Forums → WEPR → Kelly Thomas Murder Trial
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As you may have heard, the police officers responsible for the savage and deadly beating of the special needs California man Kelly Thomas eluded justice in the courtroom last night. How is it that the people we employ to protect us can get away with disgusting acts of savagery like that?
What are your opinions on this pathetic verdict?
Do you feel threatened by our out of control police force?
How have the police become beyond reproach in the eyes of the law?
How does this injustice make you feel?
These are important things that I want you very much to share your opinions on.
- 48 Replies
Once again:
Links to credible and pertinent coverage is more or less a must.
I was thinking of making a thread..but given how old the event was I opted out, nevertheless, I made a little blurb about it on Facebook a few days ago...
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This is an absolute shame, both for what the officers did to the poor man, as well as to the fact that this will further perpetuate the stereotypes about officers that we all know and love.
The man in the video, Kelly Thomas, was a known schizophrenic by the police force, and despite compliance with their demands, they proceeded to not only threaten him unnecessarily (and in a completely unprofessional manner), but then attack him for reasons beyond reasonable comprehension. Even during the attack, Mr. Thomas tried to comply with their demands, to which he had difficulty doing so due to the fact that he was being pummeled for some arbitrary and asinine reason.
Mr. Thomas ended up dying, with the toxicology report showing him to have no drugs in his system (will link in comments), and the autopsy declaring his cause of death as " anoxic encephalopathy [brain damage or death due to lack of oxygen] due to mechanical chest compression along with blunt cranial and facial injuries [which reduced oxygen to the brain]." (will link in comments).
The officers involved were acquitted of their charges towards the death of Kelly Thomas. To this, I am overwhelmingly baffled.
His death happened almost 4 years ago, and is a shame that post people, including myself, are just now hearing about it.
-NOW - A sidenote: This is, by no means, a statement against cops, nor should it be taken as such. This is one incident, and one incident, or a small handful of other incidents, do not create the larger picture. This is one instance in which officers acted unprofessionally, but this is by -no means- a statement on how our police force has become today.
Video
"The toxicology report shows that Thomas had no illicit drugs or alcohol in his system"
Autopsy report (within dialogue at trial)
How is it that the people we employ to protect us can get away with disgusting acts of savagery like that?
Because murder is part of the governmentâs job.
What are your opinions on this pathetic verdict?
The outcome seems typical.
Do you feel threatened by our out of control police force?
I feel more threatened by what the rest of the system grants them, such as no-knock raids. If you really want someone dead and you know where they live, don't waste your money on a hitman. Instead, hire law enforcement for free by giving the DEA an anonymous tip. It's that easy.
How have the police become beyond reproach in the eyes of the law?
Because people are scared of bad guys and exchange rights for protection.
How does this injustice make you feel?
The same way that this, this (follow-up), this, this, this, this, this (advisory: footage contains death), this, this (advisory: footage contains death), and this do. Granted, everyone (even officers) should be considered innocent until proven guilty. However, it seems that anyone targeted by police is presumed guilty until dead. Law enforcement is becoming judge, jury, and executioner.
this (advisory: footage contains death),
(the first link with such words)
In their defense, dude was holding a weapon.
In their defense, dude was holding a weapon.
dude wasn't the one they were after.
A golf club 10ft away vs body armor. Simple communication would've avoided this situation. Someone busts down your door in the middle of the night. Why would you think it's the police?
Exactly. The police seemingly have the notion that they don't have to follow any procedure, code of conduct, or let alone the law they are supposed to uphold. Simple communication would have solved the problem. Instead more or less, cops today act like angry, evil, irresponsible babies with guns and badges.
Why would you think it's the police?
From them yelling "it's the police". All I know from the video is that they entered a home during a drug bust and a man was there with a weapon, Videos such as this are shown to officers in training for how being too lenient against someone with a weapon could be costly (albeit there -is- a huge difference between golf club and gun).
The officers could have very well warned the people beforehand that they were police, or hell they could have very well warned them that they would shoot anyone with a weapon. We don't know this necessary information of what actions were taken before entering the home, we only see the enter the home, yell "olice" a few times, then shoot a man with a golf club set in striking position.
Exactly. The police seemingly have the notion that they don't have to follow any procedure, code of conduct, or let alone the law they are supposed to uphold. Simple communication would have solved the problem. Instead more or less, cops today act like angry, evil, irresponsible babies with guns and badges.
Yeah how about we cut it out with the asinine generalizations?
It's nice that you can hold on to the beliefs that make you feel better, but I can't ignore the whole picture. Let me share a short story with you.
I was driving across the county once to visit family. But I although I was driving safely and not speeding, I was still a suspicious person for driving a nice SUV though. I was driving a nice SUV through Arkansas so obviously I got pulled over for "weaving". I'm not bashing Arkansas here, but I will say that Bubba the Cop tried to jerk me around. Knew to shut up though because I didn't want to have B******* charges thrown at me.
Good God! Can you even believe it? I guess he wants a legal means to murder people.
but I can't ignore the whole picture.
Except you are ignoring the whole picture. You are completely generalizing and cherry picking. You are finding a few stories about cops that have either let the power go to their head or care not for how the system in which they are a part of should work (usually both), and ignore the rest of the police that actually do their jobs as they should.
A shame that the stories that put police in negative light (even though these stories are only putting a -specific select few- in negative light) are the ones that we hear rather than the multitude of good stories. But thus is the existence of our media.
I might watch to much extreme media, but since when does the media cover anything positive? I don't hear many stories about cops saving lives, instead I hear to many stories about the police taking lives. The police have become intolerant of even the tiniest form of resistance and often over respond to the possibility anyone resisting, sometimes with tragic results. The sad part is that the police have seemingly become separated from our communities and at time seem like a separate faction.
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