Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/08/27/video-shows-carpentersville-co.html
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And if there wasn’t video of this, the officer’s partner would corroborate his account: the kid became belligerent, and the officers had no choice but to defend themselves against attack. You’d have the word of two cops against a no-good kid’s, and the kid might be looking at charges that would affect the course of his life.
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For real, everytime people get news like this, our first thought should be “How many times has this happened and it WASN’T caught on camera?”
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Those cops should serve jail time.
Even if they lose their jobs (unlikely) they’d always have a promising career in ICE!
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These cops made a common logical mistake. You see it in people who think they are on the side of right, so what they are doing must be right. Saving a runaway is right, so jumping a kid to find her must be right. If they stop to think, at most it’s rationalized as the lesser evil.
We all tend to do it. It’s more consequential when people in position of power do it.
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Remember citizens, just keep repeating to yourself: it’s just a few bad apples, it’s just a few bad apples, it’s just a few bad apples…
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This sounds like a plot to a Snake Plissken movie.
Escape from… Carpentersville? Really?
“Where is the President’s daughter?”
Seriously though, WTF is wrong with these cops? You need a warrant. It shouldn’t be that hard to get one if there was reasonable belief she was there. And even if she was there, what sort of urgency was there that this was required? And what happened that required laying of hands of the minor? It’s like they don’t even train cops or something.
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CCTV seems more useful to catch cops than criminals.
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And who is gonna pay for the trauma this kid has suffered. How will it affect his trust or respect for authorities? Perhaps the best thing that happened is that the boy survived and now knows just exactly how cops operate. Good luck Kid and keep your cameras rolling, you made the cops look bad and they may resent that.
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And this will continue to happen until there are serious penalties for police who abuse power (i.e. loss of protections, jail time, never being able to work in any related field, felon status, etc…).
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This seems vastly understated for the example shown. If anything: It’s more consequential when people in a position of power, being paid from the community chest to serve and protect us, armed with guns, do it to a minor.
These officers should be on unpaid leave until the review is complete, which should ideally result in the loss of their positions of power.
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Why in the world is the footage of those policemen obscured to hide their identities?
Is there a right to privacy while on official police business? The video is simply a factual recording of events. Short of the victim rightfully wanting to maintain his (already violated) privacy, nothing else should be censored here.
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There’s always one to be had if it turns out to be needed later.
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one evening around 5 or 6 years ago there was a knock at our front door. i answered it and standing at my door was the commander of the local police’s tactical unit. even though it was at night i could see a policeman in tactical gear, trying very hard not to be seen, between our porch and the alley that goes to the backyard with what i presume was a semi-auto assault rifle. i suppose a police unit could have full-auto equipment but maybe not. as soon as i had seen the officer on my porch i came out of the door and closed it behind me. i was not going to let him “accidentally” end up in my house without my specific permission.
i knew this call had to be about our younger son who was in frequent difficulty with the law. my son was not there at the time and if i had known exactly where he was i might have told the policeman the address because our son was not going to get better with us enabling his escape. that said, i wasn’t going to let anyone’s rights be abused in the situation. in addition to the one with the rifle, i noted the presence of another officer off to the other side of the porch trying to hide at the corner where the garage is. that officer had a revolver drawn and in a two-handed grip.he was mostly behind the corner but at points i could see the gun in his hands as he kept trying to look around the corner.
the commander at the door introduced himself and asked if i lived at this address to which i replied affirmatively. at this point i noticed one more armed officer steadying a rifle with a scope on top of my car which was parked in the driveway. i introduced myself and asked what business he thought he had at my house. instead of a direct answer he asked if my son lived there and i said he did, he asked if he was there at that time and i said he was not, he asked if i knew where he had gone and said that i did not.
he paused at that point and so i asked him if, given the fact that there were three armed men skulking around on my property, i was in any danger. he flushed red when he realized i had seen the other three officers and started making threats against my liberty if i were trying to hide or protect my son. i told him it was completely unnecessary of him to threaten me and told him that if i knew where he was i would tell him and if he were there in the house i would bring him out but since he was gone and i didn’t know where i couldn’t help him. the commander asked if i would let him search the premises. since i was curious about exactly how well-prepared this asshole was instead of answering him directly i asked him if he had an arrest warrant he could show me for my son which he, interestingly enough, did not. then i asked him if he had a search warrant for the premises he could show me which he did not have. so i told him that it was getting late and i had to get up and teach school in the morning so i was going to go back in and go to bed.
at that point i turned to go in and he reached a hand out as if to stop me. i gave him a cold, dignified glare i call the “teacher look” and he let his arm drop and as i went in he told me once again of the possible penalties if it were to be proven that i had helped my son escape the hands of justice. i went in, closed and locked the door, and told my wife what had just happened.
what saved me a lot of problems was the level of my privilege first because i was a white male, second because i was a school teacher, and third because at every point i could i made it abundantly clear that i knew my fucking rights. i’m 58 years old and since i was a teen and read about police brutality i have been suspicious of police, and law enforcement in general. in the 40+ years since my teens my experiences have made me ever more suspicious and hostile towards law enforcement. there have been one or two members of that group i’ve encountered over the years who have been honest, hard-working, protective of suspects’ rights, and lacking any outward signs of racism but it has been literally just one or two and they are trapped by the demands of the “thin blue line” mentality.
one was the chief of police of my hometown, population circa 3000 in central texas. he was a close friend of my father’s and i saw him, talked to him, and socialized with him on several occasions. one time i confronted him about one of his officers who was a nakedly racist officer who didn’t give two shits about constitutional rights. i asked him why someone he would keep someone who would rather beat a false confession out of a black man than arrest the white man who had done the crime. he told me that if he didn’t protect all of his officers he couldn’t keep any of them. i got up, told him that if every officer on the force would leave if he allowed an incompetent racist piece of shit like that to receive discipline if not justice then what was the point of having a police force. then i walked off. a month later my dad told me that what i said to him must have struck a nerve because about three weeks after that party he resigned and retired. dad said his last act was to process the paperwork needed to terminate that officer i had talked to him about.
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By consequential, do you mean there should be more consequences? Or do you mean, as I did, that consequential means there more of an effect (consequences) when people in power do dumb stuff?
I don’t disagree there should be more consequences for people we pay to protect us abuse the power. I was trying to point out we don’t pay much attention to the thought process (I’m good, so what I do is good) until it becomes a problem from someone with power (when there are more consequences).
If we don’t teach people to recognize that being a good person doesn’t mean what you do is automatically good, then when they get power, they are going to do something stupid.
I’m not the first to point this out: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
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Maybe the cops ARE the criminals?
(And all the sinners saints)
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But we know they won’t, and as long as that’s the case, journalists should publish the names of the officers involved, and, if their managers haven’t fired them yet, the managers, too.
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This is how you deal with pigs people. Bravo.
Sorry to hear about your son. I hope he’s doing ok now.
I’ve seen the exact same kind of reactions from police you seem to have. And while I am actually a pretty goofy guy I look scary to some people, so I have had police called on me and have weapons pointed directly at me before (tazers with laser sights, fortunately).
I have not done anything bad to anyone and have no criminal record or anything but I’m a white guy and even I have seen how police act toward me. If they act that way towards me, I can only imagine how they are toward people who aren’t white or don’t have the balls to stand up to them by knowing their rights.
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It’s also “standard Hollywood cop.” The kind of behavior that we see in films/television representations of law enforcement constantly (and not just “cop who breaks the rules to get things done” either) that is presented as perfectly acceptable behavior, normalizing it for the whole population, not just cops.
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Wouldn’t it be nice if certain people had the same reverence for the 4th Amendment as they do for the 2nd?
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