Don’t watch this video because it will only upset you. It shows the deliberate torture of a homeless man by California police officers for “resisting arrest”. Not content with tasering him a half dozen times, they then beat them up so bad he needed to be put on life support in hospital where he died a few days later. From the Gawker report:
Thomas—who suffered from schizophrenia, and was homeless—caught the attention of the police after someone reported that a burglar was breaking into cars parked near a Fullerton bus station. When officers approached Thomas in the depot parking lot and tried to arrest him, he resisted. What happened after that is a topic the Fullerton Police Department doesn’t seem too enthusiastic to discuss—but the sound of Thomas’s voice certainly speaks on their behalf. And as this gruesome photo shows, the six officers involved in the altercation beat Thomas beyond recognition; after several days on life support, Thomas was taken off the machines and died. (To be fair, two cops suffered broken bones.) Update: According to this report, a police sergeant stated on July 20 that, contrary to several news reports, no officers suffered from broken bones as a result of the Thomas incident—only “soft tissue damage.”
Did Thomas actually resist arrest? Mark Turgeon, who witnessed the beating, says no:
“They kept beating him and Tasering him. I could hear zapping, and he wasn’t even moving,” said Turgeon. “He had one arm in front of him like this, he wasn’t resisting. And they kept telling him, ‘He’s resisting, quit resisting,’ and he wasn’t resisting.”
The picture they refer too is gruesome and like the video should not be viewed because it will only upset you. But perhaps we need upsetting, to see the reality of what “the thin blue line” is up to. What hit me about this story is that the poor guy was beaten up while he cried for his dad, an ex-cop himself, and was only thirtyseven when he died, the same age as I’ll be next week. That could’ve been me, if I had been less lucky.
Dutch cops aren’t always squeeky clean either and I’m smart enough to know they don’t always have to be my friend, but I feel a hell of a lot more comfortable approaching them in public, or have them approach me, then I would be in the United States. Dutch cops aren’t convinced of their own superiority and obsessed by respect and authority the way American coppers are.