This story of police abuse is so outrageous it makes your blood boil.
On Sept. 10, 2014, Jamie Kalani Rice, 41, a native Hawaiian, sat down on a beach near a monk seal he thought was sick and began performing a traditional healing ritual that consisted of rubbing sand on himself. Yes, there are signs on the beach saying “Do Not Disturb Seals” — white man’s rules — but nobody asked the seal if it was being disturbed. In the video, it doesn’t seem to mind.
But there were some NOAA volunteers watching, and one of them decided to be a vigilante and call the cops. Officer Ming Wang of the Honolulu Police Department shows up and talks to Rice. The conversation isn’t audible on the video, but Rice gets up and walks away down the beach, stops and picks up his belongings, and that’s when Wang pepper sprays him, repeatedly clubs him with a baton, and kicks him. Rice suffered broken bones in the police assault. (Warning: graphic video of police violence) Then you hear a woman start crying, and then some asshole says, “That’s all right. He’s just being arrested.”
No, that isn’t all right. It’s very much not all right.
Rice has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Wang and his superiors. He accuses them, among other things, of falsifying the police report of the incident. Meanwhile, never ones to leave well enough alone, the authorities — who initially declined to prosecute Rice — retaliated after the video went viral by filing charges against him for “obstructing a government operation.” Are you kidding me???
Read about this disgusting police behavior here, here, and here.