Fullerton Police Lawyers: Kelly Thomas Killed Himself

Ocweekly.com ^ | December 2, 2013 | R. Scott Moxley

[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.

[FBD]

http://m.ocregister.com/news/thomas-497776-reeves-slidebar.html

Not sure where you got your information, but it's not accurate. . 1st off, Thomas wasn't breaking into cars, that was an allegation made by a ‘Slidebar’ restaurant employee, at the prompting of her boss, Jeremy Popoff. Thomas was a nuisance hanging around the bar, but he wasn't violent. He was picking up cigarette butts to smoke. . It was the Slidebars call to police that set off this chain of events.

[ifinnegan]

DeMarco had been watching Thomas weaving in between cars, looking through car windows and pulling door handles for up to four minutes before calling police, said Eric Dubin, the SlideBar’s attorney

— that’s from your link!

This happened more tha 2 years ago. There has been a lot of local coverage, practically daily when it happened.

[Orangedog]

The lengths some people will go to in order to excuse a group of pigs beating a man to death. Go take a look at the pictures of his corpse and try feeding us that bulls**t about them not meaning to kill him again. Maybe they could have stopped clubbing him, oh I don’t know... sometime after he was beaten unconscious. Poor scared squad of little piggies all frightened by one small but very scary homeless guy.

[ifinnegan]

Pigs?

Groovy, Manson brother.

You expose your non-objectivity.

[Orangedog]

To get to the heart of a problem, we need to start calling things by their proper name. Pigs seem to sum up that group pretty well. If you like I could stop calling them pigs and use something like “homicidal swine.” I wouldn’t want to use a dated term to describe the thugs scrum who so bravely beat and tasered an unconscious man to death.

[ifinnegan]

I’m just telling you, using leftist terms and emotionalism causes you to lose credibility.

It’s too much out of the liberal playbook.

[Orangedog]

I’m not the one trying to defend a murder, so I’m rather comfortable with my credibility on this one.

[ifinnegan]

You sound like the Trayvon people.

[Orangedog]

Then you obviously wouldn’t know travon people if one of them walked up and kicked you in the ass. Are there any other left wing hobgoblins you would like to try and associate with me?

[ifinnegan]

Are you from Southern California?

[GeronL]

throw about 20 books and some bricks at them

[Orangedog]

Not. Even. Close. (is that a hint as to which leftist stereotype from central casting you’re going to try and associate me with next?)

[ifinnegan]

No.

That’s where this happened and I have been able to listen to more than two years worth of local coverage of this caes on various talk radio and have heard from all sides.

I just wondered if you were getting all your info from liberal media covering the trial. Seems so.

[Orangedog]

Just curious... Has there ever been a case that got any press of a group of cops killing an unarmed person that wasn’t some kind of leftist plot to defile all things good in the USA?

[ifinnegan]

Your comment is cartoonish.

You are not serious.

[Orangedog]

I accept you’re concession.

[ifinnegan]

Your most recent post is a good example of your frivolity.

Read my original post. It’s not even about the case per se but the larger problem of these violent mentally ill people living on the streets.

[Orangedog]

Wow...discourse on an internet chat board drifting off of the first topic someone posts. Never saw that before (!).

I don’t think I would be going too far out on a limb to posit that there are statistics showing that people are much more likely to encounter a violent cop (or group thereof) than one of the violent mentally ill living on the street. Unless you have some links to stories of the mentally ill getting together and beating cops to death.

[FBD]

http://m.ocregister.com/articles/thomas-358721-officers-slidebar.html

FTA: “Michael Reeves was working the door at the Slidebar Rock-n-Roll Kitchen on the night half a dozen officers took down Thomas, an unarmed, mentally ill homeless man who frequented the area. He claims in a lawsuit that a manager at the Slidebar falsely reported that Thomas was trying to break into cars, setting in motion the events that led to his death.”

Like I said, your information about Thomas isn't accurate. Slidebar employees were told to make reports against vagrants to the police because they were a nuisance. Thomas was known to the police as a NON-VIOLENT schizophrenic. He never hurt anyone, he picked up cigarettes to smoke. The comparisons to Adam Lanza and James Holmes are lies. If you think all schizophrenics are violent, you're misinformed. But its clear that its being done to justify beating him to death. That's what should concern people. And yes I have friends near Fullerton too, so pulling the “I live in Southern California” card doesn't work with me.

[FBD]

http://media.kansascity.com/smedia/2013/12/03/00/56/777-1eKw7p.St.55.jpeg>

In this photo, we see Kelly Thomas sitting passively on the curb. Perfect time to arrest him, if arrest is what the officers wanted to do.  He was PASSIVE.
This was when he gets threatened by officer Ramos: “You see these fists? They're about to #uck you up.”
Is that the way a professional police officer talks to a non-violent suspect sitting on the ground with no weapons? No. That's the way an out-of-control psychopath talks. -so let's talk about who is really a menace to society here, an unarmed schizophrenic, or an armed psychopath with a badge.