On May 13, 2009, when El Monte California police officers cornered Richard Rodriguez after a high speed chase Rodriquez gave up, laid down on the ground, and spread his arms and legs so that officers would know there was no threat when they went to handcuff him. But, that wasn’t enough for the three El Monte officers who caught up to him first.
Officer George Fierro was the first to run up to Rodriguez and, in mid stride, kicked him square in the face while he laid prone waiting to be arrested. A lawyer for the police union in El Monte claims that this kick is a “Distraction Technique” that all officers are trained to perform and are justified to use by departmental policy… apparently so is the tactic of repeatedly hitting a prone suspect in the back with a flashlight and instructing one’s K9 unit to bite his legs as two other officers proceeded to do when they arrived shortly after Fierro.
In an interview shortly after video of the arrest made the rounds in the media, the El Monte police chief appeared to agree with this assessment by saying that a spread-eagle suspected is a threat worthy of this “distraction technique” if that suspect moves his head to see where the footsteps rapidly approaching him are headed… which was right towards his face.
The police union lawyer claims that this kick-to-the-face with the toe of a possibly steel-toed boot isn’t designed to harm the suspect, as can be seen by the forming bruise on the tattooed face of Rodriquez… after all, how much harm can come from a single blow, right?
On July 9, 2008, 29 year old Seattle Washington resident Brian Brown was told that a group of girls, his friends, had been assaulted by 60 year old James Paroline. Apparently, Paroline had laid out traffic cones which blocked traffic while he was watering a local roundabout when the girls, amidst the drivers blocked by Paroline, got out to confront him about the hold-up when he allegedly sprayed them with a hose.
When Brown arrived though, he confronted Paroline and, after exchanging words, punched him once in the face. That single punch ended up ending Paroline’s life and sent Brown to prison for 11 years on a 2nd degree murder plea. Even though most agree that it was never Brown’s intent to kill Paroline with that single blow, intent didn’t change the result… a tragic and senseless loss on both sides.
The human body can be both surprisingly resilient and yet equally fragile. No matter what the intent, a physical assault that might not phase one person may prove devastating to another, sometimes for no other reason than sheer dumb luck.
So, even if the intent isn’t to seriously harm, even if it’s is only meant to “teach a lesson” or “distract” an already surrendered suspect, serious harm can still be the end result of that use of physical force.
In the early morning hours of May 10, 2009, two King County Washington deputies working the Metro Transit detail were flagged down by a pedestrian and told that a stabbing took place in a nearby convenience store. While at the location a woman pointed out a man in a nearby alley as one of the assailants.
At this point, witness statements diverge as to whether the two deputies, wearing black, had identified themselves before running after the man, but what is known is that 29-year old Christopher Harris ran as soon as he saw people point at him and run at him.
Just a few short blocks away, whether from fatigue or because he finally realized he was being chased by police instead of street thugs, he stopped near a concrete wall and appeared to give up… but this, as well, apparently wasn’t enough for the deputies chasing him.
Though the King County Sheriff’s Office insists that it knows for a fact that Deputy Matthew Paul didn’t intend to harm Harris even before they even interviewed him, unreleased video from a nearby theater showed deputy Paul blindside Harris with what has been described as a sickening, bone-crushing tackle that sent Harris face-first into a nearby concrete wall with sufficient force to fracture his skull in multiple locations.
Regardless of deputy Paul’s intent with his own distraction technique, the result was that Harris has not regained consciousness and remains in a coma while his condition has deteriorated to the point that doctors are uncertain as to whether he will survive, let alone ever regain consciousness again.
Upon review of the convenience store cameras it was revealed that Harris was never even in the store that night, let alone among the alleged assailants… all of whom have escaped as has the alleged victim who has never come forward either.
This time… the distraction technique may well end up being deadly and, no matter what the officer’s original intent might have been, an innocent man will never be the same and his wife, recently married, as well as his family will be punished for a crime that none of them ever committed.
Isn’t that distracting enough?
Deadly Distractions – Excessive Force Gets a New Name is a post from PoliceMisconduct.net