Man who scuffled with police dies *update*

[HumblePie]

Really, completely shocked?

You hit the nail on the had with "they didn't think their actions would "kill" him"


For someone inside the thin blue line gang, that is an INSTANT get out of jail free card unless it was premeditated by a few hours or longer.

There are situations where a thin blue line gang member said (paraphrased) "motherfucker's about to die", then KILLED someone, then claimed they didn't actually think beating their head in on a sidewalk would kill them even though they showed premeditated intent..... And the gang member walked. In that particular situation his fellow gang members refused to roll on him, which was a large part of it, but still.

No, completely shocked. The officer escalated the situation to a physical one without need. Training make them only escalate use of force in certain situations. The officer not getting the answers he wants while questioning the man does not constitute an escalation in use of force. The officer stating he was going to "Fuck him up" before he lays hands on the Kelly Thomas was the key point that shows intent of the officer for a desire to cause harm and not care about the outcome.

The defense of "not expecting a death" is a bullshit in light of that one statement by the original officer. It is clear to me and most people the officer expressed his intent to cause grave bodily harm on Kelly Thomas for his own satisfaction. If I said such a statement to you, you would have every legal right to defend your life against my expressed intent as a credible threat. If that officer had been anyone but a cop they would be in jail right now for murder. Officers deserve protection for use of force when needed for their job. Their job requires the need to use force on occasion. But even that is subject to rules and bounds as it should be.

If the officer had never stated the intent to cause grave bodily harm from the get go, I would find the verdict perfectly acceptable. I have no problem with an officer needing to get physical to place cuffs on a person and subdue them if they are resisting an arrest. I have a problem with an officer wanting to use force for the sole purpose of just wanting to use it. That's when they cross the line from doing their job to being a criminal in my mind. Which technically is the law as well, as evidenced by the fact that the case went this far. If there wasn't a good chance the cops would have received a guilty verdict, the DA wouldn't have made the case. You know this and I know this. This is why the verdict is a shock.

 

[Kadarin]

The police are themselves the worst gangs in the country.

 

[Perknose]

What scares me the most about cases like this, Zimmerman, OJ, etc. is the number of people calling for a new federal investigation/charges following an acquittal. We're all entitled to dislike a jury's verdict, but you're pretty much spitting on the Constitution when you call for ignoring the verdict. It scares the shit out of me that a large segment of the population is perfectly OK with the government getting a second, third, fourth etc. bite at the apple until it gets a conviction. That's not a country I want to live in.

I hear you, but . . .

A) There has to be legal federal jurisdiction for that to happen.

B) In the 50's up through part of the 60's when a black man just could not get an even remotely fair trial in front of all white Southern juries -- don't you wish the Feds would have had legal cover to drag the South into the (then) late 20th Century?

Or are/were you content with the murderous abuses white thugs routinely got away with? After all, the Klan were the original hoodie wearers.

 

[Jeeebus]

I hear you, but . . .

A) There has to be legal federal jurisdiction for that to happen.

B) In the 50's up through part of the 60's when a black man just could not get an even remotely fair trial in front of all white Southern juries -- don't you wish the Feds would have had legal cover to drag the South into the (then) late 20th Century?

Or are/were you content with the murderous abuses white thugs routinely got away with? After all, the Klan were the original hoodie wearers.

There's a lot that I wish were different with our system, but until someone points me to a foolproof/abuse-free alternative, it's the best out there. Our history is what it is - if black men got fair trials in the 50's and 60's, then we wouldn't have masterpieces like To Kill a Mockingbird, so I guess it all evens out in the end.

In all seriousness, we can easily point to examples where the system appears to be unfair or have failed in application, but altering fundamental protections guaranteed by the Constitution because we are unhappy with a particular case is not good practice.

 

[Pneumothorax]

I am also shocked at the verdict. I hope there is an appeal to this. I really do not see how the cops won their case at all. The only defense they had was that they didn't think their actions would "kill" him and that he only died because drugs *may* have weakened his heart. That their actions wouldn't have killed someone without a weak heart. That is a pure bullshit defense. Their attacks most certainly would have been capable of killing anyone. The prosecution should have used many other such cases to prove that point. As Nintendesert stated, attacks to the head at any point can kill someone. There is ample evidence that shows this. The cops describing their actions to do harm before they do them shows an intent to try to kill the man. It's mind blowing the verdict in this case.

There's this thing called double jeopardy. I'm appalled on how spineless these jurists are. I would hang a jury even with a jerk off criminal defense foreman was pressuring me to acquit. The only remote chance of jail time for these guys is going to have to come from a federal case

 

[tcsenter]

I am also shocked at the verdict. I hope there is an appeal to this. I really do not see how the cops won their case at all. The only defense they had was that they didn't think their actions would "kill" him and that he only died because drugs *may* have weakened his heart. That their actions wouldn't have killed someone without a weak heart. That is a pure bullshit defense.

Well there have been a number of cases where security guards or police have been either prosecuted, sued, or just lambasted in the press for "causing" a death where the subject actually did have considerable heart disease and other risk factors for cardiac death (e.g. obesity and smoking), as confirmed by the medical examiner through postmortem exam or necropsy, which the officers could not have known in advance (and it wouldn't have much changed their approach or tactics even if they did). But in many of these cases, there were no other injuries beyond abrasions and bruising consistent with a vigorous struggle or resistance. i.e. the subject did not have multiple facial fractures from being pounded repeatedly in the face with an object. They just dropped dead from extreme physical exertion because their diseased/weak heart couldn't handle it.

 

[tcsenter]

There's this thing called double jeopardy. I'm appalled on how spineless these jurists are. I would hang a jury even with a jerk off criminal defense foreman was pressuring me to acquit. The only remote chance of jail time for these guys is going to have to come from a federal case.

It appears this may have been one of those cases where the DA carefully selected charges that would have been an uphill battle to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, in order to appease his cop buddies and the police union. According to one article, they were charged with crimes "under the color of authority". This actually requires an element of premeditation and intent. This is the charge that you use against corrupt and dishonest cops who do things like shake-down drug dealers, falsify reports and fabricate evidence, seize property under the color of the authority for their own benefit. i.e. the cops know their conduct is not justified under the law but they set-out to do it, anyway.

So it basically becomes one of those 'what were the intentions and motives of the officers' sorta thing. When a charge goes to intention or motive requiring some premeditation, it is almost always favorable to the police because juries are loathe to attribute fore-malice to cops.

 

[McLovin]

Lets not forget about Kelly Thomas in the midst of Eric Garner and Mike Brown fiascos.

How 2 cops were charged, acquitted, and the 3rd charges weren't pursued is fucking baffling to me.

 

[Dman8777]

From TFA:



If he's resisting that hard, fuck him. The world is now a slightly better place.

Maybe one of his personalities was Bruce Lee?

 

[mizzou]

This fucking newfound police hatred is making me sick. Turning the badge into a race, so you all can be openly racist and have a racist circle jerk.

Not all black people are criminals
Not all cops are thugs

Go fuck yourselves

 

[highland145]

This fucking newfound police hatred is making me sick. Turning the badge into a race, so you all can be openly racist and have a racist circle jerk.

Not all black people are criminals
Not all cops are thugs

Go fuck yourselves

I haven't been beeatun up by a cop or a criminal....ever. So I'm with you on this.

 

[tcsenter]

Cop here is acquitted by a jury of 5th degree assault (which is what you get charged with when you just run into someone accidentally): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8H9D4iE2E8