Black man arrested in his own home, struck with night stick,pepper sprayed, dragged out naked

‘Temporary Custody'
By Jim Kenyon
Valley News Columnist


Hartford Police officials issued a press release on Tuesday announcing they had asked Vermont State Police to investigate whether their response to a 911 call of a “burglary in progress” last Saturday afternoon in Wilder was appropriate.

According to the one-paragraph statement, Hartford police found an “unknown male subject on the third floor” of a Stony Creek townhome who was taken into “temporary custody” before paramedics treated him for a known medical condition.

End of story?

Far from it. The police department's press release lacked critical details about what happened at Stony Creek last Saturday afternoon, facts on which I hope the state police investigation will shed light. Meanwhile, I'll share what I have found.

The unknown male subject found in the home? He was actually the 34-year-old African-American who owns the home and has lived there for four years.

And the part about taking him into temporary custody?

Hartford police neglected to say that in the process he was: blasted with pepper spray; struck with a nightstick; handcuffed, wrapped in a blanket and hauled -- naked -- out of his home, according to a neighbor and what the man says police later told him. When the neighbor tried to tell cops that the handcuffed man on the pavement was the homeowner -- not a burglar — he said he was threatened with arrest for interfering in police business.


http://www.vnews.com/06042010/6673969.htm

Many of them don't have the common sense of a two year old.

And about as much impulse control.

Not much common sense there

You're insulting two year-olds!

nt

is the only one to pay damages.

I feel each individual officer should have to pay out of pocket also.
Perhaps that would make them more responsible.

If they are found to have acted in good faith within the scope of their job description then they will get coverage from the city/state/etc and coverage. If they are not then they are hung out to swing in the wind (rightfully so), but as a plaintif you want them defended by the city because they have much deeper pockets.

Now it's Homeowning While Black.

For fuck's sake

just because he was black, even though he was elderly and used a cane and aclearly "at home."

NO MANNERS

NO EMPATHY

NO REASON

NO LOGIC

The COPS NEED REHAB

If the no thinking, door kicking assholes started getting their asses shot when they kick down the wrong door they might knock that shit off. :grr:

THEM.....

POWER TRIP SYNDROME in the Nations POLICE DEPTs getting worse


Where is the Power Trip Syndrome Reduction Unit/Filter/Rehab ?

Someone needs jailing if only for poor judgement on a stupid scale....

To my best friend's uncle. He was diabetic and the cops treated him like he was drunk. Pistol whipped him to death, just another "drunk Indian "

:grr: :(

Sorry bout Uncle

A relative of mine was stopped once, for suspected public drunkenness, but he was white. Once the police realized that he was having blood sugar problems, they took him to the hospital. Double standard.

did not survive.

to which this poor man is entitled. The arresting officers should themselves be arrested, post haste.

but it will take a long time before he regains his feeling of safety within his own home.

That said he's lucky - if he had an accent they may have taken him to an ICE lock up and deported him to some unknown country.

Seriously the planet's police have gone mad - those Bush years have destroyed people's rights.

Cops weren't called pigs from way back for no reason...


And it is not just an American phenomenon. Almost everywhere police is basically a form of legalized thuggery. Every now and then, they manage to do the right thing... but it is almost as if out of a fluke or something.

forces. This country is sick and the police are helping to make it sick. Something is going on - they have been give an OK to do this stuff to people.

Please keep us posted.

They're loyal only to each other and think they are the law.

Nowhere is that loss of empathy problem more visible.

We have several friends of the family that used to be police officers, and they cannot stand today's militaristic young thug cops who appear to have learned everything about law enforcement from TV.

I started a thread awhile back about this behavior becoming an epidemic. Unfortunately, I believe your statement, "They're loyal only to each other and think they are the law." is becoming the norm. I'm not sure how we go about changing that mindset....

police forces set the tone, and if their culture was changed it would filter down.

Of course, a great many cops get their training in the military, where the emphasis is on the other guy being 'the enemy'.

It is the militarization of the police, that started with LA in the 80s and the rise of the SWAT team culture.

I started a thread awhile back about this behavior becoming an epidemic. Unfortunately, I believe your statement, "They're loyal only to each other and think they are the law." is becoming the norm. I'm not sure how we go about changing that mindset....

Popular career path these days. Not good.....

Who had a federal program that rewarded the militarization of police forces by allowing them to buy military surplus at fire sale prices and by giving them grants etc to pay for military hiring and tactics.

Reagan - possibly the worst president ever?

Really

similar experiences -- Both Stanford PhD candidates.

them not paying attention to what he was saying.

Police tend to not give a shit about outside opinons, and in their eyes even being in the vicinity of a scene like this makes you a suspect.

to enforce immigration. They can't handle the authority they already have!

:eyes:

Just a few bad apples.

This isn't a case of a misunderstanding or something that could be argued regarding the level of force applied. This was outright brutality and unprofessional conduct that resulted in bodily injury. None of these officers have any business being police.

Both they and the department need to be sued for civil rights violations and prosecuted for criminal assault/battery.

Wait and testify at the civil suit where he's a defendant.

I wonder what the chances are that the local cops had never noticed a black guy who had been living in their town for the last 4 years.

It seems like a stretch that they wouldn't have recognized him as the owner of the house, at least based on what I've seen of small New England towns.

:shrug:

It is sickening.

is genuinely shocked by this.

unreal.

Which is very sad.

I think I'm more surprised he didn't require hospitalization.

:scared:

just so horrible. i don't want to imagine, such a thing--but this could happen to any person of color. :grr::mad:
i'm fearful if the state of calif. continues w/it's attack on glbt's, they too will be in danger.....law enforcement entering their homes, etc. (sigh)

And I can answer the question that guy was asked: "Would this have happened if you were white?"

HELL NO it wouldn't have happened. No fucking way!

...you're right.(sigh) :cry:

....post racial america, my ass.

Is it getting worse, or are we just seeing what's always been there?

I really think it's getting worse, but that there was more there to begin with than I'd ever realized.

...it could be because there's a black man in the white house. :shrug: so, maybe there's more media paying attention to what's been there all along.

i recall after rodney king.
i had a friend who worked in a high govt. official's office in southern california. she said they were getting calls all week, from all over the world after the video was released through the media. people in other countries were so shocked and angry.

when she and i talked privately about it, we were so excited and thought so much might finally change. (naive, weren't we....lol) we knew (from personal experience) that black men were getting their asses kicked by law enforcement in la for years....decades. it was just the way things were. rodney king was just the first time someone had a videotape of such actions.

on edit--granted rodney king was in the process of an arrest, and the charges against the officers were of "excessive force." but it still calls law enforcement's use of racial profiling into question. and clearly the officers of the article could have been more respectful (and gentle) w/the man ....the article states they threw him down his stairs. :(

a case i recall from a while back (prior to the obama administration):

http://cbs4.com/national/FBI.Arrest.Los.2.274829.html

the video on the news site shows excerpts of the actual arrest. warning-it's quite graphic and disturbing.

Only thing that surprised me was that there were no allegations of the homeowner being on PCP... or just generic 'drugs'...

:grr:

:wow::cry::mad:

about all the reading I wound up doing because of that @sshole Jim Crowley!

What a sweetheart he is. :hi:

....that is so cool to hear! :hi::hug:
i sincerely hope he hasn't suffered any negative repurcussions from that humiliating incident. poor man.

i stopped following the incident when it seemed Crowley wasn't going to be sufficiently reprimanded. :(

and all will be well.

organization that has no business other than in the Nazi Germany of another era. :grr:

now I'd like to know if this shit is being encouraged in the Police force around the country. This shit seems to happen wayyy too often. Can you imagine all the cases we DON'T hear about?!

Sad.

I'm not sure it deserves execution of the officers responsible, since he's still alive, but they need to be stripped of their badges, criminally prosecuted and convicted for assault, battery, and false arrest, and then slapped with a civil suit that reduces them to destitution.

We grant police and military a great deal of authority. If they abuse it, they need to face severe punishment.

In fact, nothing will happen at all. Absolutely nothing.

"Amos and Andrew" that starred Dabney Coleman, Nicholas Cage, and Samuel L. Jackson.

SLJ played a Pulitzer-prize winning author, Andrew Sterling, that moved to a northeastern US community.

Dabney Coleman played the local Sheriff, running for re-election.

Cage played a small two-bit crook, named Amos.

The whole movie was about how SLJ was mistaken for a robber in his own home by a white couple that was passing by as he was moving in. They saw him moving around a TV and stereo equipment and thought he was robbing the place. They called the police. That's when Dabney Coleman's sheriff character showed up.

In an interview he was giving to the local TV media the sheriff said:

"When you see a black man carrying stereo equipment, you know exactly what's going on."

It's later revealed to the sheriff and that white couple that called him who Andrew Sterling really is, by another reporter that recognized SLJ's character.

That's when the Sheriff began backtracking and trying a cover up move, using Amos (Nicholas Cage) to pretend to be robbing Andrew so that the Sheriff could wind up 'saving' SLJ.

It is a movie, and meant to be a satire and a comedy.

The real life situation in the OP is much, much worse, as that man in Vermont was treated about as harshly as one can be treated, in their own home. There's nothing funny about it.

that only guilty people have reason to run from the police (and thus fleeing can give rise to the necessary reasonable suspicion).

How right he was.

:grr:

It's already happened. Count on it. Ever heard of Sheriff Joe Arp...

Guilty While Black

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

does not try to mollify him with a shared beer. That shit has gotten old.

Oh wait it's somebody else.

30 years after the unrestrained, uncapped gusher of dumb began in this country, we have evolved, Just as predicted, into a police state.
:kick: & R

Maybe he should have just been tased and left to tremble in a pool of his own urine.

:sarcasm:

so many good cops get sullied by mud from this sort of crappy police work.


sad. Further, good lawyers who take on the cases of these victims seldom get recognized -just the rotten lawyers who exploit the powerless get notoriety.

"Open and shut case, Johnson! I saw this once before when I was a rookie!"

Doesn't anyone get a clue that if the cops treat someone as esteemed as Dr. Gates as a common criminal, they would throw the rest of us of color under the jail? Racial profiling never takes a day off whether in Vermont or Arizona.

And the sick thing is that there are people who still pretend that this crap doesn't happen. :eyes:

What kind of police-state prison is this country becoming?

who knew that police would respond to a call about a burglary of a home owned by a black man?

from all over the country every time they pulled this shit maybe it would make them think twice....also law suits would help. These pig turds need to be reminded just who they work for!

That must be very infuriating to be accused of burglarizing your own house. I wonder if the anger here is misdirected at the police, and should be directed at the person who called the police. That is the person who caused the trouble, and at that point the police had an obligation to verify the person's identity. Otherwise it would allow burglars to operate quite easily if you just have to say that you live here to get the police to leave. Who called anyway? A neighbor? Seems strange that some one wouldn't know their own neighbors after four years.

They're the best!