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Another beating or just Showtime?
By Al
Ruechel | 07-11-02
Does this kind of stuff make you as sick
as it does me? I’m so mad I want to find every two-bit punk and
throw them in jail myself. But I’ll make sure I ask, “Captain may I?
Yes, you may IF you say 'pleeeeease'.”
How many hundred times have you seen the shocking video of poor
little Donovan Jackson’s head hitting the back of the cop car and
then getting cuffed in the head by the cop? Yes, it’s called cuffed
and not being hit. In my younger, wilder days I was cuffed a couple
of times by a local cop for mouthing off. Of course, my dad cuffed
me so hard at home when he found out I’d been throwing rock-filled
snowballs at cars that I bounced off the bookcase. I faked that he
had knocked me out just so he would leave the room.
Donovan didn’t look like he was faking it and I’m sure it did hurt
plenty. His father, Coby Chavis, says cops beat him, too. You don’t
see any of that on the tape but he says it happened. Cops say it
didn’t! I won’t form “my final answer” as Regis would say until I’ve
heard a little more. The fact the FBI is now investigating along
with the local authorities should bring a fairly quick factual
resolution. If these are bad cops their days are numbered.
The notion of cops beating on anyone scares me. I have teenaged sons
and I’d hate to think anything like this could occur to them IF they
just happened to look like some suspect from a recent robbery. But
what scares me more is the way this event, largely because of a
videotape, is being escalated to the level of a Rodney King beating.
Give me a break, John Sweeny. He’s the attorney representing the boy
and his father. You expect anyone to believe that the boy and his
father were just sitting around doing nothing when these big, evil,
racist white, black and Hispanic cops popped out of know where and
started beating the kid? Of course you do! You play the race card,
you’ve got a hot summer day, you’ve got a kid bleeding on tape,
you’ve got angry crowds carrying signs, you’ve got the TV cameras
hot and live, and you’ve got yourself, in your own words, “a seven
figure case”. Show me the money!!!!!!!!
Do you find it strange that the version of the cops and several
other witnesses is different from the boy and his father? CNN.com
did a great side-by-side comparison of the claims. They are
absolutely night and day. But if you can just get the kid and his
dad on the stand in front of a jury, carefully chosen, hand picked,
full of real sympathetic citizens, you could hit it big. This is all
about emotion and threats and racism and playing the PC lottery.
Jackson and his dad will be traumatized for life. They will need
lifelong counseling. Show me the money!!!!
Like I said, I’m so feed up with this kind of bull it’s made be
bitter and pissed off. It’s hard enough being a cop, putting your
life on the line, taking insult after insult from street thugs,
praying to God the suspect doesn’t have a gun or a friend with a gun
bigger then yours; without having to worry about an arrest that’s
overheated and taken out of context.
As the days unfold these are key questions to consider:
What happened before the arrest of young Jackson? What incidents led
up to the altercation? How long did it take for Jackson to respond
to police orders? There was no video camera rolling five or ten
minutes before the arrest. All we see is the end product and that
tells us nothing of motive. What did the kid say to cops? What did
he do to the cops?
What the heck is an “auditory processing delay” syndrome? That’s the
reason John Sweeny, Donovan Jackson’s attorney says he didn’t
respond to the cops orders. Is that the same reason my boys don’t
seem to respond when I tell them to take out the garbage or mow the
lawn or be in the house by midnight? And in case you need a little
clarification here, when a uniformed officer asks you to do
something that IS the law in the field. You are operating on his
time clock not your own.
Did you happen to notice one of the officers was bleeding from the
head, too? Gee I wonder if he just bumped his head on his squad car.
And it was apparent another officer was also injured from the video?
Did the boy or the father lunge at the officers? Where they trying
to take their guns?
If the Jackson and Chavis were both so badly injured why did they
refuse any treatment? Doctors who examined both the boy and his
father reported superficial injuries. It was only a day later, after
they contacted the attorney in this case their true injuries
surfaced. Why?
Where was the shift supervisor? For many departments, having the
supervisor on the scene of the crime serves as a buffer between the
adrenaline-filled cops and the over reacting suspects.
What were the specifics on the response? Why were the officers
called in and what visual evidence did they have on which to base
their actions?
If this is a hate crime or an act of racist cops how do you explain
the solidarity of all the officers? Would we be reacting the same if
the black cop or the Hispanic cop was the one doing the hitting?
Sadly, even when all of these questions are answered we may not be
any closer to the truth. And isn’t truth what we are seeking here?
The video images are too powerful and will stick in our minds. All
of our conclusions will be drawn from this frozen moment in time. If
you think cops are racist this video will prove it! If you think
your skin color makes a difference in the way cops treat you this
video will prove it! If you think you are being targeted or picked
on or profiled this video will prove it. You will draw your own
conclusion based on what you want to believe, not what may have
actually happened.
That’s the trump card attorney John Sweeney is counting on. A
picture is worth a thousand words and videotape, in Sweeney’s own
words, worth “at least seven figures”.
Al Ruechel, copyright 2002, all
rights reserved
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