The headline speaks for itself in how embarrassingly shameful this country can be. 14 thugs with a badge that swore to serve and protect continue to ignore that obligation to their community. What appears to be a homeless man was held down on the ground while he pants fell off and cops kneel on his prosthetic leg. The man and the people witnessing the excessive force are heard asking questions. Why are you doing this? What are you doing this for?
The cops were called about someone waving sticks downtown, and the weapons turned out to be the man’s crutches. You know those things he needs to just be able to walk. The man even says this to the cops, ‘These are my crutches. I use these to walk’, yet they take them away from him and force him to the ground.
Then more officers come to form a wall around the one-legged man as he continues to be pinned down on the ground while people are recording. In an attempt to block and cover up what was happening, in a turn of events a journalist named Chaédria LaBouvier was there to film the incident.
During the entire time of this excessive and unnecessary use of force he is in pain and exclaims; ‘That s–t hurts’,’I have a f–king sore, an infection, on my leg.’ ‘What the f–k is wrong with you?’ ‘Is this what you do?” Is this respectable? When I say ‘no’, is this what you do to me?’
This is not new stuff and never has or will continue to be new. In 1997, a cop in New York sexually assaulted a Haitian man, Abner Louima, with a toilet plunger. That cop was quoted as saying, ‘Take this nigger’ the man’s pants were pulled down as he was taken to the bathroom where they sodomized him with the plunger and stuffed the handle in his mouth.
That story draws parallels to what happened in San Francisco. The lack of decency to pull this man’s pants up in front of a major downtown city for all to see, they might as well said ‘Take this nigger’ themselves. The man was never arrested or charged with any crime after being taken to a hospital against his will.
It is unfortunate that these stories and videos have become the norm, but they cannot go away and have to stay on the collective conscious of the nation for their to be improvement.
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