Video of a February 2013 incident involving two Florida police officers who aimed their weapons at a car of black men who wouldn’t stop filming them isn’t helping the nation’s police, who have largely defended their use of force in the days after Michael Brown’s shooting death.
In the video above, you can see a police officer ask the car of black men for their identification. After one of the men refuses to stop filming, he pulls him out of the car and onto the ground.
Another police cruiser pulls up and a cop jumps out, holding his firearm as he approaches the vehicle.
“I’ll fuckin’, I’ll put a round in your ass so quick,” he says.
But Boynton Beach police chief Jeffrey Katz doesn’t think the cops flexed their firearms to the point of misconduct.
From Gawker:
He claims the men in the video were stopped for being inside a 2-mile perimeter Boynton Beach PD had set up to investigate a home invasion, and that officers reacted the way they did because “the driver reached out of his window with a black object in his hand.”
The men in the video weren’t charged with a crime, and they never filed a report about the officers’ behavior—a fact Katz uses to dismiss criticism of the way the stop was handled.
“No gotcha moment exists here…which is why I suspect nobody ever came forward to make a complaint about this,” Katz wrote on YouTube, “Rest assured, absent a complaint we still looked into this incident and found the officers’ actions to be appropriate and justifiable given the totality of the circumstances.”
I guess this is a good time to point out that filming the cops is legal in all 50 states. For more on this incident, click here.
A Chicago police commander is in hot water after allegedly placing the barrel of his gun inside a 24-year-old suspect’s mouth.
Cmdr. Glenn Evans, frequently praised for his no-nonsense crime fighting attitude, was arrested and charged on Wednesday for his excessive force. He faces one count of aggravated battery and one count of official misconduct, according to Sally Daly, a spokeswoman for State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez.
“The alleged actions, if true, are unacceptable to the both the residents we serve and to the men and women of this department. As soon as we were made aware of the charges Commander Evans was relieved of his police powers, pending the outcome of this matter. Like any private citizen, the commander is innocent until proven guilty and we need to allow this case to proceed like any other. We will cooperate fully with prosecutors,” said Supt. Garry McCarthy.
From The Chicago Tribune:
The allegations, first reported by WBEZ radio, stem from an arrest Evans and at least two of his officers made on Jan. 30, 2013 while on patrol in the Park Manor neighborhood. At the time, Evans was the commander of the South Side’s Grand Crossing patrol district.
Evans and the officers saw Rickey J. Williams, 24, standing near 71st Street and Eberhart Avenue and holding a blue steel handgun in his right hand, according to a police report. Evans approached Williams, who then ran away.
After briefly losing sight of him, police arrested Williams in an abandoned home, the report states. No gun was found on Williams, but he was arrested and charged with reckless conduct, a misdemeanor. The case was dropped a few months later.
It was unclear at what point Evans allegedly placed the barrel of his service weapon into the suspect’s mouth. DNA from the man was found on Evans’ gun, according to a State Police lab report.
Evans is one of 662 officers who have had 11 or more complaints placed against them during a five-year period in the 2000s. According to the Tribune, Evans had 14 complaints between 2001 and 2006, and faced no discipline for any of them.
Read more here.
SOURCE: Gawker, Chicago Tribune | VIDEO SOURCE: YouTube
