Officer faces new charges in videotaped beating of bartender - Conspiracy and intimidation

[NNN0LHI]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IL_POLICE_BEATINGS_ILOL-?SITE=ILKAN&SECTION=STATE&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

CHICAGO (AP) -- A Chicago police officer accused in the videotaped beating of a female bartender has been charged with trying to intimidate witnesses by threatening to plant drugs on bar employees and arrest customers for drunken driving, prosecutors said Friday.

Prosecutors announced 14 additional felony counts against Anthony Abbate, a 12-year department veteran whose alleged videotaped beating of a female bartender made international headlines.

The charges, filed Thursday, include seven counts of official misconduct, one count of communicating with a witness, three counts of intimidation and three counts of conspiracy, according to the indictment, filed Thursday.

Abbate, 38, still faces an earlier felony charge of aggravated battery.

He is scheduled to be arraigned on the new charges on May 16.

[ThomCat]

1. Damn. You have to wonder what made him think that he'd

get away with all of this.

Cops usually get a free pass on a whole lot of abuse, but this is really over the top. How dumb is this guy?

[A HERETIC I AM]

2. What made him think he would get away with it is that badge and that gun the state gave him...

I know there are plenty of good and decent cops. I know this because of the tens of thousands out there who DIDN'T get videotaped beating the hell out of someone today.

But this guy strikes me as someone who felt untouchable because he has a badge and a gun and therefore a license to intimidate people.

Screw that son of a bitch to the UNDERSIDE of the jail.

[gulfcoastliberal]

11. He probaby planted evidence in the past and got away with it.

What scum.

[Joanne98]

3. YAY!

[NNN0LHI]

4. Here is the raw video of the beating

http://video.nbc5.com/player/?id=83968

[Ghost in the Machine]

5. Why didn't any of those other bar patrons jump in to help this woman??

My god! Have we turned into a society of passive wimps? What kind of person could just sit there and watch this happen, or just move back out of the way?

Let me tell ya something.. if someone were to walk into MY restaurant and just start beating on someone, I wouldn't give a damn if it was a cop, a judge, or jesus christ himself, I'd put a stop to it very quickly. The same goes if I were out somewhere and this happened to someone else.

What ever happened to human kindness and helping your fellow man??

[Evoman]

6. I watched the video just now.

I was enraged. ENRAGED. I have had bad experiences with police and I have no doubt that if I were in that bar at the time, I would be facing more than 5 years in prison.

God, I fucking hate cops.

[Ghost in the Machine]

10. I hear ya.... I had a few "run - ins" with one of Metro - Dade's (Miami, Fl)

not so finest. I was 19 at the time. He was smart-mouthing my girlfriend's 15 y/o brother and I asked him if he thought he was tough talking to a kid like that ( I was 6'3", 235 lbs of solid muscle and had just earned my second black belt). I told him if he would take his gun and badge off, I'd show him what a badass was. This guy started coming unglued... I kept egging him on. His partner kept telling him "Mike, calm down.. calm down..." I said "yeah Mikey, calm down!" That's all it took.. he snatched his badge off of his shirt, and I knocked him out cold before he could even try to take off his gun. His partner looked at me and said "dude, you better get the fuck out of here before he comes to, he's had that coming for a while, so just go... NOW! We jumped in the car and took off, and I never heard another word about it. Maybe it helped that I knew several Metro-Dade cops... I don't know..

[NNN0LHI]

9. "the Genovese syndrome''

http://www.newsday.com/community/guide/lihistory/ny-history-hs818a,0,7944135.story

The Killing of Kitty Genovese

Her public slaying in Queens becomes a symbol of Americans' failure to get involved


It was just after 3 a.m. snip

Suddenly, the man overtook her and grabbed her. She screamed. Residents of nearby apartment houses turned on their lights and threw open their windows. The woman screamed again: ``Oh, my God, he stabbed me! Please help me!''

A man in a window shouted: ``Let that girl alone.'' The attacker walked away. Apartment lights went out and windows slammed shut. The victim staggered toward her apartment. But the attacker returned and stabbed her again.

``I'm dying!'' she cried.

Windows opened again. The attacker entered a car and drove away. Windows closed, but the attacker soon came back again. His victim had crawled inside the front door of an apartment house at 82-62 Austin St. He found her sprawled on the floor and stabbed her still again. This time he killed her. snip

Detectives investigating Genovese's murder discovered that no fewer than 38 of her neighbors had witnessed at least one of her killer's three attacks but had neither come to her aid nor called the police. The one call made to the police came after Genovese was already dead.

[Ghost in the Machine]

12. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't do *something* to try to help

someone who I knew was in trouble. I guess I was just raised differently.

[Forkboy]

7. It's the few good ones that ruin it for all the bad apples.

[frylock]

8. put him in with the general populace..

let things sort themselves out.

[Ikonoklast]

13. Every bit of testimony that this asshat ever gave is now tainted

Dirty cop all the way, and if I was a defense attorney that had a case involving testimony from this badge-wearing criminal, I would file an appeal tomorrow.