Fourteen
Fearless SF Cops Gang Up and Take Down A Black, One-Legged Homeless
Man "Armed" With Crutches....
Posted
By: Watchman
Date: Tuesday, 18-Aug-2015 22:02:37
Date: Tuesday, 18-Aug-2015 22:02:37
It
took 14 San Francisco Police Department officers to take down and
restrain a one-legged, black homeless man, armed with crutches and
apparently dangerous. The incident is the latest embarrassment for the
US police, who face constant accusations of unreasonable use of force.
The confrontation was captured on video released
by journalist Chaedria LaBouvier via blog platform Medium, and shows
white police officers taking down a one-legged homeless black man on the
city’s central Market street. According to witnesses, police were
called in to the scene to take care of a suspicious man waving some
“sticks” around.
© Bobbie JohnsonThe video of the incident which
happened on August 4, shows the extent of humiliation and brute force
exercised immediately after the man was wrestled to the ground by SFPD
officers. As the disabled male struggles to move, cops pin him down.
“These
are my crutches. I use these to walk,” the man tried to explain. But
even after realizing that the man had a prosthetic leg, the police
continued to use overwhelming physical restrain and man-handled him,
forcing his head to the ground.
In further efforts to subdue a man already on
the ground with four people on top of him, the officers stood on his
prosthetic leg and “twisted it around even after they had cuffed him and
pinned him to the piss-stained concrete,” LaBouvier noted.
Beaten to the ground, the suspect at one point
said, “what the f**k is you doing this to me?” as more officers arrived
to form a cordon around the incident area. “Is this respectable? When I
say ‘no’, is this what you do to me?” the man said.
Witnesses spoke out against police brutality
from the start of the video but to no avail as cops continued to abuse
the one legged man. The camera operator especially noted the “lack of
respect” for the suspect as clothes were pulled off the man during the
incident. First one can see the man’s buttocks being exposed, and
minutes later his entire back.
Around 6 minutes into the footage, the suspect
began saying that he was in pain from the take-down and claimed he had
been suffering from an infectious sore on one of his legs.
At one point, fearing for his life, the man said
said “they’re going to shoot me”. A witness replied: “They ain’t gonna
shoot you man, that’s why we have these cameras out here.”
The latest incident comes a year since unarmed
black teen Michael Brown was shot by a white police officer in Ferguson,
Missouri. Anger and protests engulfedthe St. Louis suburb and spread
nationwide, giving birth to the Black Lives Matter movement. They were
exacerbated further by the subsequent deaths of black suspects during
encounters with US police. The movement with its continued protests
highlights racial tensions between police and the communities they
serve.
http://www.rt.com/usa/312701-sfpd-brutality-homeless-amputee/
