Fullerton Police Scandal

Looks pretty horrible. Fullerton is just a short drive away from me. Can't wait to hear what the police have to say in their "defense" on this.

 

Looks like the officers f'ed themselves in the butt. I can't see this ending well for them - I cannot even imagine a plausible scenario where this type of force would be required on an unarmed suspect.

 

Sounds fishy -- They could well be a bunch of bullying creeps in uniform -- but lets wait until all the facts are in before we jump to too many conclusions, my friends.

 

Nonsense, LKD ... news reports, sketchy witness accounts, a dead man, cops, an apparent beating ... that's all we need to know! It's case closed!

 

You forgot to mention the grieving father, who also happens to be in law enforcement (so he knows what he's talking about).

Jokes aside, it doesn't look like a good situation, and the fact that the police are being very tight lipped doesn't help one bit. As I said, I'll be interested to hear their defense... as soon as they figure out what it's going to be.

 

That sounds really bad. We don't yet have the full details, but a man beaten into a coma would be pretty hard to justify.

 

He was probably criminal scum anyway. No need to investigate let alone prosecute six law abiding law enforcement officers because of this. The bum probably deserved it anyhow.

Yeah it looks bad, and it's made worse by the fact that there were six cops. Police brutality is really among the worst kinds of crimes, especially when there's so many of them. Also superiors turning a blind eye just to avoid a scandal really sickens me. If the case is what it seems to be I really hope the heads of the people responsible for a probable cover up will roll and not just these six police officers.

 

Hmm, it can easily take multiple security staff to restrain an uncooperative body, regardless of size, (where is his weight mentioned?, I'm small build (38 chest, 32 waist) but Im still 11.5st, this guy at 135lb would weigh in at 9.5st Im struggling to picture a 37 yearold man weighing that and being able to walk) lets also bare in mind that this guy is schizophrenic. The human body can muster enormous strength when threatened, as a schizophrenic his mental state may have made him very dangerous, it is a common thing for someone to be injured while resisting security staff or police. In rare instances those injuries can be serious, I have flattened someone's nose simply because we fell over as I tried to restrain him and he landed face first, it is easily concievable that a severe neck or head injury or internal bleeding could be caused by a struggle, but, as we dont know the cause of death we are just speculating.

The only mistake in this instance is the lack of communication, in the UK the police are required to report any death involving the police to the IPCC (independent police complaints commission) who investigate all of the evidence regarding the incident and make suggestions on how to improve training or if the case may warrant, bring punishment for police indiscretion.

 

I have worked with schizophrenic patients and have had to restrain them several times. It is not that hard, especially if you are six people. Grab a limb each and one person "sits" on him then wait for the nurse to administer the night night injection. Only time I saw punches and such being used was when some dick among the staff threw a sucker punch "to learn the loon a lesson". Now if a lone policeman had beat someone up I can see some scenario where it might have been necessary but six trained officers? In the immortal words of House of Pain: I never eat a pig cause a pig is a cop.

 

As for the concrete case, it'd be better to hear their side and gather up the full story. In abstract terms, my view is that cops should be getting fired for a single proven serious incident with excessive force and examined by a shrink when less serious. And beating is pretty much always excessive unless in self defence. (Restraining is done by grabbing, twisting, grappling and whatnot but not beating.) Generally there should be no place for people with excessively violent, or sadistic tendencies in law enforcement or basically any position of authority or access to weapons.

 

135 lbs. is pretty slight for a guy, but not impossibly so. He might have been wiry with zero body fat, which as you know could make him quite a handful.

I once tangled with a smallish but 'inspired' guy (not sure if he was schizophrenic, but he was very very geeked up) who had been knifed and had his intestines coming out all over and was stepping on them and whatnot, and he was impossible to restrain without a bunch of guys, and when it was over, everybody was lumped up. There are never any this-is-always-the-case scenarios with anybody. It just doesn't work that way. People run the gamut of capabilities, size, inspiration, intoxication, and everything else. Crackheads, for example, are for some reason often capable of amazing feats, like vaulting walls and jumping great distances and running at olympian speeds. So, to categorically say "this was excessive" without knowing all the facts is just reckless.

I agree with Shoshino that they should have been more forthcoming and documented it better though. To not do so was inviting just this sort of inquiry. But that doesn't automatically mean it was a coverup. Put yourself in the shoes of the cops: would you really want to conspire to and participate in a planned murder and risk your job, freedom, and everything else just to 'get' some homeless guy? That seems really unlikely to me, and if it was department-wide, top to bottom, as some have implied, that would have to be the most corrupt police department in the country. Isn't Fullerton basically a suburb type town? Are they notable for having these types of problems in the past?

 

Last time I checked Fullerton was a quiet city. Its main attractions are its colleges, Cal-State Fullerton and Fullerton College (a JC). They also have a small Christian college called Hope University.

Yes, lots of suburbs, most of them catering to middle class folks. I don't remember it being a place with an excessive amount of thugs or even homeless, but then again, I haven't spent much time there in a good 15 years. It doesn't seem to have changed much though.

I actually used to live there for a couple of years while attending FC, before transferring to university in another city.

 

I agree chev, but IMO, the fact that the police department has NOT released their side of the story is quite damning.

While it doesn't seem overly plausible, let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the force used by the six police officers was justified. Given that the guy died, and the public outcry that is going on, shouldn't the police be shouting from the mountaintops all of their evidence that showed it was justified? It was in a parking lot - there is a videotape of what happened, the police have it, and so there would be no need for specuation if it were to be released.

And to me, THAT'S the problem. The police have irrefutable visual evidence of what happened. That they haven't released the video, and that they are refusing to comment on the case. The most reasonable conclusion to be drawn here is that the video does NOT contain footage that presents the police in a favorable light. It's one of those instances where doing nothing leads people to assume the worst.

 

Better to remain silent and be thought a murderer than to release a video and remove all doubt?

 

No, that's never protocol. If you're being investigated for criminal conduct, which is what this is, you shut up and let your legal respresenation do the talking for you. Which has happened. An attorney representing at least some of the officers has made a few statements defending them - the guy was combative, they did not use flashlights, etc. They also refrain from discussing specifics due to there being an ongoing criminal investigation, which is normal.

They're not the only ones who have it. The DA's office, which is said to have two dozen investigators working the case, has it as well. They've said they don't want to make it public so as not to taint potential witness testimony. The FBI is also investigating, and presumably they have access to all the DA's evidence, so if there's a conspiracy to keep damning evidence out of the public eye, it also includes the FBI.

Actually it's not. From what I understand, the bus depot video only shows part of the incident.

Both inaccurate ... see above.

 

Gaear,

With all due respect, we must not have read the same article. The one I read said that this incident happened a month ago, that they didn't release the video to the public, and as of Wednesday the only statement made by the police station or its legal representation was "This was tragic for our community. We are in the midst of an investigation." So I guess it's technically true that they "commented on it". But nothing relevant to the facts of the case.

Plus, like I said, this happened a month ago. How long do you need to figure out what's on that tape? By now there should be enough review to either a) charge the officer(s) involved or b) clear them of any wrongdoing. It's not like it happened last week - it was July 5th.