Posted on 12/11/2013 10:10:14 AM PST by Altariel
Day One of the prosecution's case against two Fullerton cops accused of using excessive force in 2011 to kill an unarmed homeless man had an eerie resemblance to another trial that landed Orange County in embarrassing international headlines a decade ago. In Corona del Mar, three young men--including the son of a wealthy, corrupt assistant sheriff--got a 16-year-old girl highly intoxicated and, after she'd fallen unconscious, stripped her before videotaping themselves sexual assaulting her vagina and rectum with a Tree Top Apple Juice can, pool cue, Snapple bottle and lit cigarette.
Defense lawyers put Jane Doe, that victim, on trial and brought in so-called expert witnesses who opined that the girl faked her stupor for the Sony camcorder after asking her assailants to film her in a necrophilia sex scene she could presumably use to enter the Los Angeles porn world.
Today, inside Judge William R. Froeberg's 10th floor courtroom--just beneath the location of the infamous Haidl Gang Rape trial, acclaimed defense lawyers for ex-officers Manuel Ramos and Jay Cicinelli offered jurors similarly ludicrous stories.
Ramos attorney John Barnett, who also served as a losing defense lawyer in the Haidl case, portrayed victim Kelly Thomas as a menacing physical specimen who scared a large group of towering, fully-armed, veteran cops that chased, surrounded, punched, kicked, restrained, clubbed and shot Taser blasts into the homeless man's relatively small frame for five minutes.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.ocweekly.com ...
I no particular fan of the defense team in this case — but comparing it to the Haidl trial is (in my opinion) journalistic malpractice.
Looking at the pictures at the linked site it occurred to me that the deceased was very lucky he didn’t have a puppy with him at the time of his cop beat down. If he did he would have REALLY suffered at the hands of the cops.
OCWeekly is free entertainment weekly, liberal, democratic, hates Republicans/Conservatives and targets all the usual conservative ideals, institutions and people.
Noted for its sexual personal ads, ads for nightclubs, adult stores amongst more legitimate ads...Just a very trashy paper,weekly entertainment rag for 20-40 year old partiers,pro-marijuana, pro-illegal alien, pro all the liberal causes, although with some cutting edge stories from time to time.
I havent read this article, but heard Kelly Thomas on tape pleading for his life by calling to his father—quite childlike. So there seems to be a disjunct going on here.
I’ll catch up with it all later.
They would much rather walk through hell in gasoline shorts
than go to prison.
They are going to try anything they can.
OCWeekly (the kind of trash paper that OCWeekly is)
Rick Warren Appears on CNN to Reaffirm that He’s a Homo-Hater
http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2013/12/rick_warren_cnn_piers_morgan.php
written by Gustavo Arellano who is their Religion Reporter
Doesn’t that Gustavo guy also do the “Ask a Mexican” column where he spouts all sorts of racism against whites while trying to be funny?
“Everyone should recognize that Kelly Thomas, Jared Loughner, James Holmes, and Adam Lanza ....”
Everyone should recognize that lumping Kelly Thomas in with those killers is going to completely bias readers against whatever point you were trying to make.
You are correct. This Thomas fellow should never have been on the street.
As another poster pointed out, the OC Weekly is one of those free rags with lefties writing their articles. The mainstream press isn’t much better.
Thomas was in no way some sort of harmless poor soul. He was one of the scary mean homeless/mentally illl. I live in SoCal so I’ve heard local coverage And details for over a year now.
He fought these cops long and hard. Apparently early on in the fight he he landed a solid hard one in the face of one of the officers. I always figured that caused his predicament. I figure the cop stepped it up a bit and had less concern over hurting him after that.
Doesn’t mean I am saying he deserved to die.
I do not think the cops ever intended him to die.
It’s a shame all the way around.
I do not like the parents grandstanding. Why were they letting their son on the street like that? Because they could not control him, nor deal with his violence. So they think the cops will have no problem with him?
It is difficult in that 1) a dangerous person like this should not be on the streets. He was violent and committed crimes. He was breaking in to cars which is what cause this incident. The cops have to deal with him and that is not an easy task. 2) The general public should not need to be subjected to the presence of psychotic potentially violent men in public spaces.
The cops had to deal with him. He is a danger and usually these dangerous men are given freedom because they arent necessarily committing any crime at a given time. In this case he was committing crimes and fought the police when confronted he did not fight back, he instigated the fight.
There’s no good answer for what should happen. Personally I think the cops should not be convicted of a crime, but should no longer be police.
Do the parents have blame? Maybe. If they want to use this for soapboxing, then it is fair to blame them for then not keeping the general public from their son. They can’t have it both ways.
Prior to the murders committed by Lanza, Loughner and Holmes Thomas was more clearly dangerously insane than the others and had committed violent acts.
My opinion applies to all the mentally ill that present a danger to themselves or others. They should be institutionalized.
The rub is, who gets to decide who is a danger? The psychiatric profession is loaded with lefties. They could easily decide that owning a “stockpile” of weapons, and posting on “racist, anti-government forums” (Free Republic) constitute a threat to others.
You are correct about the “deciders”. But, do we have to wait until an individual flips out and kills people to say institutionalization was appropriate? It just seems to me that the knee jerk professional decision is to put them back on the street and hopefully stay off society’s radar.
Fine, but if you phrase your opinion like that, lumping innocent people in with murderers with no distinction, then you are not helping your case at all.
Then put handcuffs on him and arrest him and take him to jail and indict him.
You don't beat him to death.
The kid wasn't the danger on the street -- he was harmless.
The cop who killed him was/is the one with the really dangerous mental illness. He was a bomb ready to explode and odds are that he has more incidents like this in his past.
Uncle chip, with all due respect, you are uninformed.
I watched a long video of the Kelly Thomas incident.
There was no way I could conclude anything but police brutality towards the guy.
They had him down, had him contained, and simply toyed with him.
And a bunch of other cops stood around watching. The DA, not an enemy of law enforcement, took very little time to find huge problems with the officers’ conduct and indict them.
Fullerton’s police chief and mayor resigned over this.
The Police in Fullerton California murdered that guy and there was NO justification for it.None
This man had already surrendered and they continued beating him to death.
These police officers should be Tried for murder,and sued for violating his civil rights.
Why hasn’t the victims father filed a Federal Complaint with the FBI over this unlawful abuse of authority?
Fullerton P.D.needs a thorough investigation and these officers should be spending time in prison.
http://www.scpr.org/news/2013/12/11/40884/kelly-thomas-trial-prosecutors-rest-case-against-f/
Kelly Thomas Trial: Prosecutors rest case against former officers charged in beating death
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