Tax payer shouldn't have to pay for this. The cops should.
Posted on 01/18/2013 3:14:58 PM PST by rawhide
The pregnant Los Angeles woman who was brutally hogtied by California Highway Patrolmen in August 2011 after being pulled over for chatting on her cell phone while driving has finally received retribution in the form of a $250,000 settlement.
According to the LA Times, Tamara Gaglione, 30, was hauled away and charged with misdemeanor evading and resisting arrest and driving on a suspended license.
Those charges were dropped, however, once Gaglione's terrible treatment was revealed in footage from the cruiser's video camera.
It is unclear in the grainy video exactly how aggressive, if at all, Gaglione was toward the cops. What is clear, though, is that Hernandez and Martinez drew their weapons on the unarmed Gaglione as they approached her and forced her onto the ground.
Hernandez later claimed Gaglione did not tell them of her pregnancy until after she was on the ground, but Gaglione said she told the officers as they approached her.
Hogtied, Gaglione was subsequently taken away in a patrol car.
Gaglione filed suit against the department and the officers involved, but the video evidence that eventually won Gaglione $250,000 this past November was not immediately forthcoming. Gaglione's attorney Howard Price claimed that Hernandez failed to check a box on the arrest report stating a video camera had, in fact, recorded the incident.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I hogtied a woman once when I was a cop. She was under arrest, drunk and trying to kick out my squad car window.
Not saying this was the case here, but you act like a criminal, you get treated like a criminal.
Tax payer shouldn't have to pay for this. The cops should.
In fairness, what didn’t she understand about the warnings from the police? Was she drunk? Didn’t speak English? On drugs?
Talking on a cellphone with a suspended license.
Not sympathetic to her plight.
These two were caught in their lies.
Yep. What more is there to say?
Yep. A real hardened criminal. She deserved the beat-down, eh? /s
Wow, that’s not an arrest, that’s a rape. That video is really disturbing.
The article said something about it not showing what she might have done. She got out of the car and was standing there very passively...until slammed to the ground and then hog tied.
Did any of the cops lose their jobs?
I appreciate your comments and your expertise. Would you do us a favor and watch the video and give us an analysis of this situation.
She was not putting up any resistence. Looked to be an office worker type, dressed properly and innocently confused by the officers directions to turn around as they approached her.
I would gladly have waived the $250,000 if the judge could make certain that every low-life scum-sucking PIG involved in that stop was never again able to serve in any law enFORCEment capacity anywhere.
No, that are all still working as thugs, disguised as cops.... Probably looking for another innocent victim!
If you’re “not saying that was the case here”, why did you bother passing on the Thin Blue Line comment?
It OBVIOUSLY wasn’t the case here, yet your first instinctive
reaction is to drag in a totally irrelevant incident from your own experience.
You should be sypathetic. She did not understand them. That is clear by her body language.
I misunderstood a cops instructions once. It was completely innocent. I was driving someone to the hospital who had chest pains and got pulled over enroute.
I explained to the officer that I needed to get to the hospital and asked if it was okay if I continued. I thought the cop said okay and so I left.
The officer followed and when I got to the hospital and tried to go to get medical help she pulled her gun on me.
I told her will all due respect officer I'm going to tend to my friend and I turned and walked away from the officer. When I came out of the ER entrance to move my car the officer was really pissed.
Unless you're a cop. Then you get 'professional courtesy'.
The charge of driving on a suspended license was dropped. So there is no proof of that being true.
Not sympathetic to her plight.
Oooooooh, talking on a cellphone. Ooooooh.
Suspended license. Ooooooooh.
Those are against the law. Oooooooh.
Yeah, throw her on the ground and hogtie her. Teach her a lesson she'll never forget!
There's one like you on every thread.
A little ‘roid rage never hurt nobody!
These settlements should start coming out of cops instead of the taxpayer. Now these a**holes need to be criminally charged and imprisoned.
You actually turned your back on a cop pointing a gun at you?? She could have just blasted you and claimed you were reaching for a gun, or something;)
I think there’s certain men that just like to beat up, control women, period....such insecurity makes me believe that they have latent homosexuality tendencies..
The department I worked for arrested and fired the Chief of Police for DWI.
What was it you were saying again?
I think they needed at least six or seven more cops. And amazing restraint on their part by not using less than lethal firepower on that cellphone-wielding secretary...I mean perpetrator.
Yeah, the cops were WAY out of line, probably criminal in this case. Is cell phone while driving an arrestable offense in Cali?
The woman didn't resist at all, from my perspective. Why they drew down on her should be a mystery to any sentient person.
She deserved the settlement.
True. They were way out of line.
Good thing she didn’t have a dog.
Does it ever cross your mind that I was drawing a contrast from my own experience with a woman who DID require hogtying with this one who obviously didn't?
This incident was blatant abuse of power. I even thought I saw a little knee-kick in there, which makes it assault.
How would they know at the start of a traffic stop anyway? Do CA drivers now wear chips to be identified with a dash scanner?
How could I have been so misinformed?
What was it you were saying again?
There are two types of cops in this world --those who've been caught in their lies and those who have yet to be caught lying.
What was the name of the police chief, and when was he arrested, occifer?
So these cops should be treated like criminals, following your logic.
They absolutely should be treated as criminals, because they are criminals. Google up 18USC242 sometime.
No more than a misdemeanor “criminal” should be treated. Excessive use of force was definitely the issue here, and that borders on assault - a crime.
Wow...I hope none of the women in your life never have the unfortunate circumstance of being abused by LEO thugs for such minor infractions like talking on their cell phone...
Did you even watch the video...?
I have lost any respect I had remaining for the California Highway Patrol. They harbor and sanctify violent psychopaths.
If I did that to her, I’d be facing more than one felony. Doing so under color of authority should be an aggravating, not a mitigating factor.
The department I worked for arrested and fired the Chief of Police for DWI.
What was it you were saying again?
My husbands best friend is a cop. He wrecked his new Mustang driving over 100 mph after visiting friends and drinking a few beers. I don't know if he drank enough to be impaired but he told my husband he had been drinking and showing off to a friend while driving the friend home.
His "punishment" was a few days of paid sick leave and several months of light duty when he returned to work.
The mitigating factor is that she was arrestable for an offense, at least in Texas (driving with a suspended license.) Once an actor is under arrest, there are grey areas of conduct by the officer, depending on all factors perceived by an officer. I'm not saying that this wasn't a serious abuse of authority, but even as a civilian, this wouldn't have been a felony offense. Let's not make it worse than it appeared; it was indeed alarming and humiliating, but the woman wasn't harmed.
I found out five years later at another routine traffic stop.
Brought the canceled check in, the driving suspended charge was dropped.
Government is neither fast nor efficient and cops are not our overlords.
“I don’t know” is the operative phrase in your post.
The ‘driving with a suspended license’ chrage, later dismissed perhaps because of a clerical error?, was discovered after the assault! There is no excuse these cop thugs should not have been fired and brought up on criminal charges!
I told her what I was going to do, calmly, and then did it. But belive me I thought about it. I think my friend crying out for me from the car helped the situation. I had to make a decision.
What I should have done while I was driving to the hospital was dial 911 to let them know what was taking place but I honestly thought she had said to go ahead and was just following me there.
Agreed. They should be.
The speed limit around here is not 100 miles an hour.
There is nothing wrong with being a cop. Most cops are decidedly conservative.
Do you really think there is no societal need for law enforcement? Really?
No. I have frienda who are cops. They are great guys I’d trust with my life. But they also would never justify brutish behavior by saying “act like a criminal get treated like a criminal.” They would let the courts decide first, who is a criminal, and second, how they should be treated.
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