Category: Bad Cops

Reported by KBTX-TV on April 14, 2015

Cellphone video shot during Chilifest has gone viral and landed three law enforcement officers in hot water. Burleson County [Texas] Precinct 2 Constable Dennis Gaas confirms … that three of the officers he hired to work security at the music festival last weekend … gave an underage drinker the chance to get out of a ticket by winning a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. You can see from her reaction that she was both excited and relieved to have won….

Reported by The Blaze on April 7, 2015

A South Carolina officer has been charged with murder after video surfaced showing him shoot a 50-year-old black man in the back during a traffic stop Saturday, officials said. Records with the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office showed that 33-year-old officer Michael Slager was arrested Tuesday and charged for Walter Scott’s death. Video published by the New York Times showed Slager fire eight rounds at Scott as the 50-year-old desperately tried to escape….”

Watching the video, it’s pretty clear shooting the fleeing man in the back was unwarranted. And it does look like Slager tried to plant “evidence” by dropping what looks like a Taser by the victim’s body.

Reported by WWLTV on February 25, 2015

One of the worst days of Douglas Dendinger’s life began with him handing an envelope to a police officer…. Dendinger agreed to act as a process server, giving a brutality lawsuit filed by his nephew to Chad Cassard as the … police officer exited the Washington Parish Courthouse. The handoff went smoothly, but Dendinger said the reaction from Cassard, and a group of officers and attorneys clustered around him, turned his life upside down. ‘It was like sticking a stick in a bee’s nest.’ Dendinger recalled. ‘They started cursing me. They threw the summons at me. Right at my face, but it fell short. Vulgarities. I just didn’t know what to think. I was a little shocked.’ Not knowing what to make of the blow-up, a puzzled Dendinger drove home. That’s where things went from bad to worse. ‘Within about 20 minutes, there were these bright lights shining through my windows…. I knew immediately, a police car. And that’s when the nightmare started,’ he said…. He was booked with simple battery, along with two felonies: obstruction of justice and intimidating a witness, both of which carry a maximum of 20 years in prison…. What the officers and attorneys did not know was that Dendinger had one critical piece of evidence on his side: grainy cell phone videos shot by his wife and nephew. Dendinger said he thought of recording the scene at the last minute as a way of showing he had completed the task of serving the summons…. In the end, the two videos may have saved Dendinger from decades in prison. From what can be seen on the clips, Dendinger never touches Cassard, who calmly takes the envelope and walks back into the courthouse, handing Wall the envelope…. Dendinger spent nearly a year waiting for trial, racking up attorney’s fees. As a disabled Army veteran on a fixed income, Dendinger said the case stretched him financially, but in his eyes, he was fighting for his life. After nearly a year passed … the case was referred to the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office, which promptly dropped the charges….

Reported by the Victoria Advocate on December 13, 2014

A Victoria police officer is under investigation after a 76-year-old man accused him of using excessive force during a traffic stop. The officer, Nathanial Robinson, 23, was placed on administrative duty Friday pending the outcome of an internal investigation into whether he violated the use of force policy when he tased Victoria resident Pete Vasquez…. The incident happened … after Robinson saw an expired inspection sticker on the car Vasquez was driving back to [a car dealer] where he helps with mechanical work…. Vasquez got out of the car, which is owned by the car lot, attempting to get the manager. He pointed out to the officer the dealer tags on the back of the car, which would make it exempt from having an inspection…. Police dashboard camera video shows Robinson arresting Vasquez for the expired sticker. When the officer first grabbed Vasquez’s arm, the older man pulled it away. Robinson then pushed Vasquez down on the hood of the police cruiser. The two fell out of the camera’s video frame, but police said the officer used the Taser on Vasquez twice while he was on the ground…. Vasquez was handcuffed, placed in the back of the police cruiser and taken to Citizens Medical Center, where he remained in police custody for two hours….

Reported by Photography Is Not A Crime on December 12, 2014

Derek Youmans never touched the San Francisco cop who pounced on him at the airport…. All he did was offer a handshake before attempting to walk away, already having obtained the cop’s name, Keith Parker, over not having been allowed on a plane earlier after he was falsely accused of drinking…. When Youmans turned to walk away, the cop slapped him from behind, knocking him to the floor, drilling his knees into the back of Youman’s head while using his hands to further press his face into the floor, yelling ‘stop resisting!’ Several other cops came running up and piled on him, grabbing his limbs as Parker twisted his arms behind his back and handcuffed him. Yousman was driven to a jail 40 miles away and released 12 hours later with no charges, no citation and no justification for having been arrested. Nothing more than a contempt-of-cop arrest…. Another man who witnessed the incident, Devaraj Ramsamy, handed his business card to one of Youmans’ co-workers who was there. Ramsamy [confirmed] that Youmans did not touch the officer before he was attacked….

Reported by The Free Thought Project on December 11, 2014

A Sacramento County Sheriff’s deputy is on paid vacation after a video surfaced showing him stomping on a man’s face and hitting him with his flashlight after tasering him. Undersheriff Jaime Lewis says that they are investigating themselves after viewing the video. The man being beaten in the video is 51-year-old John Madison Reyes, who said the incident started when he asked the deputy, whose car was blocking the road, to move…. That’s when this Sacramento deputy began badgering Reyes about his past record, which was completely irrelevant to this confrontation. The deputy then tried to arrest Reyes, for no apparent reason, as the only charge he was given after being beaten and booked into jail, was resisting arrest….