TimmyBoy

Police Charged After Violent Arrest Taped By MARY FOSTER, Associated Press Writer
53 minutes ago



NEW ORLEANS - Two New Orleans police officers repeatedly punched a 64-year-old man accused of public intoxication, and another city officer assaulted an Associated Press Television News producer as a cameraman taped the confrontations.

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After being questioned, the three patrolmen were arrested late Sunday and charged with battery. They were released and ordered to appear in court at a later date, Capt. Marlon Defillo said. The officers also were suspended without pay, he added.

"We have great concern with what we saw this morning," Defillo said after he and about a dozen other high-ranking police department officials watched the APTN footage Sunday. "It's a troubling tape, no doubt about it. ... This department will take immediate action."

The assaults come as the department, long plagued by allegations of brutality and corruption, struggles with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the resignation last month of Police Superintendent Eddie Compass.

The APTN tape shows an officer hitting the man at least four times in the head Saturday night as he stood outside a bar near Bourbon Street. The suspect, Robert Davis, appeared to resist, twisting and flailing as he was dragged to the ground by four officers. Another of the four officers then kneed Davis and punched him twice. Davis was face-down on the sidewalk with blood streaming down his arm and into the gutter.

Meanwhile, a fifth officer ordered APTN producer Rich Matthews and the cameraman to stop recording. When Matthews held up his credentials and explained he was working, the officer grabbed the producer, leaned him backward over a car, jabbed him in the stomach and unleashed a profanity-laced tirade.

"I've been here for six weeks trying to keep ... alive. ... Go home!" shouted the officer, who later identified himself as S.M. Smith.

Defillo identified the patrolmen as Stuart Smith, Lance Schilling and Robert Evangelist. Smith is an eight-year veteran of the department, and the other officers have each been on the force for three years, he said.

Police said Davis, 64, of New Orleans, was booked on public intoxication, resisting arrest, battery on a police officer and public intimidation. He was treated at a hospital and released into police custody.

A mug shot of Davis, provided by a jailer, showed him with his right eye swollen shut, an apparent abrasion on the left side of his neck and a cut on his right temple.

"The incidents taped by our cameraman are extremely troubling," said Mike Silverman, AP's managing editor. "We are heartened that the police department is taking them seriously and promising a thorough investigation."

Davis, who is black, was subdued at the intersection of Conti and Bourbon streets. Three of the officers appeared to be white, and the other is light skinned. The officer who hit Matthews is white. Defillo said race was not an issue.

Three of the five officers — including Smith — are New Orleans officers, and two others appeared to be federal officers. Numerous agencies have sent police to help with patrols in the aftermath of Katrina.

Under normal circumstances, it takes unusually offensive behavior to trigger an arrest on Bourbon Street. But New Orleans police have been working under stressful conditions since the hurricane.

Officers slept in their cars and worked 24-hour shifts after the storm. Three-quarters lost their homes and their families are scattered across the country.

"Our police officers are working under some very trying times," Defillo said. "So it's a difficult time, but it doesn't excuse what our jobs are supposed to be."

Many officers deserted their posts in the days after Katrina, and some were accused of joining in the looting that broke out. At least two committed suicide.

Conditions have improved — officers now have beds on a cruise ship — but they don't have private rooms and are still working five, 12-hour days.

Compass, the police superintendent, resigned Sept. 27. Despite more than 10 years of reform efforts dating to before he took office, police were dogged by allegations of brutality and corruption.

On Friday, state authorities said they were investigating allegations that New Orleans police broke into a dealership and made off with nearly 200 cars — including 41 new Cadillacs — as the storm closed in.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051010/..._taped_beating

TimmyBoy

I know that the New Orleans Internal Affairs unit is investigating several of their police officers for taking part in looting. I sure do hope they institute some real and meaningful reform in that police department. I have to admit, despite some of the alleged criminal misconduct of some of these officers, I sympathize with police officers in general. They got a really tough job and are always in a situation where they can never win.

Canuck

the nazis have control
americans can be rounded up and arrested without probable cause,for any reason
and bush likes to use torture,hes saving that for the last freedom fighters left in america
gitmo usa will be filled
NO police looters,criminals and worse
NO = neocon nazi organizational nightmare

who said "The day you give up one freedom ,is the day we are no longer a free nation"?
not the neocon nazis

__________________
The great lesson of Yorktown in 1781, the final, decisive battle, was that even a great power like Imperial Britain really could not suppress the naturally-grown ambitions and desires of a people thousands of miles away, not without investing at a cost out of all proportion to the benefits, and not without becoming intensely disliked. This is a lesson that America, now grown strong and very arrogant in its strength, has utterly failed to learn
http://www.rense.com/general38/lessons.htm

TimmyBoy

When you are a cop, you have to follow strictly by the law yourself and set a good example. But the problem comes when you have to enforce the law. Is it possible to follow strictly by the law, enforce the law and live to tell about it? Or, do you enforce the law, break a few laws here and their while enforcing the law, because it was necessary to do so, so that you can survive, if you didn't break the laws while enforcing those laws, you wouldn't have survived. And lookie here, somebody with a video camera. Darn, you just can't win. If you follow strictly by the law while enforcing the law you end up dead, if you break a law here and their, because you had to in order to survive, you get caught on video tape. Either way, you're finished and you just can't win.

TimmyBoy

But yeah, driving off with a few cars is BS, if the New Orleans cops did something like that, they should go down hard for that one.

Donkey1499

Nazis? So everyone you disagree with is a Nazi? Canuck? It was wrong fer them to beat up an old man, but not all cops should be labeled as Nazis! Damn. And Bush does not support torture. You probably got that from your Canadian News.

__________________
I am a Cafeteria Christian... Ooh! Waffers!!! *nom nom*

TimmyBoy

Bush might support torture by flying suspects to Syria or some other Middle East country for interrogation so that he himself cannot be directly implicated in it.

Donkey1499

Explain to me how flying someone to another country is torture. Or were you just joking?

TimmyBoy

See, American law outlaws torture. But it's not against Syrian law or some other nation's laws to torture somebody during an interrogation. I have heard that Bush got around American law by taking suspects that were in American custody and flying them to countries where it is not against the law to torture during an interrogation. It is a method of getting around American law and supporting torture without being criminally charged for doing so.

Donkey1499

Can you prove this THEORY? Cuz I'd like to see the facts.