Thomas Kelly unwell:
Posted on 08/04/2011 11:33:53 AM PDT by truthkeeper
Six police officers in California were placed on leave Wednesday after surveillance video surfaced showing witnesses describe how cops fatally beat a mentally ill homeless man.
Kelly Thomas, 37, died July 10, five days after a confrontation with Fullerton police investigating reports of an attempted car burglary.
Surveillance video taken on an Orange County Transportation Authority bus showed passengers describing the alleged assault.
"They beat him up, and then all the cops came and they hogtied him, and he was like, 'Please God, Please Dad!'" said one witness.
Another video, taken by a bystander on his cell phone, shows the altercation from a distance. A man's voice is heard over a clicking noise that witnesses said was from a stun gun.
Thomas had schizophrenia and was not taking his medication, according to his father, Ron Thomas. He suffered severe head and neck injuries and was eventually taken off life support.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
PIECES OF SH*T.
I wouldn't EVER help or support them. If they were facing down a riot, I would flip them off and laugh.
What the community is asking is, why weren't they suspended without pay?
I view 99.9% of law enforcement as scum.
Sorry - the .01% who are good don’t do enough to weed out the rest of the filth and are guilty by association with these freaks.
>>I view 99.9% of law enforcement as scum.
Sorry - the .01% who are good don’t do enough to weed out the rest of the filth and are guilty by association with these freaks.<<
Respectfully, I flip those numbers. But these guys are the neighborhood bullies from HS and then handed a weapon.
Is this happening more often or are we just seeing it? I realize everyone can video now with phones, but geez, Houston PD has been caught beating handcuffed suspects lately.
I wish they WERE suspended.
Well said.
(And not to make you uncomfortable... but thank you for your service. I owe you my freedom. I owe cops and firemen the same respect I owe the guy working at the DMV — one working citizen to the other.)
Well, the picture has been removed from this thread but it is readily available for anyone who wants to google it. It was taken by Ron Thomas, Kelly's dad.
Can you imagine standing over your son's brain-dead body after he's been beaten to a pulp by the police and having to take that photo as evidence of the crime?
http://www.ocweekly.com/2011-08-04/news/moxley-confidential-kelly-thomas-tony-bushala-friends-for-fullertons-future/
Thank you, I knew a smart FReeper would do that for me. :-)
Thank you.
Sir.
That tipster is either a dispatcher or another cop. Glad he spoke up.
For FReepers in Southern California:
John Phillips will be devoting his show to coverage of this story tonight, and as he says, telling the “other side” which hasn’t been covered. In fact, media has been showing sympathy to the suspect’s family and the angry mob at the city council meetings. John has personal experience of Fullerton politics and city departments, as he lived there for some years.
KABC-AM 790, 6p-9p.... (no Dodger game tonight:)
Too late. They've already been convicted by the media. I'm not saying the guy should have been beaten to death, but he had a criminal history and a recent history of increasing violence. His family even took out a restraining order on him. It is complicated and still under investigation.
"I am a 20+ year resident of Fullerton, California. I often times visit my brother who lives in Placentia, California. I have come into contact with Kelly Thomas many times at an area near Yorba Linda Blvd. and Bradford in Placentia at the area outside Starbucks, Quiznos and a small donut shop. He used to hang there and when you took one look you knew he wasn’t completely right. I had bought him coffee and donuts a number of times and the donut shop gave him free coffee and donuts on many occasions. This guy never created a problem other than his appearance and I can tell you without reproach he was 135 lbs soaking wet. You could see he wasn’t properly nourished and know I could have taken him down by myself with no weapons. Many people I know agree with that as well. Six large, heavily armed police officers were necessary to subdue him? Did you see his face?
He was beaten to death plain and simple. I am not a radical or crazy, rather a typical middle class homeowner and contractor who lives and works in Fullerton, pays taxes and obeys the law. I know when an atrocity has been comitted and this is one."
I think you're right. He sure knew an awful lot about the dispatchers and their reaction to the whole thing.
How about waiting for the investigation to yield facts. How about considering all of the facts? Videotapes do not always tell you what you think you are seeing. So far, the coverage has been one-sided.
Maybe the City of Fullerton angry mob would like to have their Police Department disbanded and find out how that works out for them. Just saying... everybody calm down.
You are content with one side of the story being covered. I am not. I am interested in all the facts. Something about this angry mob disturbs me....
Very one sided. Kind of like a fight between one guy in handcuffs and six guys with weapons. I think your cry for fairness is a bit late ma'am.
No one can force you to listen to facts, that is true.
The stories about the FPD have been well known for years. This is not the only pending lawsuit. I will tell you this much for sure...if that OCTD tape the D.A. is holding EXONERATED the police, it would have been released in a New York minute.
And I don't believe the realtor's videotape, filmed up close and personal, and which he turned over to the FPD at their demand, would have disappeared into the black hole either. For some reason it seems to have gone missing.
How convenient.
I am posting this as I am not sure it has been posted here. Here is the photo and story of the cop who allegedly inflicted the most damage: Jay Cicinelli who lost one eye as an LAPD officer after only 3 weeks on the job:
http://www.fullertonsfuture.org/2011/who-is-jay-cincinelli/
The original shooting wherein his eye is lost:
http://articles.latimes.com/1998/jan/31/local/me-14005
I agree, we need to keep an open mind.
What disturbs me, along with a lot of other stuff, is Thomas is depicted as a harmless homeless person. But his mother had a restraining order out again him and he had a long rap sheet.
I’m all for a full release of the facts. Maybe you could ask the police to hurry it along.
Thank you BunnySlippers, those articles hadn’t been posted yet.
My understanding of his rap sheet is that it primarily consisted of petty thefts, vagrancy, public nuisance, etc., with one felony 16 years ago, assault with a deadly weapon (non-gun). It is not disputed that he was mentally ill with schitzophrenia.
Still, I find it doubtful the force used by the FDP in this case was "necessary."
Call me pisher.
Thomas Kelly unwell:
Please include me on your ping list.
Witnesses said he was cringing on the ground crying for help. They kept tasing him, they kept beating him.
My uncle is schizophrenic. During an ‘episode’ it took three police officers to pull him to the ground & subdue him. That’s what should have happened. Using body weight & six pairs of arms to push him down & control him. To stand over the man & beat him like this is unforgivable.
It’s time to severely restrict police powers. No more tasers, no more SWAT teams. They no longer understand their role in this society.
I'm with you.
Susan Kang Schroeder (District Attorney representative in this case) said "Your heart is sad watching what happens in this case" after viewing the videotape. Something tells me it's not all that favorable for the FPD.
"Your heart is sad"...??
There is a controversy right now about the bottom picture. Kelly's father says it's not him, that the FPD pulled someone else's mugshot and is representing it as Kelly because that person is so scary-looking. His dad is angry about it. You can google for details.
Just reporting...I don't know if it is him or not. However, I do see that person in the bottom picture plainly does not have the red hair we can see in Kelly's deathbed picture taken after he was beaten. The police claim it was taken in 2009.
Agreed.
Oh, and the mom claimed he threatened her by putting his hands around her neck.
Correction: Grabbed her by the throat:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/04/kelly-thomas-fullerton_n_918195.html
In the same court papers, his mother alleged that Thomas grabbed her by the throat when they shared an apartment, although it was unclear when the incident occurred.
I'm sure the family will provide additional details. I have heard he did not live with any family members for years, and there is no dispute that he is mentally ill so I would believe this happened if the mother said it did. However, the mother also said she was told "by the police" to file a restraining order as it was the only way she might be able to get her son a permanent mental health placement.
Working in family law, I can attest to the fact that declarations in restraining orders are often trumped up. Not saying that is what happened in this case, just that it often does happen. Desperate people often do and say desperate things.
Having said that, even if he had choked his mother it doesn't change my opinion that the force used was excessive. Unfortunately, the man is conveniently dead and can't give HIS side of the story.
How fortunate for the FPD.
I don’t disagree with you.
But I hope you can fairly assess the policemen’s stories when they come out. There may be no excuse, but then there might be.
BTTT
Having said that, I'll say what I always say. Even if I felt someone was as guilty as sin (a la O.J.), there is not a doubt in my mind that I would be able to competently assess each piece of evidence, direct, indirect, and circumstantial, and the credibility of witnesses to arrive at a fair verdict.
In law every case must pass the "reasonable person" standard, which holds that each person owes a duty to behave as a reasonable person would under the same or similar circumstances. This, coupled with logic, common sense, and my personal knowledge of the community is telling me there is something rotten in Fullerton - and I am certainly not the only one.
But according to John Phillips, I am a member of "the lynch mob." Gee, where have I heard that before?
Good luck to him. It's not for everyone. I've got one ex-brother-in-law who was a punk as a teenager, got in trouble a lot. That's how he got interested in becoming a cop. He enjoyed the action early on. Later in his career he got sick of being a beat cop (they literally "beat" suspects) and he switched to being a motorcycle cop. Now he's mellow.
Another brother-in-law became a cop, and while a rookie, got disgusted and quit. He was too nice to stomach what went on. One of my nephews is now a Leo, and is a mellow nice guy - my sister is worried and scared about him. Hopefully your grandson will be humane and serve the public well.
I would be afraid for him, though. I'd rather he become his second choice, a forest ranger.
So, what’s is the other side of the story?
They’re working on it...........
Ha Ha!
The show should be over by now. What is the other side of the story?
Medical personnel in ERs and psychiatric facilities deal with violent patients all the time. Yet, I've never heard of them inflicting such injuries on a patient. Have you?
How is it that medical personnel manage to do what six police officers couldn't?
Well, I did listen and can say my opinion of John Phillips really went down the toilet.
Throughout the entire show his voice dripped with distain for the mentally ill. He repeatedly emphasized their homelessness, commented on public urinating, and said they all should be forceably removed from the street, forceably institutionalized, and forceably medicated. He seemed to be an expert on Kelly Thomas being violent although he knows no more than what we have read. Some of his listeners then chimed in and made comments like, "What's the big deal? A maniac is off the street and will never hurt anyone. How is the world any worse off?" Phillips agreed and over and over referred to anyone who is appalled by this case as "the Lynch Mob."
Frankly, I found his show disgusting and his attitude repellent. I'm sure Phillips would agree with the city lawyer who offered Ron Thomas the $900,000 settlement, which he now denies making:
"After all, Mr. Thomas...your son was no rocket scientist."
Make that six burly officers armed with guns and tasers, which they used repeatedly on a 135-145 lb. malnourished man who, according to witnesses, was ALREADY hogtied, prone on the ground, and pretty beaten up. The witnesses spoke extemporaneously (on the bus video), had no reason to lie, and their stories corroborated each other's.
Apparently we are supposed to believe, in the last moments of this man's life, while was still able to gasp out, "Please God, please Dad, I'm sorry...I'm sorry. Dad...Dad...Dad" the officers were in such abject fear that he would inflict harm upon them that they just HAD to continue to beat him into a coma. I suppose they felt perhaps he would somehow spring up and attack them.
Sorry, doesn't pass this person's reasonable person test. Maybe somebody ELSE'S, but not this person's.
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