Taking out the trash while black, violently assaulted by cops

[Cheese Sandwich]

DALLAS — It's dash cam video that Dallas police commanders never wanted the public to see.

Keep in mind, Damon Williams, the man in the video, broke no laws. He wasn't under arrest when a Dallas police officer put him in a headlock and threw him to the ground. It all happened as the man's wife and children watched.

The Dallas City Council recently paid $125,000 to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit.

"Who knows what does that do an 8-year-old boy that watches the police body slam his dad?" said Don Tittle, a Dallas civil rights attorney who represented Williams.

Williams suffered a shoulder injury during the incident, he said.
...

http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/local/dallas-county/2015/10/09/dallas-police-altercation-lawsuit-excessive-force/73690602/

[cantbeserious]

1. Terrorizing The 99% - To Protect And Serve The 1%

eom

[FreakinDJ]

7. +1000 ^^^ This Guy gets it ^^^

[PoliticAverse]

2. Glad he got a decent settlement out of the incident. n/t

[tblue37]

15. It should have been bigger--especially since lawyers will take at least half. nt

[strategery blunder]

3. Just go to the end of the article...

"The punishment: a one-day suspension"

And that is the fucking problem.

Should read: "The punishment: immediate termination, and the officer is now facing battery charges."

[Spitfire of ATJ]

4. No kidding, we need to empty the jails of pot smokers and fill them with bad cops.

[passiveporcupine]

5. Agreed

This shit is getting so old.

[malaise]

6. Well the killer of Tamir Rice was 'justified'

in slaughtering a 12 year old - no fucking accountability for police brutality and murder by cop.

[DFW]

8. Exactly.

A crime is a crime, also when committed by someone wearing a badge and a uniform.

[Heidi]

9. Kick, kick, kick!

:kick:

[suffragette]

10. A pattern of behavior

From the article:

Tittle says all too often police officers are escalating situations into confrontations that didn't have to occur. He believes race cannot be ignored as a factor. He also points out that the officer involved in the incident had received at least four excessive force complaints, indicating a potential pattern of problem behavior.



Yet, the last sentence in the article notes the punishment was a one-day suspension.

Wrongs compounding wrongs.

[uppityperson]

11. ++++++++

[LWolf]

12. A one day suspension? Really?

I mean, I'm glad that Williams got a settlement.

But a one day suspension for the officer?

[Glassunion]

13. Thank god the cop was not fired.

Otherwise the terrorist win 9/11 or some shit.

I hate to say it, but the police union is to blame on this. Whenever the government can do something with impunity, that is illegal for the citizenry to do. You no longer live in a democracy.

[tblue37]

14. The settlement should have been bigger. nt

[Vinca]

16. Absolutely. They got off on the cheap.

This man should have been awarded so much cash he could afford to pay someone else to take out the trash.

[Cheese Sandwich]

17. Yes but also reform the cop system to stop these abuses.

[tblue37]

18. Notice the sum of the cops' concern as expressed in this paragraph:

Commanders were clearly not happy with his actions.

(SNIP)

"You left an image with that man, his children and that community right there of us that I don't know how we overcome that," said then Assistant Chief Tom Lawrence. "If the media were to take your video and play it in the media market here, what do you think that would do to us?" {emphasis added}

[tblue37]

19. These comments are so revealing:

"My intention was not to choke the guy out," he told commanders.

Notice that he says this as though "chok<ing> the guy out" would have been a perfectly acceptable tactic to use in that situation--i.e., when a perfectly innocent man has been detained for no good reason (IOW, for daring to be black) in front of his own home, in front of his family and neighbors. So those are a cop's choices when dealing with an innocent man questioning why he is being detained when he has done nothing to warrant suspicion (other than being black, of course(!): either choke him out or violently take him down and put him in a headlock.

Asked what his intensions <sic>were, Waldroup said his intention was to calm Williams down.

Yes, because physically assaulting an innocent man for daring to ask why he is being treated so appallingly is always the first option when you want to calm someone down. Wouldn't that make you feel calm?

"He just wasn't listening to me," Waldroup said <emphasis added>. "Once I determined that he probably wasn't going to listen to what I had to say, I was going to put him in handcuffs in order to talk to him and I think that's why it happened so fast. I was thinking, 'Is this the guy?'"

Ah, there we have it. As Waldroup phrases it, "He just wasn't listening to me."

Translated from copthug lingo: [font color = "blue"]

"He was speaking as though he expected us to answer his questions and treat him like a human being--or, if you can even believe it (!!)--as though he, as a citizen, has any rights at all just because of the Constitution (which is just a damned piece of paper)! He wasn't immediately, unquestioningly, and abjectly submitting, groveling, and licking my jackboots!"[/font]