"I Didn't Do Anything, And I Got My Ass Kicked" - Police Brutality Video Case a Sobering Reminder

[Hissyspit]

http://www.alternet.org/story/146490/%22i_didn%27t_do_anything%2C_and_i_got_my_ass_kicked%22_--_the_unfolding_police_scandal_over_videotaped_md._student_beating

"I Didn't Do Anything, And I Got My Ass Kicked" -- The Unfolding Police Scandal Over Videotaped Md. Student Beating

University of Maryland police brutality case is a sobering reminder that an officer's word can carry tremendous weight against that of an innocent person.

April 16, 2010

A shocking YouTube video showing Prince George's County police beating an unarmed University of Maryland student has met with national outrage this week. The captured footage shows a student skipping in the street, where post-game crowds mill about celebrating their school's basketball win over the reviled Duke Blue Devils. The student, John “Jack” McKenna, is waving his arms, evidently getting a little too close to the police and their horses; two police officers in riot gear come charging at him with batons, throwing him up against a wall and, joined by a third, viciously beat him until he is left lying on the sidewalk.

Since the video's release, two police officers have been suspended and an FBI investigation is underway. Accountability appears to be at hand. "Everybody on the scene that night is under review right now," Prince George's County State's Attorney Glenn Ivey told reporters this week. Yet numerous other students say they were beaten by police that night, they just don't have video footage to prove it. In McKenna’s case, it was just by chance that an electrical engineering major named Ben Winter decided to take his new camera with him when he went out to watch the inevitable mayhem following the University of Maryland's win over Duke on March 3rd.

"I saw a scuffle, and I immediately pointed my lens at it, but it wasn't until after I reviewed the footage … that the reality of what was going on sunk in, Winter told the UMD student newspaper, The Diamondback, this week. "I was incensed the first time that I really watched it."

It was only because of Winter's video that the charges against McKenna were dropped. (Yes, in addition to being savagely beaten, he was also arrested.) McKenna, who suffered a head wound that "required eight staples to close," according to CNN, as well as a "concussion, a badly swollen arm and bruises elsewhere on his body," faced charges of disorderly conduct and assault on a police officer -- a serious crime.

Without the video, even these injuries would not likely have raised eyebrows. Police brutality -- and the false charges that come with it -- almost always goes unpunished. Looking at the report filed by the arresting officers reveal just how much of a bald-faced lie they told in order to justify their arrests. The Statement of Probable Cause, written by Officer Sean McAleavey, describes McKenna ("Arrested 1") and another student ("Arrested 2") as running through the street, screaming. "Due to their disorderly behavior, a crowd on the sidewalk began to form and become unruly," it reads.

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[Juche]

1. How did they get assault on a police officer?

The guy never defended himself. Cops do that, they beat someone up then frame them for assault to explain the bruises. Thank god so many people have pocket cell phone cameras now.

[zbdent]

3. "assaulting a police officer" could be as little as accidentally brushing against

one, or poking your finger on his chest. If you even (barely) touch one, if they're in the mood, they can call it that.

Of course, you spit on a black Democrat, you're just a "juicy talker" (according to one denier ...)

[bridgit]

6. Yep. By the time it gets to "as little as accidentally brushing against one...

"...or poking your finger on his (or her) chest" they may well be wrong but they're able to consider that entry levels of not just assault; but battery upon an officer of the court - in fact people want to see oppression? Then start poking a female officer in the chest or push her on *her* ass...yeah, that would do it in the town I live in - though again, you can argue it all day long but that is an option they have access to likely especially in a tenuous crowd control environ involving people waving their arms about "skipping" up to cops on the backs of horses

For that matter, its against the law to sidle into a traveling military convoy on the freeway or public road unless you're authorized to do so, and not just to make a point. I think the "skipping" can be seen as an effort to lend brevity to a situation that others found less so. And some of them were on horseback with batons. You don't toss squeaky chew toys at K-9 units either no matter how cute the squeak is and for what?

For what will eventually be Americans and their inalienable rights to American Corporate Sports? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8GRwgIKVN8

[msanthrope]

7. I had a client charged with assulting an officer because

when the cop tried being an asshole--cuffing my client too tightly and bouncing his head on the doorframe of the squad car, he got bumped when my client's head came back involuntarily.

Luckily, I got that dismissed.

[Name removed]

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[Iggo]

5. Yay, Cops!

They're the best!