This is another horror story about stupid violent cops. (They seem endless these days.)
A 39-year-old disabled man was making his way on a sidewalk in Granville, W.Va., with his two young children, one in a stroller and carrying the other in his arm, in the jerky fashion characteristic of people with Huntington’s disease.
Four idiot cops who assumed Jeffrey Bane was high on drugs violently took him down — as Daily Kos puts it, “the upshot is three cops sitting on a man who can’t control his muscles, telling him to control his muscles.” Bane suffered injuries to his face, ear, shoulder, legs, and feet, and videos show him spitting blood while an officer sits on his head.
The cops charged Bane with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, obstructing an officer, battery on an officer, and spitting on an officer. They also threatened to arrest a woman passerby who tried to intervene (by telling the police to “stop it!”) and took video of the incident. The videos are graphic and gut-wrenching; you can link to them here (if you have the stomach for it):
You can also read a news story about the incident here:
http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20140912/GZ01/140919689
As to be expected, the mayor and police chief are defending their cops:
- “The outrage of anything even close to police brutality in the case of Jeff Bane is totally unwarranted,” Westover Mayor Dave Johnson said in a statement released to the station. “If I had any doubt whatsoever I would be the first to bring the officers involved to the carpet, so to speak.… The City of Westover has moved on.”
- “Granville Chief of Police Craig Corkrean said … he doesn’t think the video shows any inappropriate behavior.”
Maybe a quarter million dollar tort settlement will change their minds. I’ll bet there’ll eventually be one in this case. A U.S. Department of Justice investigation might adjust their attitudes, too. After all, people with disabilities are protected by federal law; and cops who beat up people for being disabled are violating their civil rights and committing a federal crime.
Meanwhile, I hate to think what these morons might do to Stephen Hawking if they ever got their hands on him. America’s cops have become so bad even world-class physicists aren’t safe in our country anymore.