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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.
As I indicated, maybe the cop's a bigger meathead.
But I have to provisionally accept the words of the attorney as his own.
Careful, pal---you're transferring your feelings of hatred for cops to this lawyer the cop has hired.
I don't hate all cops. Just the ones who dishonor their badges. And, unfortunately, said dishonor can happen by omission as well as comission.
If cops were more willing to testify against those cops who violate the law (I've actually heard a cop describe doing so as "snitching"), stuff like this wouldn't have much effect--because we'd know that the cop was history with the department.
My father was an Annapolis graduate. He got taught that he was not supposed to behave dishonorably, nor tolerate those who do--and that silence in the face of said dishonor was just as morally indefensible and just as corrosive to the Navy as the dishonorable act itself. He taught me those virtues. Sorry that my rectitude is so offensive to you.
BTW, it's amazing to watch "conservatives" say that the cop is a mere victim of his environment.
Yeah, and? Does that mean he stopped resisting the minute the cuffs were on?
The donut muncher would have had to have been humping the perp like a dog for the perp to have been able to reach. (Perhaps the cop was, could be a dominance thing, cops are strange like that.)
Say no more...you can't get a word out about a cop before you call him a "doughnut muncher" and accuse him of trying to rape the kid. There isn't a single thing the cop can say in his defense that you'll buy.
Too bad. The cop haters' story is coming apart at the seams. People aren't going to be hoodwinked like they were about this incident they way they were about Rodney King.
......the video tape of blah blah blah blah showing the hand cuffed suspect having the "you-know-what" beaten out of him.
Now he's flirting with Waters......
The last name's not gonna help much with credibility.
Nice shootin', Tex. Except you didn't figure that tapes can be edited. And this one seems to have been.
Like I said, Tex, we'll see how this shakes out. I have a feeling it won't be the way you like it. No worries. You and your buds'll be hot on the trail of another cop to ruin.
I said from what I had heard, they would have been justified in capping the creep.
I also understand that the tape was edited before release, much as the rodney king tape had been edited, so it didn't show king getting back up on his feet after he was hit with two tasers, and lunging at the cops.
Of course, I think LA should be given back to the mexicans, so that the liberals out there could really experience some Napolenic justice.
To be honest with you, I can't tell from the tape if there was any grabbing of the "jewels" or not. And, I've seen it a couple of times myself.
I'm also not sure as to the natural reaction. The last time anybody made good contact, I was about 13 years old. My reaction then was to double over in pain. :^) By the time I reached my 20's, my reactions had turned more towards the offense.
I know that there had to be a couple of witnesses that had a different angle on the situation, but I'm not sure what they saw nor am I sure what they'll say they saw. Cops tend to testify in favor of other cops unless there's some real nasty stuff going on. Similarly, neighbors in some areas are very tight and will not testify against their own neighbors and aquaintances.
I agree with one thing; this doesn't look good for the cop. But he gets a trial (though without the camera, there might not be such a trial), hopefully a fair one just like the rest of us.
I did find it interesting that the "camera man" had some outstanding warrants. The plot thickens here.
The only unfortunate part about that is that the city's finances consist solely of what the taxpayers give them. In other words, to financially punish the city is simply to punish the taxpayers in this town.
How ugly.......
I never said it was right.
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.
Oh, were the police at Waco and Ruby Ridge?? That was THEIR fault? I thought that was the FBI and ATF! Gee, I'd better get my facts straight, hunh?
This kid is completely innocent of anything until I see the tape showing him squashing the cop's nuts.
Of "anything"? You need a tape now to clear a US citizen and peace officer if he's accused of a crime? Great, two different standards constitutionally for cops and civilians. Sounds fair to me.
You interperet this as the 'cop haters' story coming apart. LOL. You will believe anything.
The cops don't even have a decent story and they have had plenty of time to get it together. BTW I get along great with 90% of cops, certain bully cops and I did not like each other when I was young (now my sheeps cloths are near perfected). They did'nt like me because they never caught me doing anything and I had a smart mouth. They also knew who my friends were (having beatin the living s@#+ out of three of them) and hence knew I might have had something to do with all the golfballs driven at the station parking lot (my slice at the time would not have made me much help).
Try this exercise. Put your hands behind your back. See how far you can reach. He would have had to have been right behind him for the kid to reach.
You can protest that you don't "hate cops" till you're blue in the face: you've convicted this guy without knowing all the evidence, and the only reason that seems clear to me is because you think cops are a cabal of goons, itching to pound suspects (especially black ones) and covering up for each other. That's HATRED. NOTHING you say can convince me otherwise.
Sorry that my rectitude is so offensive to you.
Not your "rectitude," O sanctimonious Poohbah---your willingness to condemn a man and his whole profession over six seconds of (possibly edited) video, and the tendentious, hysterical claims of those with every incentive to destroy not only one cop's career but effective policing in the LA area. That doesn't just "offend" me---it disgusts me.
LOL!!
Or,
If the family jewels was hit -
His sex life musta quit...
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