Guys, seriously. The guy dies of a broken back while in police custody, and you really think no one should be concerned or upset about that??
Yes, the guy may have been a thug, but if the police can beat a suspect in there custody to death, they can just as easily do it to any suspect for any reason.
The rioting is animals being animals, but if you think this is some sort of incident that everyone should not be concerned about, regardless of race, income, religion, etc then you are a certifiable nut.
We aren’t talking about a situation where a suspect resisted and was subdued by force, and got injured during that. By their own admission the guy put up no resistance when arrested, yet his back winds up broken while in police custody and he’s dead.
This is a serious matter, and to try to spin it as, well he was a thug, so its okay, is flat out ignorant.
I can’t provide a link because this was sent to me in an e-mail and is an excerpt from a Baltimore newspaper article concerning civil cases against Baltimore police for brutality:
“Over the past four years, more than 100 people have won court judgments or settlements related to allegations of brutality and civil rights violations. Victims include a 15-year-old boy riding a dirt bike, a 26-year-old pregnant accountant who had witnessed a beating, a 50-year-old woman selling church raffle tickets, a 65-year-old church deacon rolling a cigarette and an 87-year-old grandmother aiding her wounded grandson ....
And in almost every case, prosecutors or judges dismissed the charges against the victims—if charges were filed at all. In an incident that drew headlines recently, charges against a South Baltimore man were dropped after a video showed an officer repeatedly punching him—a beating that led the police commissioner to say he was “shocked.””
One thing that may unite the city of Baltimore is that the black community is tired of getting it’s butt beaten and the entire community is tired of paying out big settlements for out of control cops!
It should be investigated. But bad things can happen when you are resisting arrest. It is not a good idea.
Yes, the issues about this incident are of concern, but I’ll caution you to avoid assuming that the injury was caused during the arrest.
The suspect could have injured himself while fleeing from the cops (i.e. climbing a fence and falling on the other side). The only reason he was caught may have been because he was injured and unable to run anymore. The cops on the scene are not medical experts so if the suspect is yelling at the cops that he hurt himself, the cops may not have understood the extent of the injuries since no obvious external injury or cause of a severe injury may have been present.
Depending on how he was actually hurt, the injury could have been an anomaly. For instance, if he fell from a fence it would normally just bruise, but due to the way he landed, it maybe caused more extensive injuries. Think of it like a car accident. Generally, a person should not be moved from a wrecked car without first stabilizing the c-spine, unless failure to remove the person would result in worse injury (Ex. car fire). If the suspect had complained that he hurt his neck/back from falling and the fall distance did not look extreme, the first thing most people would do it help him up and cuff him, not realizing that getting him up could cause the injury to worsen.
Many departments have policies that require suspects complaining of pain to be taken to the hospital or be seen by EMTs on scene. Other departments just have the suspect seen by nurses at the jail, assuming no visible signs of injury are present. This could be more of a policy failure or just a freak occurrence than any wrongdoing. Either way, it definitely needs to be impartially investigated to ensure no abuse by the police or failure in procedure. I have to reserve my opinion until we get all of the facts.