5 Police officers fired for beating already unconcious suspect

CptStern

CptStern

suckmonkey
Joined
May 5, 2004
Messages
10,303
Reaction score
62
Five Birmingham police officers have been fired for a January 2008 beating of an already-unconscious suspect with fists, feet and a billy club, a battering caught on videotape until a police officer turned off the patrol car camera, city and police officials said today.

Authorities believe the video, taken after a high-speed chase by several area law enforcement agencies ended when the fleeing suspect's van flipped
Click to expand...

full video:

http://videos.al.com/birmingham-news/2009/05/birmingham_police_beating_vide_1.html


In fact, investigators say, the suspect, Anthony Warren, didn't even know he'd been beaten until the tape surfaced at his trial in March. Warren was ejected from the vehicle and knocked unconscious, and thought all of his injuries were sustained in the wreck.

Police Chief A.C. Roper called the video "shameful." Mayor Larry Langford said it was "disgusting."

Roper said the video shamed the police department and the citizens served by the department, saying it was especially troubling because these were seasoned, veteran officers.
Click to expand...

http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2009/05/five_birmingham_police_officer.html
 
Silly me for a minute there i thought it was about Birmingham officers here, i should have known that this only happens in America.
 
Damn, 19:27. He almost kills that cop.

Ain't got much to say about the beating itself.
 
Oh, the fake yankee Birmingham? Makes sense.
 
This is why you think AHEAD...turn the camera off first. Gosh, people will NEVER learn.
 
The suspect endangered countless lives and very nearly killed an officer. I'm not saying it was right for them to beat him, but they are human. I probably would have given him a swift kick myself. It's probably a good thing I'm not an officer.
 
Against the law, yes. Overkill, yes. But the bastard deserved a proper blow to the back to spice things up after he wakes up.

BTW, when they were driving parallel to him and the camera looked his way - what was he doing? Cause it looked as if he was hugging the steering wheel.
 
Unfocused said:
Against the law, yes. Overkill, yes. But the bastard deserved a proper blow to the back to spice things up after he wakes up.
Click to expand...

investigators say, the suspect, Anthony Warren, didn't even know he'd been beaten until the tape surfaced at his trial in March.
Click to expand...

^ this
 
I'm surprised none of you beat me to the punchline yet, but come on, give the cops a brake.
Normally I'd have more sympathy for the suspect, but he clearly attempted to exhaust that officer at 19:27, good thing he eventually wiped out.
Maybe their choices were steered in the wrong direction, but you can only expect so much when you are that reckless, I'm sure that was the drive for their ignition. The key to being a good officer is to be cool and not overheat, well at least they weren't idle about the situation. Either way, these cops are in wheel big trouble.
 
Lol, so American, I'm kind of surprised they didn't wip out the tasers.
 
I didn't watch the video, but did the cops just run into this guy while doing their beat or what?
 
Eejit said:
I didn't watch the video, but did the cops just run into this guy while doing their beat or what?
Click to expand...

Guy speeds for long time, long time chase, guy tries to hit police officer with car, cop rolls out of the way. Van wipes out, flips, guy flips out off van as it rolls, he's not moving, cops run over and punch him for 3 seconds.
 
*In before the "he was a no good punk anyway and deserved it" post*

Looks like I failed already!
 
Completely uncalled for. Sickening.

What's with the recent flux of police brutality videos anyway?
zombieturtle01 said:
Guy speeds for long time, long time chase, guy tries to hit police officer with car, cop rolls out of the way. Van wipes out, flips, guy flips out off van as it rolls, he's not moving, cops run over and punch him for 3 seconds.
Click to expand...
More like a 10+ second free-for-fall battering(kicking, punching, clubbing) of the suspect. For all we know we didn't even see the end of it.
 
Yea this happened in my town, a few minutes from my house.

The suspect they beat up nearly killed an officer. I have no sympathy for what they did to him. It's not like he was some random guy walking down the street obeying the law and 5 officers jumped out from a corner and started kicking his face, because that's how they are trying to make it out, otherwise the article would read, "Suspect nearly kills officer, ends up getting what he deserved."

I'm pretty black and white with a lot of violent crimes like this though...it's so easy to NOT commit some crimes, like armed robbery, grand theft auto, running from police, etc...so when he CHOOSES to break these very, very, very simple laws he also CHOOSES to accept the consequences.
 
Yeah the guy was endangering others, but the dude was already unconscious and unable to defend himself by the time the officers were beating him.
Wow, you officers are SO tough, being able to beat up an unconscious guy. So manly.
There's just something in me that says WTF at people hurting those that are defenseless. Yes the suspect was a douche, but again there was no reason to beat the guy up.

This guy had to be on drugs or something since he didn't wake up while being beaten.
 
xcellerate said:
Yea this happened in my town, a few minutes from my house.

The suspect they beat up nearly killed an officer. I have no sympathy for what they did to him. It's not like he was some random guy walking down the street obeying the law and 5 officers jumped out from a corner and started kicking his face, because that's how they are trying to make it out, otherwise the article would read, "Suspect nearly kills officer, ends up getting what he deserved."

I'm pretty black and white with a lot of violent crimes like this though...it's so easy to NOT commit some crimes, like armed robbery, grand theft auto, running from police, etc...so when he CHOOSES to break these very, very, very simple laws he also CHOOSES to accept the consequences.
Click to expand...
How does beating this guy up protect anybody or help society?

Personally, I think we need to abolish punishment.
 
zombieturtle01 said:
I'm surprised none of you beat me to the punchline yet, but come on, give the cops a brake.
Normally I'd have more sympathy for the suspect, but he clearly attempted to exhaust that officer at 19:27, good thing he eventually wiped out.
Maybe their choices were steered in the wrong direction, but you can only expect so much when you are that reckless, I'm sure that was the drive for their ignition. The key to being a good officer is to be cool and not overheat, well at least they weren't idle about the situation. Either way, these cops are in wheel big trouble.
Click to expand...

lol awesome
 
Sulkdodds said:
How does beating this guy up protect anybody or help society?

Personally, I think we need to abolish punishment.
Click to expand...


He's obviously a stupid mother ****er. He endanger HUNDREDS of lives by driving like that, and he was completely willing to run over and potentially kill that officer to escape. Which means he's so god damn selfish that one human's life is worth less than whatever fine/jail time he was going to receive. If he didn't want to wreck his car, knock his dumbass self unconscious, and get beaten up then maybe he shouldn't have run.

It's amazing how I've been stopped a dozen times by police and I've never been beaten up, tazered, or maced. There must be some secret correlation between not being a dumb mother ****er and not being beaten up....I'm off the lap to run some experiments!

Who cares if beating him up helps society, the guy had it coming, and I couldn't care less about his poor, wittle, baby boo-boos. Again, if he didn't want what they did to him, he shouldn't have run. He brought everything on himself.
 
Cops shouldn't break the law like that. What more needs to be said?
 
Police aren't suppose to beat the crap out of any suspects. I don't care if they've been aggravated. They're the police. It's not what they do.
 
xcellerate said:
Things
Click to expand...

It is not the job of the police to do this. The police are not supposed to deal out any sort of punishment unless it's a small fine.
How does it help anything at all by beating the guy up?
Did it teach him a lesson? No, not at all. He didn't even know he'd been beaten until he saw the video.

So the only possible "plus" to this was satisfying the blood-lust of those policemen. You think it's a good thing to live in a country that allows the police to beat up people just because they're angry at them?
 
Farrowlesparrow said:
So the only possible "plus" to this was satisfying the blood-lust of those policemen. You think it's a good thing to live in a country that allows the police to beat up people just because they're angry at them?
Click to expand...

No, I think it doesn't matter in this case. We're talking about a guy who has been committing felonies since 1989, who risked hundreds of lives in a high speed chase, chose to try and run over a police officer, and ultimately crashed his vehicle, thankfully not hurting anybody but himself.

This is a very specific incident and it's very different than say, police assuming the driver of some car was a thief, so they drag him out through the car window and tazer him in the street for good measure. What these officers did was violent, it was unnecessary, but who cares?

I'm not trying to argue that what the police did was good, right, or legal...I'm just shocked that for this specific situation it's amazing how much sympathy a multiple-felon running from the police is getting and I think things would be COMPLETELY different if the felon, instead of crashing in a ditch, crashed into a honda civic and killed 2 people.
 
I don't have sympathy for him. It's not about him. It's about the actions of the police. They quite simply should not be allowed to do what they did. The criminal was wrong; the police were wrong. It would be dangerous and stupid to allow the police to get away with what they did.
 
Farrowlesparrow said:
I don't have sympathy for him. It's not about him. It's about the actions of the police. They quite simply should not be allowed to do what they did. The criminal was wrong; the police were wrong. It would be dangerous and stupid to allow the police to get away with what they did.
Click to expand...

This. Policemen are upholders of the law. They should suffer the consequences when they break the law, no matter whether you think their actions are morally justified or not. Its is against the law. And as enforcers of the law, they clearly are not suited for the job. The punishment is justified.

I am actually more appalled by the fact that they continued the chase into the congested streets. I am generally of the belief that police chases are stupid as **** to begin with. You have their plate number, catch em later. If its really important then give chase for a little while until you get a helicopter to follow him. Chases rarely end in anything but a crash, and many times innocent civilian bystanders are caused extreme harm because of the situation the criminal AND the police create. But the situation in this video is completely absurd and I think whoever allowed the chase to continue into such a densely populated area needs serious punishment as well. The highway is one thing, but this... its just inhuman to continue like that.
 
Farrowlesparrow said:
I don't have sympathy for him. It's not about him. It's about the actions of the police. They quite simply should not be allowed to do what they did. The criminal was wrong; the police were wrong. It would be dangerous and stupid to allow the police to get away with what they did.
Click to expand...

This x2
 
Krynn72 said:
You have their plate number, catch em later.
Click to expand...

Stolen car or stolen plate, then what? What if he, knowing police have his plate, doesn't go back to his house?

Krynn72 said:
If its really important then give chase for a little while until you get a helicopter to follow him.
Click to expand...

Birmingham isn't exactly car-chase central of the world. We don't have helicopters ready to deploy at a moment's notice.
 
xcellerate said:
Stolen car or stolen plate, then what? What if he, knowing police have his plate, doesn't go back to his house?
Click to expand...

I am willing to bet 90% of the time they'll go home at some point. And if its a stolen car then A) Do what I already said and give chase until a helicopter can pick them up, and B) is it really worth risking the lives of the civilians you're sworn to protect just to catch a thief who can be caught later?

And you should get a helicopter. This small ass town in bum**** louisiana has a helicopter, so should you. I saw more cars in that video than I see in a week here. They aren't expensive really.
 
If they were so angry to kick a man while he was down wouldn't they want him to be conscious so he could feel it? Essentially they could have got their anger out on a crash dummy. He didn't even know it until the trial.
 
I'm glad that you guys more about police work than cops do. Sometimes police work isn't pretty, but someone has to do it, or the general population will suffer for their own political correctness. Sometimes I wonder why cops even do their jobs if they have to deal with whiny people such as yourselves.
 
Some_God said:
I'm glad that you guys more about police work than cops do. Sometimes police work isn't pretty, but someone has to do it, or the general population will suffer for their own political correctness. Sometimes I wonder why cops even do their jobs if they have to deal with whiny people such as yourselves.
Click to expand...
lol:laugh:
 
Some_God said:
I'm glad that you guys more about police work than cops do. Sometimes police work isn't pretty, but someone has to do it, or the general population will suffer for their own political correctness. Sometimes I wonder why cops even do their jobs if they have to deal with whiny people such as yourselves.
Click to expand...

I'm sure that justifies beating an unconscious man, yes.
 
The moment he tried to run over and kill that cop was the moment his application for an ass-whooping was accepted. That kind of thing happens all the time. Whenever someone hits a cop, they get beat.

I'm not saying he deserved what he got at all, but I don't think anyone here would give a shit if he simply got a punch in the face instead of the brutal beating he got. I dont think the Mayor would care either as people would most likely write it off as the guy reaping what he sowed.

But that wasn't what happened, and he got wailed on by 5 guys for a good 10 seconds while he was unconscious. That shit ain't cool.
 
I didn't watch the video, but from what I hear, I think it's justice that they all lost their jobs. Why not go beat up some defenseless old ladies while your at it, tough guys.

Finally some ****ing accountability in government.
 
Some_God said:
I'm glad that you guys more about police work than cops do. Sometimes police work isn't pretty, but someone has to do it, or the general population will suffer for their own political correctness. Sometimes I wonder why cops even do their jobs if they have to deal with whiny people such as yourselves.
Click to expand...
So it turns out that the rule of law is actually just another limp-wristed example of ruinous 'political correctness'. Who knew?
 
I don't blame them for beating him up, as I probably would myself if that guy intentionally tried to kill one of my friends or myself and I had a way to do it.

However, they are police officers and they should not beat people, and they should accept the punishment of losing their jobs by doing so.

Though beating him up while he's unconscious is pretty dumb. You want him to feel it, you want him to see your fists and feet coming in!

Otherwise he'll just think all his bruises and pains are from his crash.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

J
now orleans cops fired for caring for family
Replies
2
Views
566
Kamikazie
Kamikazie
J
now orleans cops fired for caring for family
Replies
0
Views
449
john121
J
Back
Top