Posted on 06/06/2009 7:06:37 PM PDT by Coleus
Demonstrators call for firing of officer videotaped striking mentally disabled man
More than 100 people gathered today outside Passaic City Hall to demand that the Police Department fire an officer who was videotaped striking a mentally disabled man repeatedly with a baton and his fists. Ronnie Holloway, the man beaten in the May 29 incident, and his mother, Betty, attended the peaceful demonstration, which was organized by various community leaders. “This man should never have gone through what he did,” said Zachary McDaniel, pastor of the Second Timothy Baptist Church in Passaic. “Cops are here to protect us. How can they be protecting us when they beat us?”
Protesters carried placards that read, “Stop police brutality,” “Stop the madness”and, “No justice no peace.” Many also held signs that read, “Fire Rios,” referring to the police officer, Joseph J. Rios III. Holloway spoke to reporters about how he had always respected police officers and had not had a problem with them until the altercation with Rios. He said he was taking his nightly walk when Rios and at least one other officer passed by him in their cruiser and asked him to zip his sweatshirt, which he said he had unzipped because he felt warm. He maintained that had begun to comply when Rios exited the cruiser and threw him against the car hood and then threw him to the pavement.
“I remember him saying ‘Get down’ and swinging,” Holloway said. “I didn’t think I’d see tomorrow.” The incident was recorded via a nearby security camera. The recording shows Holloway standing on a street corner when it began. Nancy E. Lucianna, Holloway’s attorney, said Rios should be “removed from the force immediately.” She blasted as “baseless” charges brought against Holloway that accuse him of resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and wandering with the intent to purchase narcotics.
“They’re baseless charges that were just brought to justify the beating that he got,” Lucianna said, adding that she probably would file a lawsuit as a result of the incident. Lucianna said Holloway had never had a problem with police. Among the demonstrators calling for Rios’s removal from the force was Shawanna Barksdale, a Passaic woman who alleges that Rios used excessive force on her last year after demanding that she get out her car. Barksdale said that after pulling over, she asked Rios why he wanted her to get out the car. She said he reached across her, put the car in park, removed her seatbelt and removed her from the car “by my hair.”
She said that after arresting her on what she asserted were bogus charges of assaulting an officer, he took her to police headquarters, where he slammed her head against a concrete wall. Barksdale said the charges against her were dismissed, and that her complaints against Rios, alleging that he used excessive force, resulted in no disciplinary action against him. “When I heard his name and saw this, ‘I thought Oh my God, it’s him again.’ This time it’s on videotape,” she said. Lucianna said she wanted to get the details of Barksdale’s allegations and would look into them.
This police brutality thing going on is way out of hand. We have to reign it in but that is going make room for liars, race pimps and criminals to go after police officers and get away with crime like they used to do. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be professional supervision - only criminal protection for officers no matter what they do - in some departments.
We have to swing it back and get our cops and their supervisors retrained and back in line. Some are acting like a corrupt foreign police and too many are getting away with it.
Please look at the video again: Rio’s partner TOOK THE BATON OUT OF RIO’S HAND AND PUT IN THE PATROL CAR...that shows he knew Rio’s should not be using the baton........
Andjust because one cop goes along with another, doesn’t make the act right.........
The lady in with the baby wasn’t there to see the beginning of the altercation, so her attitude doesn’t count...
PLUE: you only see video, you don’t know what these 2 people were thinking or what they were saying.
Therefore, your statement is valueless...
So, the punishment for an unzipped sweater in that town is being beat with a baton? Even if you are not mentally off, it shouldn’t happen...
What then should be the punishment for running a way? being shot in the back...
How about robbing a back? What should the punishment be for that by the police? Shot on sight?
I noted a common error: “Police are here to protect us.”
Is that really the case? In a manner of speaking, police only protect us in the way executing a murderer protects us. The murderer is already in prison, so the execution is more a deterrent to others—no real protection to the person murdered, or to the public as a whole to any great degree beyond imprisonment.
It’s a matter of timing. If the police show up before the criminal and prevent the criminal from committing the crime, they are “protecting” us. But otherwise, they are not protecting, but avenging, trying to arrest the criminal after they have committed the crime.
And this is a good argument for gun rights. “There is never a cop around when you need one”, is often the case. It’s not the fault of the police, it just means this is too big a place for police to be everywhere.
So while the police can’t protect us, guns can.
Looks like officer Rio is using the public to sublimate some past life stress, or is working off stress he feels in the course of his day at work.
I’m pretty sure he is in the wrong line profession.
I’ll fully support any law enforcement officer, duly enforcing the law in a just manner. If this man had been resisting arrest, or had even mouthed off at the officer, I might have some degree of understanding. But, he wasn’t, and I don’t. He’s a thug with a badge, and should be brought up on charges himself and removed from the police force.
I often think the cops are abusing their authority in these situation, but I don’t see it in this case.
1. Cop takes the guy to his hood.
2. The guy gets away from him.
3. So the cop takes him down and hits him.
I thought the cop was quite restrained given the guy got away from him when he had him on the hood of the car.
Now like everyone else, I don’t exactly see why the cop decided to search or maybe arrest him. But sorry even if the cop is wrong to search/arrest you, you don’t get to resist which the guy clearly did.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/06/jersey.police.beating/
“Holloway said he had exchanged no words with the officer before he pounced on him.”
There was some sort of exchange between Holloway and the female officer before he was "pounced on".
The officer is just using the guy for physical training as a punching bag. Nothing wrong with that. If the cop could afford to buy a gym membership and get a decent workout he wouldn’t need to beat the black guy. Ya gotta bulk up where you can.
Police need more money for gym memberships. Lets give them a raise. /sarcasm obviously.
I don't have a position on any of those things regarding this case. Since there's no audio with the video, it's hard to determine exactly what happened.
Some of the comments on page two of the link, though, are very interesting. Here's the very first one:
Dominick says: Holloway is a notorious crackhead, he's no innocent babe in the woods. I'm just glad that the cop was Hispanic, or else "Rev" Al Sharpton and the other hate-whitey race baiters would be polluting our city with their presence. If you raise your hands to a police officer you should get your a** kicked.
Personally, I like to do a little bit of research before I jump to conclusions like some here are doing.
And the cop stopped and beat beat the guy for this?, This cop should't be fired,he should be publicly horsewhipped
What we see is the extremely small fraction of millions of contacts made with citizens by police every day. They don't represent even a reasonable percentage of police. If they did the news would be full of these stories.
I said that the violence that Rios showed towards the man he was beating didn’t seem to give anybody pause. They both treated it like it was daily business, for whatever reason. No shock or horror. And I don’t have to know what they were saying or thinking to see their physical behavior.
If you find no value in my statements, no problem. It’s not like you paid for them and therefore I cheated you. And because a statement has no value to you doesn’t mean that is it “valueless” in general. Why, look, it started a momentary conversation between you and I, which might be of value to someone that values actual human interaction of a positive nature.
Thanks, dude.
WTH?
The video is playing at high speed. Because of the pole, and because things are moving so quickly, we can't quite see what actually happened on the hood of the car.
Police seem to be very quick to grab people and physically push them around. When you're dealing with someone mentally off (because of illness or drugs), I'm not sure that's the best first approach.
I'd guess that someone who is impaired is going to react more instinctually to being physically coerced than clear-headedly. It's less resisting arrest than resisting being injured.
Which is why it’s great to be a policeman who likes to smack people around of you work in a town like Passaic which takes such physical violence for granted?
I'm glad I read your tagline. For a moment, I thought you were serious.
What we see are only the most extreme examples of police misconduct... the beatdown of a teenage girl inside a jail cell, the shooting of a wheelchair bound elderly lady (and the planting of drugs on her to justify the cops being in the wrong location), etc. What we DO NOT see are all of the stories of abuse that do not reach the levels needed to attract the attention of the media.
Lying, making false charges, illegal searches, threats, and less extreme examples of physical abuse are far more common than most people think.
(I have a neighbor who is a cop, and brags about what they "get away with" at our neighborhood block parties.)
Your BS meter seems to think that mentally disabled automatically means "Lobotomized: always catonic and drooling".
It could mean "Anxiety Disorder: has a panic attack and curls up in a ball of tears under stress"
Have your BS meter calibrated. And stop watching so much hollywood crap.
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