Posted on 08/19/2010 7:38:15 AM PDT by Palter
DENVER - Coloradans are outraged and demanding action from city leaders after seeing our investigative report about a dog owner beaten by two Denver Police officers.
It's a story FOX 31 News broke Tuesday night.
Now the Denver police independent monitor says he's responding to the public outcry and reviewing the video to see if a larger investigation is warranted.
Mark Ashford was walking his dogs near 20th and Little Raven, when he witnessed police pull over a driver for failing to stop at a stop sign. He told the driver he saw him stop and would be willing to testify in court.
His attorney, Will Hart, said the police officers overheard Ashford's comment and "weren't happy about it."
Hart said the officers demanded Ashford's I.D. and wouldn't let him leave. "They had no reason to stop him or detain him, that's a violation of his fourth amendment rights," said Hart.
Ashford then tried to take a picture of the officers to document the incident, but both the officers pulled his hand behind his back and attempted to arrest him. Ashford appeared to struggle before he was slammed into a railing, punched repeatedly in the face and wrestled to the ground.
Ashford was charged with interference and resisting arrest, but the charges were later dropped, "because the city attorney agreed his fourth amendment rights were violated," said Hart.
Excessive force complaints were filed against the officers.
A Denver police department spokesperson said the internal affairs investigation is closed, but the independent police monitor says he is reviewing the surveillance video to determine if the police officers used excessive force.
Richard Rosenthal said it is likely he will recommend a more thorough investigation.
Ironically, it's the police department's own surveillance camera that may provide the proof.
Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper was notified about the alleged beating caught on tape. A spokesperson tells FOX 31 the mayor is aware of the latest video.
The victim looks too much like them.
Klatu barada nicto? 8^D
I’ve makin’ the same kind of typos lately. New bifocals!
OK, you get them. I'll take the Non Sequitur Brigade (the ones who will tie this to illegal immigration, Obama, or say, "You sick people care more about dogs than you do children!").
;)
What I am at a loss to figure out, is why we haven’t heard of these types of things before now. When a department goes this far South, it generally becomes fairly evident.
Perhaps there was a club in the department, that went zonal as party of their identity.
I’d sure hate to think the whole department was this bad.
One grave indicator from my perspective, was the exoneration of the first to officer that zeroes in on the phone. How do you came too the conclusion they did no, or very little wrong?
You and I would do serious time for assaulting a fellow citizen like that. Officers should know better. They have it spelled out to them very clearly. They know the penalties involved. If they do it, then they deserve to get the book thrown at them.
Fact: Cops cause Crime.
Racially motivated attack claims bolstered by shocking "LoDo Wilding" footage
Suspect in LoDo beatings found in Indiana
Of course, while looking for stories on those incidents, I found this from yesterday:
Police "excessive force:" Denver quietly settles James Watkins suit over another LoDo incident
Thank you for the comments and the links. I appreciate you mentioning the racial attacks. It’s certainly food for thought.
That case yesterday was what I was referencing in one of my posts, about this being more than an isolated incident. Something more is going on here.
Take care...
They (officers) say he threatened to assault the officers, chest-bumped Penn, refused to follow their orders and resisted arrest.
But charges against Watkins for allegedly assaulting an officer were later dropped…. A passerby apparently captured at least some of the encounter on his cell phone.
You know the rest of the story, right?
I don't know any inside info here, but if I had to make a SWAG I'd say it's overreaction. It's happened before down there. IIRC it was after a big sports event, one of the Super Bowls or maybe the World Series they didn't bring enough manpower for crowd control and resorted to force.
It's a fine line. The Mall and LoDo can attract big crowds going down there for the bars and restaurants but there also are gangbangers, as noted in your links. So, they're trying to protect the law abiding citizens but having to deal with lots of drunks to do so.
I don't think you send a message to the yutes by smacking around yuppie cracker dogwalkers.
Right. I'm not saying it is reasonable...I'm just say.
Hickenlooper created a sanctuary city.
When you encourage lawlessness you reap what you sow.
Homeless bums destroying the 16th. St. Mall.
When a fast food restaurant tried to roust out the homeless they were excoriated. As if the business was open to provide shelter for homeless bums. Young men causing endless trouble on the mall.
Hickenlooper is running for Governor now.
I think you’re probably referring to the other case, which we discussed yesterday. If you watch the video on this thread, it’s crystal clear that the guy was handed a citation, and was told to “get along, and take it up with the judge”, when he decided to escalate things. He resisted being taken into custody, and when that resistance stopped, the force stopped. What I continue to find fascinating is the following:
1. In the majority of these threads, the media are reporting the story told by a plaintiff’s attorney (as in this case.) In no other circumstance would FReeprs so uncrictically accept the spin from such a dubious source, especially when lined up against an institution that is traditionally the recipient of conservative benefit of the doubt. That’s sufficiently far out of the conservative mainstream, at least as I understand it, that it’s worth digging in to, at least a little bit.
2. There is a consistent notion that “the cops have gotten rougher/more likely to use force/more violent etc.” than they were in some unspecified past. Now, I’m an old fart, so my timeline may be longer than folks are meaning, but if you go back to the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, that’s just plain not so. Policing was far more physical back then than now, post Rodney King. That, too, I find curious. Sure, there’s excessive use of force that occurs, but the municipal and county constabularies have never been held so accountable as they are today. These stories themselves are evidence of that scutiny, IMHO.
3. Related to 2, above, is that in both this case, and the one from downtown Denver, a “bystander” chose to involve himself in an unrelated detention/arrest. Maybe that’s the ettiquette these days, but that’s a huge change from the recent past, and shouldn’t go without comment. Maybe that’s a good thing, to stop on the street and offer your opinion, vociferously, to the officer on the validity of the traffic stop, drunk in public arrest, etc. But we, and by we I mean the, working, conservative citizenry, didn’t used to think that was such a good idea. That’s a big change in the culture, and really does deserve dissection, too.
So, I’m interested in the cultural attitude, more than anything else. The conservatives I know in person all tend to have the outlook that things have swung too far in favor of those who think that “the rules don’t apply to them (say, DUI, drunk in public, weed smokers, meth tweakers, shoplifters, robbers, burglars and the like), and away from the rule of law and civil order. Yes, we don’t much like the over-reach of big government in the economy, land use regulations, and other traditionally individual areas of responsibility, but we draw the distinction at the enforcement of the penal code, vehicle code, and other areas that haven’t really fundamentally changed in many years.
Hence my attempts to post on these threads. I’m open to the idea that I’m wrong, in fact, the opportunity to clarify my thinking keeps me coming back to FR. I just don’t get it on this particular topic yet.
Because cops are put on a pedestal. In a courtroom setting they are not treated like a regular citizen, or a party of ill-motive. Yet more and more they are. Of ill-motive, that is.
There’s a reason for that, the same reason that affirmative action creates incompetent brats who also lash out when someone tries to hold them to account.
Point taken. I watched the unedited video provided at the link.
...especially when lined up against an institution that is traditionally the recipient of conservative benefit of the doubt.
Traditionally, conservatives are wary of government. the cops ARE the government. I don't know where all of the boot licking conservatives have come from.
If you watch the video on this thread, it’s crystal clear that the guy was handed a citation, and was told to “get along, and take it up with the judge”, when he decided to escalate things.
That's not crystal clear to me after watching the entire video. I do see that he appears to get a citation (and he is nasty about the way he takes the two pieces of paper from the cop), then I see the butch cop get in his way (with her uber-macho stance) as he tries to walk away.
...a “bystander” chose to involve himself in an unrelated detention/arrest.
I'm not convince that it would be a good thing for every one to put on blinders and ignore possible wrong doing.
I have had that very discussion here on FR. Look at something as simple as a traffic citation. If you go to court and say you are not guilty, then the cop says you are, what happens? You are guilty
What if you had someone riding with you and they say you did not commit the violation? You are guilty.
You are always guilty, unless you can conclusively prove that you did not commit the violation (video, proved physical presence somewhere else etc)
How did it get this bad? This is what happens in a police state.
I think you bring up some good points. Cops probably aren’t really getting more aggressive than they’ve always been, and in fact, with the high profile brutality cases, some of them at least are surely trying to be more careful. However, with the preponderance of surveillance cameras and cell phones, the public is just more likely to find out about these cases. What’s amazing to me is that the cops know these cameras are out there, and we still see some “bad actors” who step over the line anyways. In the story from yesterday, the officers seemed to realize this and decided to go get the phone to cover-up their own wrongdoing.
As for whether bystanders stepping into a police stop is more common or not, it may very well be. I don’t think it’s very advisable, since even the gentlest police officer is probably going to get annoyed by that kind of thing. Annoying a guy with a gun and a nightstick who’s already probably got his adrenaline pumping is just not a smart move, in my experience.
However, it seems to me that police officers more and more take the attitude of “us vs. them” when it comes to the public. I’m sure it’s an outgrowth of the increasingly dangerous environment they work in, but the attitude and the impact it has on their behavior is what the public is going to come away with. So it’s no wonder if the public begins to do likewise and starts to band together for protection against abuses of police authority.
In Traffic Court, or district court, the word of a police officer is taken as unquestionable truth. This is in all effect — a presumption of guilt.
The cops word is held to be true, your words if you speak them are considered doubtful. And if you do not testify, what saves you from his accusation? It is exactly a presumption of guilt!
Cops today are more blindly aggressive to anyone. It is sociopathic behavior. Today they’ll brutalize a scrawny teenager, a father in front of his kids, a mother pushing a stroller or a frail oldster back-talking them at a traffic stop MORE readily than a rowdy bar patron at a bar brawl.
When the Irish gangmembers in New York City matured a bit and joined the Police way back in the days, did did show considerably more discretion — they were brutal men looking for fights too, but they had a code. They were as tender to old ladies and youngsters as they were brutal to street thugs and toughs. They understood people. The were humane but brutish men. They were tough guys, men, but not too many bullies among them.
Today too many who join the police tend to be insecure, emotionally unstable bullies, petty, latent or near sociopaths wanting to wear a ‘power suit’ of a uniform that allows them to be BIG and POWERFUL, to assert dominion over all. They do not want to be held to any account. It is a motive of being free of responsibility while forcing all to submit to you. God-hood.
The concept of “Cop” has been established in the culture. Grab a badge and uniform and immediately be invincible, beyond account, infallible and powerful. You no longer have to prove it, like the men in blue on the streets of New York once did.
Yes, there are some who join for good motive. But too many not. And the reason that ratio of bad to good has changed is because society has put cops on a pedestal. We not longer hold cops to account in every action they make.
Here’s an example — a man in street clothes tells a man he sees walking along the street to stop and produce ID. The other good people in the vicinity would immediately object to such rudeness. But a cop in uniform does that and who objects? Immediately the poor man is considered a near-criminal, a man under suspicion. Better we should, upon seeing an officer making a such a demand where there is no obvious suspicion of bad action, raise our voice in alarm just as if it was a man in plainclothes.
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