Well…just read an interesting little article in the Free Press about the individualized costs of just one police brutality case in the city of Inkster…if you recall, an idiot cop dragged a guy out of his car under false pretenses and beat him mercilessly…in this one case the cop was fired and is now under trial for multiple felonies in relationship to that beating…never mind the many, many others he was responsible for. This article put a new spin on the 1.38 million dollar settlement to the beaten man…they broke it out as a per household amount that is going to have to be paid through a millage increase that will tax everyone in Inkster…and that comes out to $178.30 property tax increase for a house that is only worth $55,000…yep for each homeowner they are going to have to kick in almost 200 bucks to pay for this one case of police brutality…I wonder if this will help end this nonsense? If I lived in Inkster, I’d sure be yelling for changes so this wouldn’t ever happen again…and, I would press the city to file a recovery lawsuit to get the money back from the fired officer….geez…
Tag Archives: Police brutality
I just can’t believe this…..
Well…with all of the coverage of police brutality across the US, there was a story yesterday that just made my jaw drop…had a hard time believing it. Since 2004, Chicago has paid out $560 million dollars to settle lawsuits for brutality by its police force…yep that’s $560 MILLION dollars in just the past 10 years….just think of how many school lunches could be bought for that money, how many schools could be rebuilt, and how may roads could be fixed. In the era of cuts, cuts, and more cuts to services, no one thinks there is something wrong with this? Something needs to be done and done now to end this nonsense….anyone who is the object of one of these suits that is settled should be fired and anyone who helped cover it up should go, too….the police in the country are out of control and the daily revelation of another, and another person being killed or maimed by them is just wrong…fire them all….geez…
I’m shocked….but happy…
Well…was just reading “The Detroit Free Press” on my phone and this bit of shocking but happy news came across the screen…the Inkster cop who beat a man bloody and who had been sued many, many times for brutality is being charged with two felonies relating to the latest of his long list of beatings. Yep, finally, one of these cops is going to be held accountable for this crap; for beating an unarmed man and planting drugs on him to try to justify the beating…but, the prosecutor has just dropped the last charge of possession of drugs of the beaten man so justice appears to have been served. But, this can’t be the last time one of these thugs is held accountable…and it appears that with all of the added scrutiny and the videos that are surfacing, baby steps are beginning that may just lead to reform….I know this may just be wishful thinking but baby steps are better than no steps…it’s about time….
I still don’t like the cops…
Well….another day, another egregious case of police brutality here in Michigan…on January 28th, cops in Inkster pulled over another black man and proceeded to beat him on the pretense that he “rolled through a stop sign” and then yelled at a cop that he was going to kill him. Little problem here….this man has never been in trouble in his life…not once…and is a 37 year employee of Ford with a perfect record there. The primary excuse of the cops was that he was in a “new car in a known drug area” and, sure enough, they found drugs on the guy…the only problem was the dashcam that showed one of the cops, who had been accused of planting drugs and guns on people before, taking the bag of drugs out of his pocket and slipping it into the suspect’s pocket as he was beating him. Oh, and the drug test done at the hospital showed nothing…not even aspirin in his system. One neat little fact is the cop, nicknamed “robocop” cost the city of Detroit millions of dollars in settlements for shooting unarmed people and other abuse while he was employed there….but, guess what? He’s still on the job, still collecting his pay, still abusing citizens and nothing is being done about it…this guy and everyone involved should be in jail….no wonder I still don’t like cops…and I’m an old white guy…geez…
To protect and to serve…
Well…even though everyone has commented on the pepper spraying of student protesters at UC Davis, I thought I’d weigh in with my two cents…first, what was that fat thug thinking when he walked up and down the line of protesters spraying them in such a nonchalant way? I thought pepper spray was only to be used when there was danger to the officer or bystanders? This thug was in no danger…he just wanted to show his power to the students…that he could treat them any way he wanted with no ramifications…what is wrong with sitting down and talking and trying to work things out? What has happened to the police in this country? What has happened to the motto that many of them carry on the sides of their cars….and the question then becomes to protect and to serve who? From my view, it is to protect the 1% and serve as their private army…trying to ensure they don’t have to listen to protests or have their thievery exposed….until the police stop treating every protest and execution of our first amendment rights as an attack on them, this stuff will continue…geez…
My heart broke a little last night…
Well…as I was watching the news as I do most nights, my heart broke a little with watching the footage of the police crackdown on the OWS protesters in Oakland, California. If you haven’t seen it, the protesters and police were faced off in downtown Oakland…the protesters standing in a group, not moving, not making any threats to the police, when one of the police shot a tear gas round at point blank range into the face of one of the protesters; knocking him to the ground and fracturing his skull. While this Iraq war veteran was lying on the ground, critically injured, some of the protesters gathered around him, trying to give him aid when one of the police, in the second row of their phalanx, behind barricades, and perfectly safe, tossed a “flash-bang” grenade into the people trying to provide medical attention. On the video, you can see this jack booted thug smirking as he pulls the pin and tosses the grenade; knowing full well that he could be doing great bodily harm to these American citizens who are exercising their constitutional rights. And, what has happened to this thug? The mayor of Oakland comes out and says that her police force acted to protect their safety. Oh, really, from what? Against unarmed protesters who are clearly not moving toward this thug? I am outraged and have had enough of the police thinking they are above the law, that they can abuse American citizens like the Egyptian citizens were terrorized and abused in Tahir Square…that the police have the power to “grant” us our constitutional rights and limit them in any way. All of us should be outraged at this abuse of power, at this usurpation of our rights…rights that are not limitable to what is convenient for the police but exist to protect us from this kind of behavior….geez…