time spans to keep, starting one minute before the flashers go on, to five minutes after they're turned off. The camera is always on, but to save disk space only certain parts of the recording are retained.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
> The judicial argument is that, IN SPITE of these established facts, his treatment was unlawful.
> Court concluded it was not. What exactly is wrong ?
Nothing wrong at all. Those countries quoted earlier have similar laws making detention and torture without being charged perfectly legal too.
> He is a terrorist.
Until he is tried and convicted in a court of law no he isn't. Having one law for yourself and another for *terrorists* makes you no better then the terrorists or states quoted earlier.
> Do you have any idea what that word means ?
I have lived in Ireland and England during the worst times of the troubles between the two countries. Do I know what it means? Yes I do. For me and family/friends I know it means having to be taken out school in England for fear of being beaten by children/adults every time the IRA set off a bomb. It means being segregated every time you took a flight or a boat. It means being treated like a criminal every time you entered a pub in England. It means having a rifle pointed point blank range at your face while customs check your car or being detained for over an hour being asked endless stupid questions and then getting an armed police escort to a plane yet.
For others it means being picked up off the street and thrown into a camp where you are tortured for months on end because you may have a similar sounding name as a terrorist or just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time or due to a clerical error on the pickup warrant. It means not being able to get work because people denote your race/religion to mean terrorist.
All that did was escalate terrorism in Ireland/England.
So I know full well what the word means. Do I agree with terrorism? Fuck no. However throwing laws out the windows or implementing laws of torture and denying rights to people to protect yourself is folly in the extreme and will only bite yous in the ass years from now.
And unless your willing to experience such laws enacted on yourself you have no right to claim that they are good or bad.
Here is more reading material for you.
http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/intern/index.html