More police brutality: 11 CA cops beat man for horse theft

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/10/us/california-san-bernardino-police-beating/index.html

Amidst the national discussion on police abuse that began from the Ferguson shooting and choking death of Eric Garner last Summer, another incident of police brutality came to light late this week in California where dozens of San Bernadino deputies were in pursuit of a man wanted for identity theft.

After the suspect fled via car, on foot, and finally by horse, the man was apprehended, but the actions after the man was already handcuffed have caused more consternation regarding police action. After being caught, officers punched and kicked the suspect while he was on the ground multiple times. The suspect was later admitted to the hospital for head injuries.

This following the shooting of an unarmed man in the back in South Carolina most certainly has deteriorated civilian-police relations.

I don't think a police beating is that big a deal, it use to be the rule of thumb back in the day. Of course, we're a different country now that doesn't allow violence outside of multimedia, so this activity isn't acceptable. The cops will be reprimanded, but the ongoing topic for the last year has added two more cases to it in the last week.

This is good. Cops are on notice. Keep em' coming.

The luew!

Wait.... Seriously?

Well everything is relative. Dropping a nuclear bomb is a big deal.

Tiger not winning The Masters is a big emotional deal for me.

A police beating falls somewhere in between.

If it is wrong for this person to have allegedly committed certain crimes then it has to be wrong when the cops also break the laws. There isn't any in between.

I really don't get what these guys were thinking. Did they not see or hear the chopper in the air?

lol animals

You'd think that they would at least be a BIT smarter given the recent events over the last year or so. Dumb fuckers have only themselves to blame.

Lol that was my first thought.

Running from the cops on a horse. Great story if you leave out it's due to identity theft.

Pretty big deal if you're the one getting kicked repeatedly in the teeth.

Indeed. If he's cuffed on the ground, there is zero reason to beat him. I feel bad for the good cops out there. All these assholes beating and killing people have everyone thinking all cops are like that.

Keep reading. I said that the country is different today and it's not acceptable.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836

I know this is 14+ years old, but still. Some organizations don't want people to be freethinkers.

It's stories like this of non-violent crimes turning into hours long chases that make me understand why people don't argue against the use of SWAT teams getting called to health inspections or the mine resistant vehicles coming back from Iraq and being given to local police.

If someone runs from a traffic stop or from a warrant for a non-violent crime, there should be an instant addition of 10 years on the prison sentence.

So it's only their failure to verify that there were no witnesses that you condemn?

:-/

Ten years is a long fucking time to pay for hours long chases..... this sort of punitive mentality is not improving our society.

Neither does the 10+ grand that goes into chasing fools. You commit a crime, you pay for it. You run unnecessarily for non-violent crimes, you should pay even more.

The buck must stop somewhere and extended prison sentences are preferable to Orwell's 1984.

gonna give benefit of doubt and hope this is trolling.

Don't put words in my mouth. I don't need to make a post every time something bad happens to show I condemn something.

Why did he flee?

What made it acceptable in the past?

Beaten after they put handcuffs on him?

That's gotta be a prime example of bully mentality.

Well at least it wasn't a black guy this time.

Men weren't p*ssies back then.

Why do you think people should "stop being p*ssies" and tolerate authoritarian treatment?

Interesting video:

• the moment he's off the horse he's down and gets up and the police approach them with their tasers drawn
• he immediately voluntarily goes down face down spread eagle with arms and legs extended out
• they taser him anyways, evident by his body contraction, whereby he still tries to remain in a compliant spread eagle position
• when the second officer runs up and stars kicking him in the head he moves his hands behind his back in a position to allow them to cuff him
• the second officer still kicking him, the first officer then kicks him in the groin
• both officers then star pistol whipping the suspect with their tasers
• the suspect still maintains a surrender position while they pummel him
• seven more police show up, most of which to lay in punches and kicks into him

Just in case the video in the link isn't working for anyone else:

they waited until they got back to the stables to plant a gun in some hay and beat up the horse.

ITG guys! ITG!

It's not authoritarian, it's the result of running from the law. You want to act like a tough guy and run, you can get your ass kicked like a man when the cops catch up to you. Don't want to catch a beating? Don't run.

Contrary to what is consistently shown in film and television, it's not acceptable to run from police. Had this treatment happened when the suspect either turned himself in or when he was first approached by police, then that would be authoritarian.

Still, there's a limit to a beating and the police involved in this took it too far.

the one cop kicked the guy right in sack.

resisting or not, you just don't do that shit.

Maybe they just thought that there would be no consequences, because their behaviour is implicitly sanctioned.

Horse theft is bad mkay?

The police corps doesn't attract the brightest lot of society; therefore, I'm not really surprised they failed to infer that much on the spot.

Oh dear that's just appalling. Lowly animals.

If he doesn't sue and get loaded, then I don't know who should.

Yeah... still, it's like the guy who decided it was perfectly alright to pepper spray college students. You have to be a particular type of stupid to not realise it's gonna backfire.

That or the police have in their mind this idea that they have authority (which they do) and that they have the right to do with those who don't respect their authority whatever they want (which they don't). It might just be a problem with how they're trained. If they think they have the right to act like this, it's no surprise they then do so.

I'd like to know the real cause of this level of police brutality.

@ianhh6: Sometimes I get the feeling that the slightly brighter ones who loves fighting and violence(as in they have to fight) get into the police and do it there under the cover of being police officers... Or they simply have a superiority complex of some kind.

Atleast they didn't shoot the horse as an accomplice.
That's something, right?

That's certainly not the case. If it was we'd see every interaction with police end this way. The vast majority don't.

Police have become the biggest fucking pussies in the world. Every cop in america should be fucking ashamed. Being a cop should NOT relieve you of all responsibility, and should face the consequences for being a fucking power hungry asshole.

Actions have consequences but the consequences need to be LEGAL.

I don't have any faith the judicial system will punish these swine but I will guarantee Kalifornia pays this man and his lawyers a very large sum of money.

I have no doubts the vistor's list for the suspect is full of America's finest gutter rats looking for their next case.

Let's not forget what crimes the suspect did here: he was wanted for identity theft, resisting arrest, theft of the horse, and probably other things not to mention putting an innocent horse in harm's way. I can only imagine the shit the person's identity he allegedly stole has had to go through. Probably worse than a kick in the sack.

If I'm the sheriff, I suspend the cops involved for a month, w/o pay obviously, and tell them that any one of them is ever caught doing something like this again, they're getting fired and charged with assault/battery. A punishment needs to be made, and is being made, but you can't damn the cops for eternity for one mistake they made while their adrenaline was pumping into overdrive. Nobody's perfect and while perfection is preferred in the police, it's not realistic.

I don't doubt for one second of him being a scumbag but even scumbags have rights. Most likely he deserved getting the tar kicked out of him but that violates his rights and doesn't mean it should happen.

Your last two sentences would be supportable if civilians were also treated in such a manner but that isn't always the case. Shouldn't those given authority, by society, to enforce the law be treated even more harshly when they violate rights?

Not if they do it to criminals who evade arrest. The amount of resources used to catch the guy is staggering; helicopters, cars, radio communication... all that stuff is using energy from batteries, fuel. That's added emissions to the environment that he's not going to be paying for and resources the citizens of California are. It's a second crime and if the police didn't give the guy a little discipline, then an angry mob might.

And they don't play as nice as the cops do.

Again, if he didn't want to catch the beating, he shouldn't have run. It's pretty simple.

Still the cops must be punished because you've got to send a message to them that you can do it to some extent, but you can't do it to everyone and to the level they did with this guy. Had they stopped after about 10 seconds it would have been an acceptable beating.

Unfortunately it isn't that simple. Running from the police does not justify getting the crap kicked out of you after you have been subdued and apprehended. These individuals would not be under investigation by local and federal authorities nor would a civil rights lawsuit be in the works if there was any justification.

Either one believes people have rights or not. Liking or disliking someone does not negate or validate rights.

The only people that need to be ashamed of themselves are the people like you who are so irrational as to believe every cop acts the way these guys in the video did.

This kind of thinking is dangerous.. That and we have evidence of something far more concerning with these issues, that being departmental incompetence and corruption.. Why is it that suddenly this stuff is such a big deal? Could it be because that these past few years a large % of people now have a smart phone and able to record this stuff on the fly? When I see events like this I don't think it is overly concerning in itself because they are usually always harshly dealt with to save face with the public.. But that is just now, what about the decades before every one had a phone and couldn't easily film this stuff? With the guy being shot in the back, if it weren't for that video, the testimony of the partner and police officer would have been most likely accepted.. And the guy would be still on the streets..

When we see things like Furguson shooting happen, it is tragic but we later find out it is only the tip of the iceberg of departmental corruption and incompetence.. To me many of these events really feel like a symptom to a much greater problem in many of these departments and precincts.

So are the criminals that evade arrest. You really want to make a difference with the way the law is enforced? Go join the force somewhere and tell the chief/sheriff you "want to make a difference."