Cops Broke Elbow, Dislocated Shoulder

Of Demented Woman, 73, Lawsuit Alleges

By K W. Locke

A frail 73-year-old woman has sued the Loveland, Colorado police department.  Her lawyer alleges that police broke her elbow and dislocated her shoulder when they arrested her.

According to the attorney, the woman suffers from dementia and from aphasia, disorders which impair her ability to communicate.  Police arrested her after she left Walmart without paying for an item that cost less than 14 dollars.

Cops Appear To Be Laughing

The lawyer released video of her arrest and booking and called attention to one portion, in which officers appear to be laughing while discussing the woman's injuries.   The federal lawsuit alleges that the police used excessive force and that they detained her for hours without providing her access to medical care.

The woman's attorney also points to one of the videos as evidence that the officers knew they had harmed the woman.  According to the lawyer, the officers did not disclose on the paperwork that she

 had suffered an injury which should have received medical treatment.

 

 Lawsuits against police for use of excessive force typically cite a federal statute enacted soon after the Civil War to protect the civil rights of people previously enslaved.    However, the complaint in this case, filed on behalf of a woman with dementia and aphasia, also invoked the Americans With Disabilities Act.

 

Under Investigation

A Loveland Police Department spokesman said one of the officers involved has been placed on administrative leave and two others have been assigned administrative duties while the matter is investigated.

 

The police department released a statement acknowledging that the video was difficult to watch.  "We understand your concerns," the statement said, "and the seriousness of the allegations in the lawsuit, and are taking a full account of all the questions and concerns raised."

Banner:  Frame from a video recorded by a surveillance camera at the Lovoland, Colorado, Police Department, showing officers bringing the woman in for booking.

"Police Chauvinism" Produces Derek Chauvins

By K. W. Locke

According to legend, one of Napoleon's soldiers continued to display a patriotism so extreme his name became the basis for a new word.  The Encyclopedia Britannica records that Nicolas Chauvin "came to typify the cult of the glorification of all things military" and the word chauvinism came to connote "an undue partiality to a group or place."

In recent decades in America, the impulse to hero worship has expanded to include the glorification of police.  But what happens if you tell any group of people that they are good guys fighting evil, imply they can do no wrong, then overlook their misdeeds and impose no punishment for bad behavior?
 
Every human being will become a little intoxicated by that power.  Some will grow not just callous but smugly callous.  There will be moments when a few get really, stinking out of control.  And a very few will become so deadened by righteous entitlement they're willing to snuff out a human life while bystanders watch and record it on video.

Derek Chauvin murdered a man in Minneapolis.  But how did he acquire the power to commit such a crime?  And why did other officers, who could have stopped him, just stand around and let it happen?

 

Our society's police chauvinism, its glorification of those behind the badge, has created am environment which not only tolerates bullies but allows them to grow in power.  And our society has allowed police officers to create and live in a separate, private world where their unspoken rules take precedence over written laws. 

Since the beginning of commercial television in the late 1940s, at least 340 cop shows have appeared on America's screens.  The Internet Movie Database made a list.

In the 1950s, Dragnet, a highly popular police procedural, set the pattern.  Like many of the television westerns of that decade, Dragnet neatly divided the world into good guys and bad guys.

The Los Angeles Police Department exercised considerable creative control over the program, assuring a favorable portrayal.  The show put makeup on the less attractive aspects of law enforcement while fascinating the public with many technical details of police procedure.

The LAPD's close relationship with the producers infused Dragnet with a particular mindset and attitude, a righteous obsession with getting the bad guy, no matter what.  The officers didn't slow down much to consider Constitutional niceties.

But a sizable chunk of the public desired tough policing with not too many rules.  During the 1960s, television increasingly brought viewers footage of unsettling real–life events.  Many people, feeling a greater need for police, wanted cops to have more power and fewer constraints. 

To them, police were the white knights protecting them from the barbarian and the infidel.  Cops bought into this analogy.  (Or one similar.  LAPD officer and writer Joseph Wambaugh titled his 1971 novel The New Centurions.  It described cops as "besieged men, dealing daily with a world coming apart.")

This seductive self image - the cop as lonely warrior, often misunderstood, struggling to preserve society against growing lawlessness - offers psychological benefits. It defines the officer as a member of a special group, apart from society, an elite.

It also hardens an officer against outside criticism, which can be dismissed saying "You don't understand.  You weren't in my situation."

 

By similar logic, rules made by outsiders, who neither share their experiences nor face their challenges, can be ignored.  And, since the outsiders can't understand, lying is not only expedient but necessary.  

 

The highest duty, felt even if not acknowledged, becomes conforming to the group's norms, and betraying another group member amounts to treason.

Such loyalty to a group and its members is a form of chauvinism.  In the original form, the group was the military.  When it expanded to include a whole country, "chauvinism" became almost synonymous with nationalism.

Feminists described another species: male chauvinism.  But the word "chauvinism" rightly can be applied to any form of toxic loyalty to an insular group.

And it's powerful    Woe to the person who belongs to an insular group and breaks its norms!  Consider what happened to Cariol Horne.

 In 2006, she was a cop in Buffalo, New York.  While on duty, she saw a white officer, Greg Kwiatkowski choking a handcuffed black man and heard the man say he couldn't breathe.

First, she tried to persuade the white officer to stop but he didn't let go.  Then, Horne physically fought with the white cop, forcing him to release the choke hold.

Later, the man Horne rescued said that she had saved his life.  But the police department fired her.

Then, Kwiatkowski sued Horne for defamation and won.
 

Eventually, Kwiatkowski's brutish modus operandi caught up with him.  He spent 4 months in federal prison for using "unlawful and unreasonable force against four black teenagers."

Horne became an advocate for criminal justice reform.  It took years, but she, along with others, convinced the city of Buffalo to enact a "duty to intervene law."

Buffalo took that action last year, after the video of George Floyd's death prompted shock and outrage.  That video, showing other Minneapolis cops standing around doing nothing while their fellow officer killed a man, demonstrated the importance of a law requiring them to act.

Yet, it seems strange that such a law would be needed.  Police officers already have a legal duty to act when they see a crime being committed.  But the Buffalo law makes it explicit, and should discourage cops from letting peer pressure outweigh justice.

Under a provision of the new law, Horne filed suit for wrongful termination.  This month she won.

Her experience shows that there are not one but two pervasive problems which must be addressed within police departments.  They are comorbidities.

Racial prejudice certainly must be addressed and eliminated.  But even after that hard, necessary work, another problem will remain:  Eliminating the peculiar chauvinism which insularity breeds.  Will that be the more
difficult task?

Publicity photograph of actors Jack Webb and Harry Morgan playing Sgt. Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon in the 1967-70 version of Dragnet (via Wikimedia Commons).  Photo of former officer Cariol Horne from her website.  Drawing of Nicolas Chauvin by unknown artist.

 

April 24, 2021

  

(WESTMINSTER, CALIFORNIA)  Two police officers intervened when a fellow officer began hitting a woman  who, although handcuffed, apparently had kicked him.  Although he appears to have struck her twice, the other officers stopped him from hitting her further.  See story and video here.

The woman had been arrested on an outstanding warrant.  She may have been intoxicated.

* * *

(NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE)  On April 19, 2021, the Tennessee State Senate unanimously passed a criminal justice reform bill that makes several important changes, including creating a duty to intervene:  If a law enforcement officer sees other officers using excessive force, and if the officer has an opportunity and means to prevent the use of such force, the officer must act.

The bill also prohibits retaliation against an officer for intervening to prevent the use of excessive force, for reporting the incident or for providing information about it the investigators.

Additionally, the bill would require all law enforcement agencies to report uses of force to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which would place that information in a database.

Other provisions of the bill prohibit judicial magistrates from issuing no-knock search warrants and provide that law enforcement officers can use a "choke hold" only if they reasonably believe that the circumstances permit the use of deadly force.

The bill now goes to the Tennessee House of Representatives.

* * *

(SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS) This week, the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled in a civil case that San Antonio police officers are not entitled to qualified immunity for their actions leading to the death of a man who may have been on drugs or mentally ill.  Video of the incident, similar in some ways to George Floyd's death, may be seen here.

Police had received reports that a man was walking down the median of an 8-lane expressway and waving his arms.  When officers handcuffed him, he did not appear to resist.  Nonetheless, they forced him to lie face down, pulled his legs up into a hog-tie position and applied  pressure.  After 5-1/2 minutes in this position, the man, whose name was Jesse Aguirre, stopped breathing.

During those minutes, Aguirre's lips turned blue.  One officer noticed but, because Aguirre had injection marks on his arm, believed drugs were causing the cyanotic reaction.

After Aguirre stopped breathing, an officer named Juarez, who had trained as a medic, jogged back to his car to get his medical gear.  The court wrote:  "At this point, the Officers appear to be in good spirits; according to the Plaintiffs, in the dashcam videos, Juarez can be seen smiling as he jogs to his vehicle, and several other Officers likewise appear to be smiling and laughing as they await Juarez’s  return around Aguirre’s body"

The mood turned less festive when Aguirre did not respond.  The court held that the officers were not entitled to qualified immunity.

A finding of immunity spares an officer not only from liability but also from the ordeal and expense of a trial, so courts decide the immunity issue first.   Denied immunity, the officers will now have to defend their actions in court.

* * *

Which White Cops Attacked Black Officer?

By K. W. Locke

    On September 15, 2017, a St. Louis judge found former police officer Jason Stockley not guilty of murdering Anthony Lamar Smith.  Stockley, who is white, had shot and killed the black man while pursuing him to make an arrest.

    The acquittal prompted large protests.  On September 17, St. Louis police officer Luther Hall attended a protest while working undercover, posing as a demonstrator.  Hall is black.

    The police department sent in other officers, in full gear, to control the crowd.  At least some of these cops were spoiling for a fight.  One of them texted others that "It's going to be a lot of fun beating the shit out of these shitheads."

    Some of the white cops in riot gear did not know that Hall also was an officer.  They rushed him.  Even though he offered no resistance, and told them he was an officer, they beat him severely, causing damage to his spine, jaw and lip.

   The FBI investigated, resulting in federal charges against five officers.  One of them pleaded guilty to lying to a grand jury.

    Another, Randy Hays, pleaded guilty.  During the trial of the other 3 cops, Hays was a key witness for the prosecution.

    Against at least two of the three officers, federal prosecutors presented what sounds like a pretty strong case.  Hays testified that he saw one of these cops, Steven Korte, kick Hall.

    Hayes also testified that he saw another of the defendants, Christopher Myers, nearby, but did not see Myers hit Hall.  However, another witness, an FBI agent who had been a St. Louis police officer in 2017, told the jury that he had seen Myers hitting and kicking Hall.
    
        Hall himself had taken a cellphone video.  Although it didn't show the officers engaged in the assault itself - which would have been difficult for Hall to record, considering that he was being hit and kicked - the video did capture moments leading up to the attack.  It includes the face of an officer in a riot helmet, whom the prosecution argued was Myers.

    Recently, a jury acquitted Korte completely, both of the charge of depriving Hall of his federal civil rights, and of a charge that he lied to a grand jury.   The jury also acquitted Myers of the charge that he deprived Hall of his civil rights.  However, it could not reach a verdict on the charge that he tried to destroy evidence by damaging Hall's cellphone.

    The third defendant was Dustin Boone, the cop who had texted that it was going to be fun "beating the shit out of these shitheads."  He had been charged with depriving Hall of his civil rights and with aiding and abetting the commission of a crime.

    The jury could not reach a verdict on either of these counts, resulting in a mistrial.  So, Boone may face trial again on both charges, and Myers may face a new trial on the destruction of evidence charge.

    Korte is absolutely free.  He also remains on the St. Louis police force, and possibly may seek a return to active duty.

    Eleven of the 12 jurors are white.  Did racial prejudice affect the jury's decision?

    My initial reaction was yes, there had to be prejudice.  Then, I realized that my opinion was worthless.  I didn't attend the trial, and all my information about it came second-hand, from a few news articles.

    Even  if  I had read a verbatim transcript of the trial, I would not be justified in second-guessing the jurors, who saw the witnesses as they testified and heard their voices.  They obviously did not put a lot of stock in the testimony of former police officer Randy Hays, who said he saw Korte hit Hall.

    But why didn't they?  Was it the way Hays answered questions on cross-examination?  Did something about his body language contradict his words?  I wasn't there and don't know.

    However, it would be plausible for the jurors to harbor a reasonable doubt, even about eyewitness identification.  It was dark on the night of the attack and the attackers wore riot helmets.

     When taken seriously,  requiring the defendant's guilt to be proven "beyond a reasonable doubt" sets a high standard for conviction.   But the word "reasonable" allows a lot of wiggle room.  A juror might not even realize that the race of a defendant could affect what he considered "reasonable."

     For instance, this blog has reported on cases where a jury convicts an innocent man, who happens to be black and poor, even in the face of significant evidence pointing to his innocence.  How else can such a dereliction be explained except as a result of racial prejudice?

    What amounts to "beyond a reasonable doubt" should not depend on the color of the defendant's skin.

     Why do we keep forgetting?