Sources: Hispanic officers were on scene of stomping (Seattle)

By Shomari Stone

SEATTLE -- The racially-charged video has been shown around the world. Seattle Police Det. Shandy Cobane is seen threatening and appearing to kick a Hispanic man mistaken for an armed robbery suspect.
"You got me? I'm going to beat the (expletive) Mexican piss out of you, homey, you feel me?" Cobane is heard saying.

The video has sparked a firestorm of controversy on Spanish radio and the Internet, with some accusing white Seattle police officers of targeting Hispanics and using excessive force. And the NAACP has urged prosecutors to charge Cobane with a hate crime.

"The buzz has been, 'Do white cops feel they can say whatever they want, do whatever they want?'" said Roberto Maestas of El Centro de la Raza.

But the camera also captured another officer standing over that innocent detainee with his hand on his waist while Cobane uses the racially-charged language toward the detainee. Police sources say he's Camilo Depina, a Hispanic man who's been on the force for roughly 10 years.

More at: http://www.komonews.com/news/local/93657994.html

There were black overseers in the Southern plantations and Jewish "trustees" during the Holocaust. It's all about power and conformity.

The victim of the armed robbery (that got this whole thing going) is a Latino man, as is the detainee who was plainly and undeniably stomped by the police officers. Other news sources have reported that the girlfriend of another suspect (who was arrested) has said that the SPD roughed him up as well, although details are sketchy. IIRC, the girlfriend didn't make her allegations until the shitstorm over the video of the stomping was already underway. Don't know if her BF resisted arrest or if he was a passive victim of rough treatment by the officers who arrested him.

What does that have to do with anything?

bingo.

You can see from the Arizona situation that Latinos can be as discriminatory against other Latinos as anyone else. Just because they are Latino doesn't mean that they are going to be on the side of people of similar ethnic heritage. Some people buy into the idea that you have to renounce your heritage to be a true citizen. Some people cave under pressure from their peers. It happens. You would hope that it did not and that any injustice would be stopped or at least reported, but that is humanity sometimes.

What caught my eye about the story is this:

The officers were looking for robbery suspects who were armed with a machete and a gun when they wrongly detained victim Martin Monetti on April 17. The thieves had struck a victim in the back with the machete, bruising him and tearing open his shirt outside China Harbor Nighclub, detectives said.

Thank goodness the robbers had a jacked up machete!

I'm posting this because it's being broadcast by the local media as a significant aspect of the case. I've previously posted stories from other sources that take a different slant.

The media will cover from the most sensational aspects of the case. That is how they operate, which I think is a really sick way to do it.

The officer made it about race when he brought the man's ethnicity into the situation. Otherwise it would have been an ordinary case of police brutality. Why not just beat the piss out of the guy, why did it have to be the Mexican piss? That is the problem.

The incident should not have occurred regardless of the ethnic backgrounds of those involved. It was mistaken identity but it turned racial when the cop focused on the suspect's ethnic identity.

He gave a tearful non-apology after the video hit the airwaves and the internet.

The police officer was clearly a "good one," the man getting the beating was clearly a "bad one." You know the old "Some of them are good ones, and I don't mind the good ones. Some of them are real hard workers and honest. It's the bad ones I can't stand. The ones that don't know their place."

I'd keep my mouth shut too.

The "thin blue line" is crossed by white cops when it comes to minority police.

Just ask the minority cops who have been shot by their own.

Why this cop felt it necessary to use this language in the first place is the problem.

If I were a suspected criminal and a cop was stomping on me, I'm perfectly capable of getting the point without being called a honky or a cracker. Or a whore or c*** since I'm female. I'd say most people are able to understand the situation regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation.