Kelly Thomas Video Finally Released

A few things I want to clear up for some who may not have been following this case....

Kelly Thomas was mentally ill. I am not so sure it was a case of him refusing to follow directions as much as it may have been a case of just not fully understanding. Which is why you see him put his legs out, then bring his knees up and put his hands on his knees. At this point the officer was telling him to put his legs out and put his hands on his knees. Eventually he got it right, but as you can see it takes him a minute. Just like he sat down as he was told, but you can see them go back and forth because apparently Kelly Thomas was not sitting in the exact spot he was told to sit.

Now, let's get into this video...

If anyone here on ATS can clean up the audio to remove the background noise, I think it would be very interesting to hear much more of the interaction between Thomas and the Police.

I see a few things in this video. For starters, and what everyone here should take note of, is that this really started over Kelly Thomas not giving Police his name. Again, keep in mind he is mentally ill. So he is refusing or possibly unable to do so. In any event, this is all about his failure to give his name.

What bothers me most about this fact is that at one point, as the Officer is leaning against his car prior to telling Kelly Thomas to sit down, the Officer says something to the effect of getting a call about Thomas and checking him out every single day. So your gonna tell me, this mentally ill homeless man is such a nuisance that Police stop him daily, but no one knows his name? He is stopped daily by Police, and he is such a threat that he must be identified immediately? This whole aspect is mind boggling to me. A man who has not committed a crime, beaten to death by Police who stopped him for no good reason, who according to the Officer is talked to by them "every single day", all because he didn't give you a name that could have easily been found by a little thing called "police work" considering he is spoken to "every single day"?

I am also very interested in the interaction between the Officer and the man with the bald head and white t-shirt who intervenes and speaks to the Officer. I was unable to make out anything that was said, but I would really love to hear it.

It does not appear to me that Kelly Thomas "ran". It was more of walking away. It did not appear to me that he was really attempting to get away. In a lot of ways I think I understand Kelly Thomas doing this, he was just threatened by the cop. What I find interesting about this part of the video is that the Officer is basically busting his balls for the sake of busting his balls. Kelly Thomas had been sitting in that same position for some time, now all the sudden he has to be repositioned and told to sit a specific way? For what purpose? This whole portion of the video is amazing. It is so senseless that it is beyond belief.

I am not so sure Kelly Thomas was refusing orders to put his hands behind his back. If you watch closely when the second Officer comes in, he gets on Thomas's back and grabs his arm and puts it behind his back. He then cranks the arm upwards into a chicken wing type of position, while driving him face down into the ground. Anyone who has been in such a position can tell you, when this happens it is a natural reaction to move forward and relieve the pressure being put on your arm and shoulder. You have to. This is a very painful maneuver. While this is happening he is also being punched in the face and head by the first Officer. So at this point it is physically impossible for him to follow the orders he is being given.

We also see this same thing several times. At one point Officers are laying on top of Kelly Thomas while yelling at him to roll over, which looking at the size of the Officer I can see why it would be difficult. This is also one of the more disturbing parts for me. It was at this point, when Thomas failed to roll over with a large man laying on top of him, that the Officer hits him numerous times in the head with what looks like a flashlight and baton. According to California DA Thomas was hit with the butt end of the tazer. Which ever it was, it was disgusting. At this point Kelly Thomas is not a threat. He is pinned down on the ground and being held down by 2 larger, trained Police Officers. There was absolutely no need to strike him repeatedly for failure to comply with an order that can not be followed cause he is being pinned down!!

Anyone notice the Officer who appears to be kneeling with his hands on the car? According to the California DA, this Officer had laid the portion of his leg from ankle to knee into Kelly Thomas's neck. Is it any wonder he is saying he can't breathe?

Only a few more points I'd like to make but it will have to wait for the next post. I'm out of room.

Ok, the next thing that strikes me is more towards the end.

The Police can be heard discussing what to do with Kelly Thomas. They seem to be confused themselves about turning him over and cuffing him. Then one Officer says something that really does not sit well with me. He says they can not move Thomas a certain way because without removing the cuffs from in front of him.

Now this is odd to me because this means at some point they did cuff him. So why are so many Officers still piled up on top of him? This would also mean that while the Officer is driving his leg into Thomas's neck, he was handcuffed! This is indeed the case, then some of what was happening at this point is just flat out sadistic.

Other than that, the one last thing that really strikes me is how short of a time span the physical part of this encounter actually last. After seeing the pictures of Kelly Thomas in the hospital, this tells me that the attack on Kelly Thomas was extremely violent and brutal. You can see in this video that Kelly Thomas was completely physically overwhelmed by these Officers. He spends the entire altercation on the ground with Officers on top of him. He is not putting up much of a fight. How does someone who is on the ground with two large, trained Police Officers on top of him and in control end up looking like this..

warning graphic image



Just because his hands were not behind his back? Does it really take this level of violence to move a person's arms behind their back? I don't think so. Of course if you want to believe the Officers, Kelly was insanely strong and obviously "on something". Unfortunately we now know that he was not on something. If he was unbelievably strong, it was because he was fighting for his life.

Originally posted by popsmayhem
this is why you do not resist arrest
Its called shut up and lawyer up..

First off, he was not being arrested. The Police even tell him to give them his name so they can let him go.
Secondly, he was homeless. The LAST thing that would pop into his mind would be, "Oh I will just get a lawyer". If you watched the video at all, you can hear Kelly Thomas tell Police he sleeps in trashcans.

[quote[now why you do this so these
guys cant get off on beating you up
this guy in the video is a complete
moron..

"Moron" is something they used to call mentally ill people many years ago. So I guess in your own uncompassionate way, you are correct. I can't help but wonder, if a toddler walks into the street and is hit by a car, do you blame the toddler for not looking both ways?

he should of shut up let them apes arrest him and let his lawyer
do the dirty work

he fell right for what they were wanting to do

You realize he was not under arrest to begin with? They were searching his things and detaining him because they wanted to know his name before they let him go. That is not being "arrested".

He may have been unable to give his name. He was also mentally ill. Do some digging into his mental state, it is very possible that he was not refusing to give his name, he may not have even known his name at that moment.

Originally posted by MemoryShock
reply to post by popsmayhem

 

He was homeless, dude. His behavior DOES NOT validate the actions of the police in this video. I get what you are saying but for crying out loud...

It was over kill what they did, now seeing
he was a handicap, i do feel even worse about
the whole thing.. What I would of done was shut up
and lawyered up and let them arrest me..
This guy does not have the mental capacity I do not
believe and the cops played on that..

I agree not a nice thing to do to the guy

Originally posted by MrWendal
If anyone here on ATS can clean up the audio to remove the background noise, I think it would be very interesting to hear much more of the interaction between Thomas and the Police.

Transcripted right here.

It makes it worse. The cops were more concerned with their scrapes than with Kelly...a couple of other things pissed me off more too...

reply to post by popsmayhem

It was over kill what they did, now seeing he was a handicap, i do feel even worse about the whole thing.. What I would of done was shut up and lawyered up and let them arrest me.. This guy does not have the mental capacity I do not believe and the cops played on that.. I agree not a nice thing to do to the guy

The guy is homeless and schizophrenic.........if you were both, im sure the last thing youd be thinking about, or could even consider was a lawyer.....and seeing as how hes being treated, and probably had been in the past, im sure his faith in the system was less than confident.....

it wasnt "not a nice thing" they killed him.......it was a tragic and horrible thing.......

Something that would be nice to have, and I am sure it has been invented already is a radio jammer that will not allow calls on the police frequencies to get through. Then you take it wherever it is needed to protect the people from the use of unnecessary force. Once the fascist Nazis cannot coordinate over radio frequencies, they will start to panic and the citizen guardians can close in and deal more effectively with them.

truly disturbing and disgusting. these police officers ( term used lightly) are pure scum, brainwashed drones to serve only their masters. LEOs are supposed to serve and protect the citizens that employ them not abuse and intimidate them. from my experience if you are the one calling the cops they usually treat you like crap, like your wasting their time, they don't seem to like it when you call on them to do their job. they rather drive around and stop youths and minorities, and fill jails with petty possession charges. my only hope is that these a holes get locked up, raped and murdered in prison. the amount of trust they have taken from citizens is appalling. Most people i know wont even call the cops for fear they will be treated as a assailant and not a victim. How these men can go home and look at them selves in the mirror and not take their own life is amazing on its own. Their are no words. how can you go to your child and say daddy protects the innocent and fights bad guys, when in reality you just got home from beating a homeless man to death as he begged for his life, and watched him die as you and your cronies stand around joking about it.

the time is near, we will take our country back, we will take our freedoms back and stand up to these power hungry monsters, who make a mockery of our judicial systems and are a overall burden to the tax payers that pay their salaries. police are nothing more then mobile tax men, who are scared meek creatures that will join forces at the drop of a dime and destroy your humanity and what are going to do about it call the police? lol. Not saying all cops i have met a few " A FEW" good ones. thankfully these guys were caught on camera, other wise there would be no justice, not that paid administrative leave is justice.since thats more then likely all the punishment they will receive. its time someone made a example out of these monsters, protect and serve your community or else. these people are supposed to answer to us.

Can't you just feel it building? People seeing more and more police brutality. Seeing a traffic stop turn into murder at the hands of incompetent bullies with a badge. Do they honestly not understand why they are hated and despised?
I hope these officers are found guilty and punished to the full extent. General population in a max prison sounds right. Would love to be there when they're processed. See how tough they are then.

Originally posted by popsmayhem
this is why you do not resist arrest
Its called shut up and lawyer up..

now why you do this so these
guys cant get off on beating you up
this guy in the video is a complete
moron..

he should of shut up let them apes arrest him and let his lawyer
do the dirty work

he fell right for what they were wanting to do

I live in the area and have heard all about this from the start...
Kelly Thomas was a homeless guy. He was common to the area.
He was about a quarter to a half a bubble off plumb.
The kicker on this was the cops all knew him,
The cop that beat him knew that Kelly would not respond to his commands
This is a case of the cop taking personal anger issues out on a guy and it went to far.
This cop has a problem I hope the legal system gets to fix

Hopefully the cops will get to go to prison and find out how tough they really are...But that is false hope.

The worst that will happen to them is that they will have their license to kill taken from them.


Peace

hey, the guy was a bum, a vagrant, a nobody, and pissed off the officer...what other reason do they need to kill him?...c'mon people, this is what some cops do...think i'm wrong?...just look at all the cases where something likes this has been caught on video across the country, now, imagine WHAT'S NOT caught on camera. and this isn't like it just started yesterday, this has been going on for years.
and...one other thing...while this was going on...how many other real crimes could all of these officers have prevented or stopped?

that one cop beat him in the face and head in pure anger. You can see him just hammering at him.

how much weight do have to put on someone to know they aren't going to relax for fear of being crushed.
It looked like five guys on him at once, just crushing him. how could anyone ease up and just let themselves be crushed?

Originally posted by jimmyx
hey, the guy was a bum, a vagrant, a nobody, and pissed off the officer...what other reason do they need to kill him?...c'mon people, this is what some cops do...think i'm wrong?...just look at all the cases where something likes this has been caught on video across the country, now, imagine WHAT'S NOT caught on camera. and this isn't like it just started yesterday, this has been going on for years.
and...one other thing...while this was going on...how many other real crimes could all of these officers have prevented or stopped?

what is missing from the camera is Tax Dollars removed by budget Tax cut that used to separate people like Kelly Thomas from society.

What is also missing is human compassion, this point is proved by your comments.
proved when police officers and soldiers go rogue.

comment removed


Jimmyx if you dont mind can you clarify the first sentence in you comment you made

Originally posted by ManBehindTheMask
reply to post by knightsofcydonia

 

Yes we do......

Source

The officers stopped Thomas and searched his backpack and asked him to sit on the curb. But the shirtless man, who suffered from schizophrenia, had trouble complying, prosecutors said, at which point Ramos put on a pair of latex gloves, leaned down and threatened him with his fists

edit on 8-5-2012 by ManBehindTheMask because: (no reason given)

I'm basing my response on what I actually SEE in the video. Not what the tabloids and newspapers are "saying" about him. Show me the medical diagnosis from a qualified doctor saying he was schizo...

reply to post by rebellender

I can't speak for jimmyx but I think it is s semi-observational sarcastic type remark. At least that's how I read it. jimmys isn't saying it is right but saying that it happens and often, somewhere between occasionally and regularly.

At least the main perpetrator has been charged with murder although I personally think the rest should at least be charged with complicity or whatever it's called. I mean, surely common sense would tell a trained LEO what a severe beating with and without weapons from a much larger man in the dominant position would result in. They literally helped their colleague to kill this man imho.

The man's father (I caught this story the first time around on ATS) is....get ready for this...an ex LEO. Uh-huh. Imagine how he feels....

May justice be served swiftly and fairly.

reply to post by Sinny

Reply removed due to moderation ( ) and OT-ness on my part.

reply to post by LightSpeedDriver


OT-ness? Those Cops are rabid beasts.

My comment was NOT as EXTREME as so called law enforcement in the US, little grasshopper

Words cannot describe the way this makes me feel, and the ones that come closest aren't allowed to posted, perhaps because children read this forum? I certainly hope not. The police are the last people I will ever call.