Cases add up of LAPD assaults on restrained suspects November 19, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in California, Los Angeles, Police.Tags: LA Times, lapd, los angeles, natasha lennard, News, police, police brutality, roger hollander, Taser
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Monday, Nov 19, 2012 03:14 PM EST, Natasha Lennard, www.salon.com
LAPD officers(Credit: Jose Gil / Shutterstock.com)
A cop Tasered a handcuffed women in fourth case in recent months of LAPD using force on detainees
The LA Times reported over the weekend that an LAPD officer was witnessed shocking a handcuffed woman with a Taser gun while “joking with other officers at the scene.” Just days after a federal jury ruled that Chicago police officers upheld an entrenched “code of silence” in covering up each others’ wrongdoing, reports have emerged to show that Los Angeles cops have lied for two years about the Tasering incident.
The LA Times reports:
Officer Jorge Santander… appeared to lie about the December 2010 incident repeatedly in written reports. The three other LAPD officers who witnessed Santander stun the woman all corroborated his version of events when first questioned and failed to tell supervisors that one officer had recorded a video of the encounter, the records show.
The video shows Santander firing the Taser without warning and later displaying a Superman logo he wore on his chest beneath his uniform, according to the records. Off camera, another officer is heard laughing and singing.
… This marks the fourth time in the last few months that cases have come to light in which LAPD officers are accused of using force on suspects who had been restrained.
… In August, a security surveillance camera captured an officer violently throwing a handcuffed woman to the ground with any apparent provocation. Days later, the Times reported on a July incident in which a video camera in a patrol car recorded a female officer stomping her heel onto the genitals of a woman who was being restrained by other officers. That woman died after being forced into the back of a patrol car, although there is no evidence that her death was caused by the officer’s kick. And this month The Times learned about a botched arrest in July, in which a handcuffed man was mistakenly shot by officers after he escaped custody.
Despite statistics suggesting that there are around 1,700 cases per year of inappropriate force with less than lethal weapons by the LAPD, “department officials rejected the idea that the cases add up to a larger behavioral pattern,” reported the LA Times. “Cmdr. Andrew Smith called them ‘isolated, unrelated cases in which officers got out of line’.” However, the police officers’ attempts to slide Santander’s Taser incident under the rug echo the police culture indicted last week by a federal court — whether LAPD officials admit to a pattern or not.
Not Guilty By Virtue of Videotape, Which, Unlike the Police, Doesn’t Lie March 1, 2013
Posted by rogerhollander in Criminal Justice, Occupy Wall Street Movement, Police.Tags: #occupy movement, abby zimet, michael premo, occupy wall street, police brutality, police lies, political protest, roger hollander, video evidence
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by Abby Zimet
In the first jury trial stemming from Occupy Wall Street protests, activist and community organizer Michael Premo was found innocent of all charges after his lawyers presented video evidence that directly contradicted the story told by police and prosecutors. Premo was facing felony charges of assaulting an officer during a demonstration in Lower Manhattan that also drew clergymen. Police said he tackled officers as they were kettling protesters, but unearthed video from Democracy Now showed that in fact police threw him down to the ground. Lesson of the day: Keep filming.
Comments
Keep those cameras running folks. It’s your only protection. The fact that the police lied about what they filmed is just incredible. Thanks to a Democracy Now camera man this guy is free.
Now the only question is how did the cop get his bone broken. It clearly wasn’t by this protester.
I suggest if you attend a protest carry a charged camera, know how to turn it on fairly easily, carry a bandana and some form of glasses for pepper spray and ear plugs. And buddy up. Never be out there on your own