Originally published at: Charges dropped against cops who shoved elderly man's head and cracked his skull | Boing Boing
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but, citing secrecy rules, said he couldn’t discuss what witnesses were called or what evidence was presented.
How convenient for the prosecutor in this case. The case he made to the grand jury must have been a masterwork of sandbagging given the video evidence in front of our eyes.
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I wonder who has the authority to waive said secrecy rules. Governor, state legislature, more local entities?
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Would the guy have grounds for or legal recourse to a civil case?
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Yes, but the criminal charges being dropped in this case means it’s unlikely a civil suit would be successful.
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Cops are above the law. We’ve seen it time and again.
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Hmm. Given the video and that (well, in UK, at least) civil proof needs to be ‘balance of probability’ not ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ I reckon he’d have a good chance if this were here in UK. (It has happened here before, I’m sure, but cannot recall any specific cases.)
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I disagree with your assessment. OJ was acquitted, but lost big in civil court, for example. So I will need to see it play out. I would not lay a bet at this point.
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In the U.S., the lawyers for the officers and the police union will portray (or more likely threaten to portray) the victim as someone who brought the violence on himself – “hey, a grand jury already said the cops weren’t at fault”. He might get a small settlement with lots of confidentiality strings attached, but that’s about it.
In the U.S., the lawyers for the officers and the police union will portray (or more likely threaten to portray) the victim as someone who brought the violence on himself – “hey, a grand jury already said the cops weren’t at fault”. He might get a small settlement with lots of confidentiality strings attached, but that’s about it.
OJ’s entire case was very unique and polarising, and the fact that the criminal case made it into an actual (and highly publicised) trial with lots of drama and a prosecution team that wasn’t sandbagging as here but displaying actual incompetence* meant that any given civil jury might be looking for an alternate way to deliver justice to the family’s of OJ’s two victims.
[* that’s in addition to a judge who lost control of his courtroom to a highly talented and cynical defense attorney and the various racial aspects]
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I wish NY state would just dissolve ALL municipal police forces and supplant them with county sheriffs and state troopers, who both tend to hold higher standards and provide better training. Especially troopers, who must hold bachelors’ degrees and receive the longest training in the nation. It would cost more for the policing, but we’d likely make up the cost with a LOT fewer lawsuits that taxpayers have to pay for. Edited for spelling.
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I live where this happened. The video footage looks bad with the cops walking past an elderly bleeding man they just shoved. However, 3-4 seconds later in the clip, behind the officer trying to block the camera you can see several officers trying to help the guy. Ironically, the police were clearing the area so that when night fell there wouldn’t be violence. It clearly wasn’t the cops’ intent to shove him to the ground, but I believe the guy was undergoing chemo and was especially frail. That said, the police officer shouldn’t have shoved him and the optics of the whole thing in the greater context are pretty ugly.
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For who is the secrecy to benefit, and who is required to uphold it?
If I was on that grand jury, and not obligated to uphold the secrecy, I and several fellow fellow jurors (possibly all) would grant interviews about how the DA intentionally fumbled the case.
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DA, the cops, the grand jury…
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Yes, and the standard of evidence is lower there, too. That said, civil settlement is a desirable outcome for police, as the victim must accept that police did nothing illegal and the police don’t pay the settlements.
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Whatever you want done about angry, violent, abusive cops, it won’t be done by other elements of law enforcement.
Which raises the question of how you do deal with them. Political efforts to reform police departments are stymied by police “unions,” and even if that’s successful, it does nothing to bring specific criminal cops to justice. What does that leave? Vigilantism? That would create a total nightmare.
On the contrary, it pretty clearly was their intent, given how he was shoved. (Also “especially frail”? He’s an elderly guy, yeah, he’s obviously frail.) They just didn’t give a shit. At most, they didn’t intend him to get so seriously - and visibly, on camera - injured. Just within a few days of the BLM protests, I saw dozens of videos of cops intentionally pushing down - and seriously injuring - peaceful protesters, so the idea that they weren’t trying to do this isn’t credible. This wasn’t even the only elderly man shoved hard to the ground without provocation and seriously injured, in near identical circumstances. In a number of cases, the cops fucking drop-kicked protesters from behind. Cops across the country were angry that their authority was being challenged and wanted nothing more or less than to fuck people up. They didn’t give a shit about the optics because they figured - correctly, as it turns out - that no matter how heinous their acts, they’d not have to deal with the consequences. They knew there were enough people like you who would be eager to defend the indefensible.
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What makes that clear to you? To me it looks clear that police actively pushed him to the ground. They didn’t bump him walking past, they pushed with force in the way they do against protesters all the time and the usual results happened. They then walked past, which makes sense if it was the usual crowd clearing tactics and makes no sense if knocking him over was an unexpected outcome.
They make the violence. There are much better ways of avoiding it than attacking an elderly man.
We don’t accept that excuse in car crashes where intent wasn’t a factor, why do you accept it for cops? What Is the Eggshell Skull Rule?
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I think it’s for the best that we all just move on so we can heal together, right?
/s
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So, they don’t get charged, for all intents & purposes, they can’t be sued… or fired… they might get a slap on the wrist: a couple of weeks off with pay & some time driving a desk.
Frankly, there aren’t many options left that aren’t a total nightmare.
As if the current situation isn’t nightmarish in itself.
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Yeah, when the system fails so completely, when the basic guarantees of the constitution simply don’t exist and there’s no mechanism by which to petition government for redress of grievances (in fundamental matters of life and liberty, no less), it really can’t be anything other than a nightmare.
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