Here’s a few stories captured by the police misconduct news feed over the last few days, pretty disturbing stuff…
In Charleston WV, police officer Matthew Leavitt was called a “disgrace to his profession” by the judge who sentenced him to 2 years in prison for falsely arresting a white woman for DUI and beating her black husband with a slapjack in front of their 4 year old daughter because they were a mixed-race couple.
The beating was so savage that another officer who tried to stop it had to retreat after the officer threatened him as well. After the beating, Leavitt event attempted to sexually assault the woman and, in failing that, rubbed pepperspray into the man’s eyes.
Of course, this wasn’t Leavitt’s only incident, in all he’s associated with over 20 similar allegations of racially-motivated assaults, thought this was the only one he was tried for… mostly because he threatend to beat the officer who tried to stop it.
In Minneapolis MN, the city has settled a wrongful arrest and excessive force suit for $100k after surveilance video contradicted police testimony over a traffic stop arrest involving a member of Minnesota’s scandal-ridden Metro Gang Task Force.
Officers claimed that the driver of a Mercedes ran a red light and then threw something out of his car right in front of their police vehicle. Then, when stopped, they claimed the female passenger assaulted one of the officers.
A nearby camera, however, proved otherwise and the couple was exonerated… but the officers involved were never disciplined or brought up on perjury charges.
In East Saint Louis IL, an excessive force lawsuit has been filed by a man claiming that he was beaten with nightsticks and other blunt objects by police when he exited a vehicle he was a passenger in, as ordered by police, and dropped to the ground.
However, it doesn’t end there… apparently, claims the man, an officer then ordered his police dog to maul the man’s face, which it did, and he suffered facial disfigurment as a result, in addition to a broken arm… he was never charged with any crime.
In San Bernardino CA, after police there were videotaped savagely beating a man with a night stick during a traffic stop, police are now accused of attempting a cover up by putting the man “on ice”, which makes the beating and arrest seem even more suspect.
After the video of the arrest hit the news, wherein the man suffered a compound fracture to the hand and had to get stitches in both legs and head, the man’s wife now says that he was held without charge for nearly 2 days and, during that time, he was refused access to a phone and lawyers.
Seems that this is a practice the San Bernardino police are no strangers to as there is at least one other case of the police attempting to keep a detainee isolated in order to prevent misconduct allegations from reaching the public.
NewsWatch for 10-23-09 is a post from PoliceMisconduct.net