NEWS: LAPD Officer Feared Suspect Had Weapon

In this follow up piece to a report here at ATSNN where a LAPD police officer was caught on video beating a suspect, The other side of the story is being spoken from the man who kicked and then beat this man with a flashlight....






I suppose this will help explain this case of what seemed like an unwarranted beating of a man who raised his hands in surrender then dropped to his knees and was then viciously beaten by one Police Officer.

Related ATSNN News/Discussion:

LAPD Officer Caught on Video Beating Suspect

[edit on 26-6-2004 by UM_Gazz]

There is absolutely NO reason to beat a prone, defenseless man 11 times in the head with a flashlight while delivering kicks. This is a pitiful attempt at an excuse and I don't buy it for a second. I hope the officer gets everything coming to him ... and more.

That was really messed up for the officer to do that. The man was on the ground and there are other ways that the officer could have used to subdue the suspect.

Just a little addition to this report just breaking... Los Angeles Police Chief will now review that department's policy of using flashlights as weapons. Of course the review was prompted by this case of a man being beaten with such a flashlight... So it must be the flashlight's fault...




Ok, Lets ban the flashlights!

Yeah that will fix things.. But hey maybe it will work.. what do we know?

When this case ends up in court and there is no doubt it will, it will be very interesting to watch how it evolves... Though this is only one incident and only one suspect and only one flashlight. It does say a lot about the LAPD.

One can only hope that people within the LAPD will learn more from this case other than to leave the flashlights in the squad car, or to make sure there are no video cameras watching.

If someone is willing to give up there is no need in beating them. This is America and we are better than this. The message this sends to any future criminal is to run and never give up... beacause they will beat you if you do.

Gazz

The man gave himself up. Doesn't matter what he had. The beating was a bigger crime than the stealing of the vehicle. Kicking the guy and beating him in the head with a flashlight doesn't make him any less armed.

GAZZ, the problem is that even in the police you will find some scumbags, it is a fact of life, but on the overall police officers are good people.

Becoming a police officer now is a lot more complicated than it used to be, but every police station has different requirements applicants have to go through to become police cadets. It is also true that police officers go through a lot of crap, but this kind of behaviour is not accepted no matter the reason. Normally police stations make possible applicants take a polygraph appart from the background check and several other requirements to try to take good people to be police officers, but nothing is perfect, and sometimes less desirable people get through.

Now, just like most soldiers in the US Armed Forces, or any other Armed Forces, would not take advantage of the war to torture or humilitate prisoners. Most police officers would not beat up a tied up, defenseless suspect.

Cops use that same lame excuse everytime something like this happens,
we thought he/she had a weapon, well ya know what thought did!
I can think of at least 3 recent events here in the Bay Area, where someone was wrongly shot because they "thought" he/she had a weapon.
Talk about thought police!