Posted on 05/19/2014 4:37:00 PM PDT by eccentric
On Mother’s Day Tommy Yancy, father of two, was pulled over for not having a front license plate. What transpired beyond that point is not totally clear, but his injuries resulted in his death. Yancy, 32, was a veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan.
There has been almost zero media coverage of the incident. A local publication, Imperial Valley Press, offers only a sidenote about his family raising money for his memorial and this:
The 32-year-old Yancy died following an altercation with law enforcement during a traffic stop May 11 in Imperial. The circumstances around the death and the traffic stop are still under investigation by the California Highway Patrol.
A source that wants to remain anonymous has come forward with a video and “WeAreChange” posted it to YouTube on Sunday. The quality of the video leaves a lot to be desired, but a lot of information is provided in the “About Section” of the video:
Tommy Yancy, 32, father of two, was savagely beaten to death by five law enforcement officers during a routine traffic stop near the city of Imperial last Sunday, on Mother’s Day. Yancy, a veteran who suffered from PTSD, served in Afghanistan and Iraq in the 259th Field Service Unit following the 9/11 attacks.
Yancy was stopped on his way to the store after a highway patrol officer spotted a missing front license plate on his vehicle. He was subsequently pulled from his car and attacked by a police K-9 unit, hit by a taser, and attacked by five officers until he succumbed to the beating and died. A witnessed, who filmed the incident, can be heard screaming on the recording: “How long before you guys call an ambulance? Call an ambulance!” According to the source of the video, who asked not to be named, his family has not been permitted to see his body, nor have they been given a cause of death.
A close friend of Yancy described him as “shy, and a comedian” and told me, he was an “excellent dad, who kept in contact with his army buddies every week.” He also enjoyed basketball and loved hip-hop music. His sister-in-law, Jaqueline Hernandez, described him to me as “a very loving guy, loved his kids to death… they were his everything. Very funny down to earth guy, and loved by all”.
Officers claim Yancy swung at an officer and attacked the K-9, however, near the end of the video, posted to YouTube on May 12 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoqvX…), police are seen attempting to revive Yancy while a witness states, “All of this for one guy who wasn’t even resisting arrest,”. The officer is said to have received no serious injuries.
Deputies with the Imperial County sheriff’s department were involved in another shooting last month, which took place on April 18. A teenager, Adrian Parra, was killed by multiple gunshot wounds. An honor roll student from Coachella Valley High School, Parra was described by loved ones as “a good person with great goals in mind.” The Sheriff’s department has refused to reveal whether or not the shooting was captured by one of their patrol car’s dashboard cameras. Two officers involved in the shooting were placed on administrative leave, but have since returned to their duties.
Read more at YouTube…
The witness claims that Yancy did not resist. The police involved, whether it be Imperial County, the California Highway Patrol, or both, will surely offer another story line. We can not assume that this entire account is factual. Maybe he did resist.
However even if he did resist and regardless of the details, it is hard to imagine a scenario in which a routine traffic stop should result in a man being beaten to death. Yet these stories are becoming all too common in today’s world.
At the time, I assumed we had some bad cops and we were going to see some righteous busting of cops, from what we were hearing, but then I watched some of the blow by blow video in slow motion on some cable station, and realized that it wasn’t what it had initially looked like, and what the media was making it out to be.
It wasn’t just a beat down, which do happen with some frequency, I guess you saw post 10, I have many stories from around the country, but most are from my hometown of Houston, beatings by cops were pretty routine.
I've always wondered why "the good cops" rarely seem to get around to turning out the bad ones in their midst. They absolutely know who they are... maybe they just like the company of the bad ones.
The People. Or sheep as your analogy says. But your analogy falls short because in the real world The People will attempt to pierce the blue wall of silence and hold you accountable. We will hang cameras around your necks. We will vote against your bond issues and against the sales taxes that fund you. We will work feverishly to end the practice of property seizure with the thin veneer of due process. We will de-fund city hall, county government, States and Fed. That is the right thing to do. That is the CONSERVATIVE thing to do. When conservatives say they want small government, that’s what it means. Small, lean, accountable. No trading sex for losing tickets. No shooting dogs. No letting LEO, judges, politicians off the hook for laws they pass and enforce.
No more business as usual for city hall or crooked politicians. That’s Conservative. No more nanny state empowerment for State sponsored extortion in the futile bid for safety. Small government, underfunded, weak and frustrated. The sheep can defend and depend on themselves if the onerous burden of government is removed. That is Conservative.
Peer pressure, thin blue line, us against them mentality, and no one but no one wants to be the first penguin off the ice floe.
When the dam finally breaks there are going to be a lot of freshly unemployed (and often incarcerated) ex cops. And the remaining cops will be more like the ones we remember from our youth.
I understand, but the good ones can't then complain when the stench starts to stick them.
That proves how rare they are, they barely exist.
It will probably take that before they are forced to clean house.
Human nature.
Nonsense. The majority are still decent.
I don’t know what you call decent, but they are part of the crimes that they conceal.
Here’s a bit more from another article:
IMPERIAL — An employee of a convenience store near the site of a traffic stop, after which an Imperial man died Sunday, said she saw the incident from start to finish, describing the deceased as “mad” and uncooperative but also described law enforcement reaction as “too much.”
The facts usually surface given there’s no media agenda to suppress them. But regarding King, the media got its riot, and many innocent people suffered for it.
Terrible story in #10.
It is just one of the things that helps create an us vs. them mentality for the police. People don't trust the police (for good reason, by many press accounts) which exacerbates hostility toward people seen as hassling them for revenue (not to mention the seizure of items and effects during vehicle searches without charges levies, which smacks of looting under color of law).
There is a strong and developing sense that rules are applied unevenly, and not just along racial lines, and the media foment the latter resentments in the population in general, where they can.
Without 'beat cops' on foot, getting to know the people and the area--and be known, police have become another faceless uniform not to be trusted in the public mind.
Worse yet, they see shows like 'Cops', and what once was respect degenerates to fear and animosity.
On the other side, the police often see the worst of the worst of our society, and that colors their worldview, too.
With increased militarization comes less respect for the Constitutional Rights of the people the police serve, and a greater tendency toward lethal force, even administered by allegedly non-lethal means.
I can't recall the last time I saw a police show on TV where the policeman was someone's friend, saved their life (with one exception of officers getting a guy out of a burning car), or wasn't a harbinger of bad tidings. Right down to the storm of media accounts of shot dogs, the public has a bad view of those they once respected as protectors of the people, and has come to view them as oppressors. Even without 'roid rage', that hostility becomes mutual.
When all you do wrong, and little you do right gets to the public eye, you might get an attitude, too. (NOT excusing it, just trying to figure it out.) In the end, we need to return a sense of Honor, not only to police ranks where it is lacking, but to the public view of the police. For the latter, that will require police acting honorably, and cleansing their ranks of those who violate the public trust and do not so conduct themselves. Eliminate the impression that a police officer can perform acts behind the badge without punishment that would get people on the other side of the tin jail time, and that would go a long way to restoring good faith.
They probably should have killed his family and friends, too. You don't want to take any chances...
Guess you’re in dutch now, null...
De Nile ain't just a river in the Netherlands...
I’m glad to see you can disagree with someone without resorting to idiotic name calling. /sarcasm
It’s a talent...
Another symptom of the modern police, is that they are union, and they are part of a union coalition that has taken over the political power of cities, with the goal of looting the money of the citizens of that city, for lavish pensions, and short work careers and high pay, and disability, making their own work conditions etc.
The police are off the leash, they and the teachers, city workers, firemen, lifeguards and all related unions, and the democrat party, are literally taking over cities as their own cash cows.
I think the police have morphed into something that cops of 80 years ago would not recognize now if not for the uniforms.
Cops aren’t there to preserve the community, and reflect the community, or even to protect the community they are largely out of our control, and the more generations that continues, the more morally corrupt and insular the departments become, and the more hiring and promotions, reflect it and reinforce it.
Even not discussing police work, many of us in big cities recognize that the unionized police and the other city employees, voting as a massive block, are dominating city elections, and practically appointing city government, and then looting the coffers and becoming even more independent and renegade.
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