Charge the other morons just standing there watching too.
@beschizza typo!
The victim Gabriel Despres is being charged with defiant trespass, public drunkenness, and underage drinking by Sgt. Matakovich. The preliminary hearing is scheduled for March 16th at 8:00 am in Pittsburgh Municipal Courtroom 02. The courtroom is open to the public, if you would like to go and show your support for Mr. Despres.
You forgot the fact that Despres was repeatedly hitting Sgt. Matakovich’s fists with his face. He probably assaulted Sgt. Matakovich’s uniform by bleeding on it. Throw away the key, I say!
So what can the FBI do?
Gabriel Despres kept his hands in his pockets after being ordered to remove them and was therefore a “threat.”
And if he had removed his hands from his pockets he would have been “making a threatening gesture.”
The cops can’t lose.
The young man was drunk, and the cop could have easily taken him down and subdued him with the two decades worth of training he has had. Instead, it looks like he was excited to get in a good old fashioned street fight and learn this kid’s face some respect.
I searched in four or five different “people finder” websites for Stephen Matakovich in Pittsburgh, not one of them had a match. Kinda odd.
Can we clarify some facts/details here?
the headline says “teen” and write up says 19, but the article and reports say the assaulted person is 20. He is a legal adult, not a teen in either case. And yes it matters.
The write up says he is an cop who was off duty working as a security guard. The article says the incident happened at a high school football game at Heinz Field…further details are it was actually outside of the game, he was trying to get in. Who was the man doing security for? The stadium? The School? If it was security on behest of the school, then he should in fact NOT be off duty, he would definitely have been in uniform on a publicly sanctioned assignment. If he was being employed by the stadium, why?! Doesn’t the stadium and Steelers organization have their own dedicated security for non NFL events? Why would they need an off duty cop there?
Another point made is that the officer/security guard’s defense for his actions were that the man “kept his hands in his pockets after being ordered to remove them and was therefore a threat.” Now, a cop in a confrontational situation has every right to ask you to remove your hands from your pockets or from under cover and to keep them in a non threatening position where they can see them. HOWEVER…does a part time event security officer person have same said right?
Can a mall security person order you to take your hands out of your pockets and if you do not comply jump you and beat the crap out of you to subdue you?
I think we would all say no.
Also…by my count on the full video there are SEVEN security personnel standing off against our young Mr. Despres. Let us for the sake of argument take the report as truth that he was drinking heavily. Given the size of this “kid” and the idea he is a bit tipsy…would you need SEVEN officers to subdue him?
Last thing…It looks an awful lot like the police officer is wearing he police issued jacket with his Sgt stripes on the side of it. Is he in full uniform? If so that is NOT an off duty cop…it’s a cop. ON DUTY.
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, farts like a duck, Guess what…its the same jackwagon cop we find too often now a days
So we finally have a DA who actually files charges and the judge throws it out. And props to the DA that takes a balls, most of the time when these things happen DA’s wont file charges because they work with or want the police to cooperate and jailing a cop negatively affects that relationship. Well we are back to a civil suit, and This kid does have a case, that and hopefully the FBI and Federal Prosecutors will go for civil rights violations.
I know this sounds “hollywood”, but I’m pretty damn sure the judge would be threatened as well- “hey, how is your wife feeling?”.
Regarding the age, since the incident occurred in November, it’s possible that Despres was 19 at the time of the incident but has since turned 20.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
