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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.
hee hee. Gotta love the boys in blue.
Considering Jackson's condition; suffers from a disability termed "auditory processing delays," which makes it very difficult for him to follow instructions given to him orally, it's possible that the police jumped the gun... so to speak. Perhaps they though he was spaced out on drugs or was ignoring them. There's subtle yet important differences like where they talking to Jackson's back or to his face. If to his back did he not hear them or process the information and they grabbed him and he pushed back? I can see how a cop who is an authority that expects to be acknowledged could get perturbed when telling a person to their back to turn around and come here and it appears the person is ignoring them and keeps walking. Somebody pushed, hit or grabbed somebody first.
If you do learn what he has been charged with give me a ping. I'll do the same.
Speling wasn't important.
Oh yeah, I hope nobody minds that I included the sentences between the brackets that were in JJ's original post.
Carry on... :-)
To: John Jorsett
[There's nothing kneejerk or conclusion jumping about my criticism. In a finger-pointing contest, I'll generally give the benefit of the doubt to the cops, since most of the people they deal with aren't the most truthful individuals.] However, when presented with videotaped evidence, I'm not going to deny my own eyes, nor my sense of what constitutes unnecessary force. If you want to go on thinking that expecting a peace officer to live up to a code of behavior that doesn't include roughing people up is anti-cop, that's your choice.
No one appointed you judge and jury of that cop's fate, sir, and it is not an endorsement of "police brutality," as you so primly and dishonestly put it, to insist that every piece of evidence, not simply the videotape you find so conclusive, be evaluated to determine whether the cop's actions were justified. And yeah, my "choice" of opinion is, you're anti-cop.
86 posted on 7/11/02 9:26 PM Eastern by Map Kernow
Is it proper procedure to run everyone in the car thru the "system" in CAL? I know at times My husband's pulled over I was never asked for any type of Identification? I understand the father had expired tags. Could it be the kid didn't want to leave the car or something if they towed the car?
That guy that Greta Interviewed last night, (who filed charges 3 weeks before this happened) Said..
He was leaving his family's, One police car pulled up, asked for their (him and his friend) I.D.s they handed it over and asked what the matter was. the police replied a complaint had been called in. the two guy's waited. They were let go by the police. The Man walked to his own car, Got in it. He said he was surrounded by 5 or 6 police cars. He didn't know what was going on, They all told him to get out of the car.. He got out of the car. He said he was beat with nightsticks.. They claim he was resisting arrest. he said he wasn't. he was completely compliant.
He said he was told he was under arrest,, he asked for what. They never said.. He was put into the hospital with in a 3 day coma..(the pictures they showed were horrific to me)
He never was charged to this day with anything and no outstanding warrants. One of the officers that took part in the beating and that wrote up the "police report" was the same officer that punched this kid in the face.
Greta last night asked what was the reason for the arrest.. neither the Lawyer or the Defendant knew. He was never charged with anything.
After hearing this story last night, I really think there is a Problem with this Police force.
To all who read this, This does in NO WAY make me a "cop-hater", This makes me a concerned citizen speaking my mind when obvious red flags go up about certain people or agencies Perhaps more will come out in the coming day's..
I've noticed that people have stated that this kid had central auditory processing disorder.(or at least that's what I know it as) If this young adult has no other disabilities then I am having a hard time swallowing this as an "excuse" for his behavior. I home school my daughter, and to be honest she is not any different from any other child, this "disability" does not effect one's IQ in itself, in essence these kids were born without the instinct to filter out ambient, and background noises which makes it hard for them to "focus", which they can actually learn to overcome it with practice just like learning a skill (like baseball, or playing an instrument, it will be a skill that needs constant practice to keep it refined) If they are using this central auditory processing in itself as the proof that he's mentally retarded, then it's hogwash.
* If anyone knows where it's posted or reported as a solid fact EXACTLY what disabilities this young adult has, please let me know, I am very interested in knowing.
But as far as this kid getting the roughed up for no reason, or if he deserved it, or even if the cop was a good cop or bad cop, I don't know... I'm still "watching" this case closely too. 
ROFLOL! Remember that song of the 70's, "Rubber Band Man"???
He's possibly hoping they will. If he shows up before the grand jury with big bruses or begging for a doctor to examine him for having been raped, that kid's lawsuit will be nothing compared to his.
It's a possiblity. He's all wound up already, screaming, "Help me! Help me!" going to the car. A little over dramatic, to say the least. They won't dare hurt him. He's a publicity-seeking petty thief, we know that already.
One can hardly be blamed for wondering why "he grabbed my balls" wasn't offered, perhaps read directly off an officer's original report, within minutes or even hours after the tape was first shown on TV.
One might also suspect that these "new facts" have come only as the result of a department-wide effort to view the tape with video, medical, and re-enactment experts to make up the best -- as bad as it is -- lie out of whole cloth.
If they are using this central auditory processing in itself as the proof that he's mentally retarded, then it's hogwash.
They are not. As far as I have read in any of the reports (I've read six to eight) or seen on TV, none of them have said Donovan Jackson is mentally retarded. They did say he suffers from a disability termed "auditory processing delays," which makes it very difficult for him to follow instructions given to him orally.
Unless you have direct contact with the child I think you erred by implying that you can diagnose to what degree he is afflicted by the disability. That it may be possible to overcome is irrelevant to what his state of disability is during the altercation. That is, unless you want to hold it against Donovan that he may not have tried hard enough to overcome the disability and that should have some bearing on the cops actions. In other words, lay partial blame on Donovan for the cop's actions because he (Donovan) may not have tried hard enough to overcome his disability. I doubt he is faking it and the court will surely have him sufficiently evaluated.
It hasn't happened lately, and I don't enjoy getting tickets, but no cop has ever been rude to me, even when giving me a ticket, and more than one has let me off with a warning--that's "nice" to my way of thinking.
Absolutely right, dougherty. And from what I see of them, they're all of the same ilk as Dan Rather and Maxine Waters.
Oh, did I say all that, buddy? Wanna make me back everything someone else says that you don't like?
Besides, genius, your "logic" is a total non sequitur. First, no one to my knowledge has said the kid should not be charged (if he's charged with anything) and tried with constitutional guarantees, whereas the cop has been "convicted" in the rhetoric of many herein on the basis of six seconds of video.
Second, the issue here is whether the cop used justifiable force, and whether the force he used was racially motivated. Separate issue from whether the kid can be charged with a crime and what crime that would be.
Suspects of all colors are detained every day by the police, and when they resist, they have problems, not because of their color, as so many in their politically correct fantasyland like to think, but because of their attitude, and more importantly, the risk they pose to the police and the public. That appears to be a very tough concept for many people to get their frontal lobes 'round.
Or, your logic is faulty.
Or maybe yours is, Einstein.
Last refuge of a scoundrel on FR---accuse someone of being "like Clinton," hunh, Tex? I said the tape looked like it was edited, and I'm not the only one who thinks so. Like I said, let's see how the thing shakes out---just get that speed-dial to your mamma ready in case it doesn't turn out the way you and your cop-bashing buddies want it to....
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