Posted on 01/16/2015 6:08:45 AM PST by null and void
I watched it. I do not understand how a jury could misinterpret the actions of the ‘officers’ so badly.
"Clive Higgins was the only officer to plead not guilty in the 2011 incident in which drug dealer Orlando Lopez-Soto was seen in footage being brutalized as he lay face down in the grass following a car chase with police. A jury said Wednesday that Higgins, who’s seen in video arriving to the scene sometime after fellow cops Joseph Lawlor and Elson Morales before getting in his own licks, had not violated Lopez-Soto’s civil rights. Higgins, an officer in Bridgeport since 2002, had faced up to 10 years behind bars had he been convicted, NBC Connecticut reports."
I'll bet the other two officers wish they had also entered "Not Guilty" pleas!
With the historic application of “Civil Rights” being what it has been and mainly used as a DoJ tool to subvert local legal proceedings, it doesn’t specifically mean that it HAS to be about race, does it?
The fat bald LEO was pissed he had to run so much and exert more energy than he’d used in a lifetime to get that ba$tard and he NEEDED to kick his ass. It is also odd that all of the ‘officers’ thought they needed to kick the perp, too. While he was subdued - while he was laid out on the ground - while he was under police ‘custody’.....
I thought the rule of thumb was three blows. That after a suspect stopped resisting any officer that struck them more than three times was guilty of assault themselves. I guess the idea behind the three is to give the officers a chance to notice the perp has stopped resisting. I honestly don’t remember where I heard/read that though.
Does the officer get the same presumption of innocence? And now that a jury has given their verdict, what do we do with that?
It’s because the actions were interpreted in the context of Civil Rights charges. The indictment wasn’t about whether the cops used excessive force or not: it was about whether they did so in a way that violated the Civil Rights statutes.
Which is much harder to prove. Sorry. It sure looks like the cops went well over the line, but if you want to blame anyone for them getting off blame the prosecutor for choosing to indict on the wrong charges and the political environment that pressures him to do so.
The other two officers are shown repeatedly kicking the guy.
The video turned away after Clive kicked at him once, and the video doesn’t clearly show his kick even hitting the guy.
Clive had a much better chance of getting off.
So you’re saying a “strike while subdued” policy for every arriving officer on-scene isn’t a violation of civil rights. Keeping in mind that civil rights aren’t just based on race.
In principle yes, it is a violation of civil rights. And yes, in principle race doesn’t matter.
In practice tho? The bar to meeting a civil rights threshold is definitely higher than for a more straightforward charge like battery. Even (and sometimes especially) when race isn’t a factor.
Consider that incident in light of the possibility of gun confiscation in Connecticut, and connect the dots between cops being allowed to stomp on someone at will, and disarming the public.
Yup, and there are cases where the prosecutor will be pressured and will indict on a charge they know has no hope of winning on.
Which reveals the flaws in the laws.
+1
They say that Trey Gowdy was a successful prosecutor because he didn’t overcharge cases.
When you have a video of a guy down on the ground after having been tasered, then STOMPER by two officers who are then found innocent, this appears to be an egregious misjudgement by the jury.
I think in cases like this, the case should be handled in another jurisdiction by a state prosecutor to avoid possibility of collusion between te police, courts, and prosecutor’s office. This is reminiscent of the Garner case which was very different from the Ferguson situation.
What part of “found NOT GUILTY of police brutality” do you not understand. Were you on the jury?
I guess tit for tat is in play here. They got the OJ acquittal. This jury overlooked brutality.
I was not on the jury, but I (recently having completed an eye test for my drivers license renewal) can see and did so when I looked at the video.
You’re right. Citizens (I use that term VERY loosely) acquitted the LEOs. That doesn’t make it right - just like the acquittal of OJ in his criminal trial.
jury nullification?
it was fine for OJ....
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