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Posted on 07/11/2002 4:37:33 PM PDT by socal_parrot
By Dan Whitcomb
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The man who videotaped a police beating near Los Angeles that enraged black leaders and then dodged a grand jury inquiry into the matter was arrested on Thursday as he prepared to grant a television interview.
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Crooks' arrest was videotaped and broadcast on local KCAL-TV, showing undercover officers hustling him into a sports utility vehicle with tinted windows outside the studios of CNN as the 27-year-old man repeatedly screamed for help.
Crooks had failed to appear on Thursday morning at Los Angeles Superior Court, where the grand jury was meeting, after telling a local radio program that he feared for his life.
"All we're doing is arresting him on the basis of a warrant," Los Angeles County District Attorney's spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said. "If there had not been a warrant, we would have escorted him to the grand jury."
"He is a witness and we need him to authenticate the tape recording, otherwise its value in court would be greatly diminished," Gibbons said. Crooks shot his videotape from a motel room across the street from the scene of the incident in Inglewood, which abuts south-central Los Angeles.
Crooks called a KFI-AM talk radio show hosted by John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou on Wednesday to discuss the case and said he was afraid that officers would be "coming after" him for videotaping the beating of 16-year-old Donovan Jackson.
'I FEAR FOR MY LIFE'
"I fear for my life," Crooks said. "They're going to kick my ass in a cell and take turns on me, probably."
Deputy District Attorney Kurt Livesay, who was also a guest on the show, then told Crooks over the air that authorities did not want to hurt him, and asked that he give his address to investigators. Instead, Crooks hung up the phone.
The videotape, first broadcast on Sunday, shows Inglewood Police Officer Jeremy Morse picking up Jackson and slamming him face-first onto a patrol car. Several seconds later, Morse is seen slugging Jackson in the face with a closed fist.
The tape sparked cries of racism and comparisons to the incendiary 1991 beating of Rodney King, which was also videotaped. The acquittal of four Los Angeles officers in that case led to the worst urban riots in modern U.S. history.
Several local law enforcement agencies and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were investigating the altercation between Jackson and Morse, a three-year veteran of the Inglewood Police Department. U.S. Attorney John Ashcroft ( news - web sites) sent his top civil rights deputy to Los Angeles on the case.
Jackson and his 41-year-old father, Coby Chavis, who was present during the incident, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on Wednesday against the officers involved in their arrest, the city of Inglewood and the County of Los Angeles.
Black leaders, including congresswoman Maxine Waters, a Democrat who represents the area, and Inglewood Mayor Roosevelt Dorn have called for Morse to be immediately fired and brought up on state or federal charges.
ATTORNEY: OFFICER DESERVES DUE PROCESS
But Morse's lawyer told Reuters in an interview that the 24-year-old officer had been condemned by public officials before all of the facts were known or the probes even begun.
"I think it's quite unfortunate that people who have sworn to defend and uphold the Constitution would ignore the presumption of innocence and find individuals guilty before there's even been a trial," attorney John Barnett said. "I thought we stopped doing that a couple hundred years ago."
Barnett, who also represented one of the officers acquitted in King's beating, said public officials were offering inappropriate assurances that his client was guilty.
"This very same thing happened (in the King case)," he said. "That's why it was such a big surprise when they were acquitted with tragic, tragic consequences."
Barnett said that Morse lifted Jackson from the ground and heaved him onto the car because the teen had let his legs go limp in an effort to resist.
"After his hands were cuffed, Jackson was able to reach out and grab my client's testicles," he said. "And on that occasion the punch was seen in order to make that activity cease."
In Oklahoma, meanwhile, civil rights activists called for immediate disciplinary action against two white police officers who were videotaped beating a prone black suspect with batons.
The officers, Greg Driskill and E.J. Dyer, were to remain on regular duty pending the results of a probe. Oklahoma City police have asked the FBI ( news - web sites) to investigate.
It could be one of the reasons why he's poor. (I say this having read Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. The poor spend their money on stuff--the rich spend their money on making more money. :o)
The only problem I have with all of this is that it seems to put me on the side of the race/poverty pimps who are circling like sharks in the water and smelling blood!
I know what you are saying. But you know what, it hasn't bothered me in the least. Why should it, I'm nothing like them. As far as I'm concerned they want nothing more than to tarnish blind justice for they are parasites riding the coattails of honest blind-folded justice.
When you know exactly who you are and that person knows only blind justice then there is inner peace and freedom of which no person, no matter how repulsive they may be that can ever take those away. It is the source of immovable real power and real freedom of which I will never give up.
I may walk among their sullen world but I will never be a part of it Nor will they ever have a place in my world so long as they continue their frauds. Yet I have no hate, vengeance or animosity to visit upon them for they know not what they do. They have no idea who I am for they have long ago squelched their own real power and buried it ever deeper under continual layering of usurped power and unearned livelihoods.
I was cuffed as a "bad guy terrorist" during training exercises for MPs, as a Marine.
A properly cuffed (hands behind back, bracelets on both wrists--the situation here) person is NOT going to be doing any significant reachback.
Why not a radical change of facial expression at the time of the "balling"?
I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. I didn't mean to imply that he was only looking angry after he threw the punch. As I mentioned, you can't see his face at all just before/during the throwing of the punch. You can only see his face again immediately after the punch, as the camera pulls back a bit.
What I was trying to say is that he wasn't looking ticked off in the minute leading up to the punch -- everything was pretty peaceful. It's only when the punch is thrown that he's suddenly obviously upset about something.
Does the kid get the same "innocent until proven guilty" right? If so, then we must assume that all of the posters who have accused him of being a dirtball, resisting arrest, assaulting a cop, etc., must be, in your choice of opinion, anti-black.
Or, your logic is faulty.
You are going to do all that while the guy has hold of your cods? Sorry, but I don't buy that.
And your evidence for this is...?
Oh, come on. I can dictate with even greater authority what happens with someone I don't know who jumps off a high rise building. Ever heard of the "reasonable person" test? It's a legal standard that factfinders in courts use to guage what a person THEY DON'T KNOW should have done in a similar situation.
in a situation you no doubt have never faced,
This is what's amazing. You start the sentence racking me (a person you don't know) for making a presumption, then you do the same thing. You don't even wait until the next sentence! Excuse me if I question your credibility on this post at this point.
would do in response to an unusual physical assault
Police officers get grabbed all the time. Their training is almost purely defensive, so they have responded to this sort of thing before. And a rap to the jaw isn't part of the training. (My authority here is a good friend -- a state police officer who conducts training. We were discussing similar situations about 6 weeks ago.)
that when presented with an alternative response, you just know it is a lie!
I was presented with a videotape, and a lawyer trying to explain why his guy did what he did. The explanation was in no way credible, and I find it humorous that anyone would even attempt to defend it.
You must be some kinda psychologist. Did they teach you all that in law school?
No. I learned human nature through various experiences, and reactions to certain grabs through about two plus years training in martial arts.
Why don't you speak plainly and lay your cards on the table. You can not reasonably be claiming that this kid, with his hands cuffed behind his back, was a threat to the officers. Maybe if an officer got right behind him, he could reach out and grab them, but they could easily grab him by the upper arm and hold him away.
What you are really claiming, I submit, is that if the kid grabbed the officer, the officer was justified in slamming him down and punching him as payback-- instant discipline. Is that your position?
I saw the tape. It was equivalent to a hard slap.
This whole thing is mass hysteria.
If a 16 yo fights with a cop and resists he will get thrown to the ground or the hood of a car or hit.
If the cop is to blame it will come out.
He put someone who was resisting on the hood of a car and slapped him hard on the side of the head.
If it was uncalled for he should be fined and suspended for a while.
People have gone crazy.
and set him on his feet. Instead of keeping his legs under tension, ready to have them take his weight as he's set down, Jackson lets his legs be completely limp -- they clearly swing and sway like a rag doll's.
Almost as if he was unconscious. Which that was how it was reported on the news on Wednesday evening -- ABC, CBS, or NBC, I forget which I had on. Yes, I know those three news sources are about as trust worthy as lawyers. The report that Jackson was unconscious was consistent with his limp state. It's possible that slamming him on the car was either to "wake" him up or a bad temper in thinking he was faking it.
Only 2-3 steps later...
It looks plausible. The cop may have even tripped over Jackson's dangling feet and plopped him down on the trunk to regain his own balance so they both wouldn't go down.
There's three cops standing around that should have been helping lift him up and move him around. It's plausible that Jackson was unconscious but one cop thought he was faking it and took matters into his own hands. As if to say "get up punk, quit faking it." If Jackson had attacked the cop and caused the cuts to the cop it's possible that one of the cops knocked him unconscious.
Even Jackson didn't seem all that upset.
"Jackson suffers from a disability that Sweeney termed "auditory processing delays," which makes it very difficult for him to follow instructions given to him orally, Sweeney said." If he had been unconscious, from my experience of "coming to" everything is just a mass of unfocused confusion. I used to box with a few friends and got knocked out four or five times.
*NOW* he looks pissed off all of a sudden. It doesn't seem to be a "boiling over of rage" at all, it looks like something just happened to suddenly enrage him towards Jackson. He yells at Jackson for a few seconds, then the incident is over and they pack Jackson into the car.
Three or four seconds after the cop punched Jackson another cop reaches his arm and shoulder in-between Jackson and the other cop in what appeared as a means to back the cop away from Jackson.
If he told them the "limp legs" and "he grabbed my crotch" stories at that time, that's most likely what happened. And I think a jury would acquit in that case.
Note that the "grabbed my testicles" comment was not released until after Crooks who shot the video footage was in custody. Which was almost three full days after the incident occurred. It could mean nothing or it may point to the cops wanting to know if they had all the video footage from Crooks before releasing the "grabbed my testicles" comment. If the comment was a fabrication waiting to be released then they would want to ensure that there wasn't footage that would contradict it.
As far as I know there has been no report on what the cameras from the gas station showed of the incident or if they showed any footage of the incident. The Sheriffs collected those.
Their necks aren't on the line -- in fact they have more to lose if they back him. So if they do back his story, it's because it's what really happened.
Considering the Rodney King riot history it would weigh heavy on a cops mind should he lie on the witness stand and it caused Morse to be acquitted and as a result a riot ensued.
If the cop plea-bargains, however, it's because his story is bogus and his fellow officers are refusing to cover for him.
While there's plenty of laws that I disagree with, I think plea bargaining in the case of a violent crime is flat out wrong. The person is charged with a specific crime and must be held accountable to the charges that address that crime, not some lesser charge. I realize the prosecutor does that to ensure a conviction but that does not justify the practice. Also, a plea bargain is not always a forward admission of guilt. It does happen that an innocent person has either a week defense or the State has a strong case or a combination of both that causes the person to accept the lesser of two evils. One scenario, two words: planted evidence. One word, perjury. Not saying that it would happen in this case. The point is, there should be no plea bargain.
We'll have to wait and see.
I'll wait and see what transpires.
First of all you ARE aware that that 16 year old boy has Autism.. (in other words has the mind of a 7 year old I read yesterday other reports had him listed as a form of retarded) You can not tell that he has an attitude watching that video, no more then I can. It totally amazes me that you can flame me or anyone else for that matter going based only on YOUR OPINION, and your opinion only. It is your "GUESS" aka NOT a "FACT". I could guess too.. wouldn't make me right would it? perhaps you should get off you highhorse and wait for all the evidence to come out. Have you viewed the Gas station security tapes? I highly doubt it.
Also it was on Greta last night (Fox news) the other person that was beat 3 weeks prior to this 16 year old (still a minor) That guy (adult) was put into a coma for 3 day's after the police let him go the first time. He filed his complaint against this and other officers for his horrific beating (which appeared to be a lot worse then what this kid suffered).
I asked for a trial for the police officer, and investigation. I stated (very much like you did) my OPINION of what I saw. You can try all you will to tell me my eyes did not see what it saw. We shall wait and see what happens.
As to your other post, Post 266... you said Weak people like yourself try to earn respect A powerful person commands it....
Respect can be "commanded" doesn't mean you Get it... you can "COMMAND" me to Respect you , I can laugh in your face and tell you to take a walk. (which I would no doubt) It is something Earned NOT ENTITLED. A concept which seems to be foreign to you.
BTW, Take a walk!! LOL!
Live Free or Die Trying
Do you know the reasons yet the 16 year old was arrested in the first place? I have been asking, I have either A) missed the reason (?) or B) it hasn't been released? have you heard anything on this matter?
Thanks!
If ONE cop does something wrong he should be criticized (although in this particular case the officer's story is plausible, it may be a lie, or not we'll have to see what happens) and that's it
Those who use these opportunities to bash all cops, most of whom are otherwise heros, whether they be libertarians, democrat extremists, or whatever they are behaving despicably and should be condemned.
That's an interesting tone you've chosen. On the one hand you say a cop that does something wrong (say an act of violence since that is the case at hand which I'll wait and see what transpires as the case progresses) should be criticized. On the other hand your tone is that people on forums that bash all cops should be condemned.
To be honest, in the four years I've been around here I have seen less than a dozen people bashing all cops. Though I have seen several dozen people unjustly calling other people cop-haters. ...I'm being conservative because I have witnessed a dozen people doing that in the last five days since the Morse/Jackson incident occured.
Freedom of speech is up to the forum owner to what degree of speech he or she allows. Speech does not cause physical injury to a person and it only becomes fraud in the case of libel, defamation of charter, threat of force or yelling fire in a theater ad the like. That over-the-line speech seldom if ever happens on this forum. In the mid 1990s when I spent much time on Usenet newsgroups it seldom occurred. Only one that I remember on the few newsgroups that I frequented. It brought on a defamation of character lawsuit. Of all things it was filed against a Harvard post graduate and two other John Does. It was legitimate, not frivolous.
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