Police Officers in PG County Lost Their Discipline
Being a police officer is a dangerous and difficult job. It involves long hours and often involves performing thankless but necessary tasks. To be sure, law enforcement officers often receive our thanks, but almost never while in the process of performing their duties. This is because their duties involve apprehending people who break the law, and those who do so are not likely to be thrilled about being caught. As an example, when was the last time you thanked a police officer for writing you a ticket? Have you ever heard of a burglar or car thief who thanked the officer who caught him for his hard work?
It is sobering to think about what your average police force has to deal with on a daily basis. They get verbally abused, they often have to break up fights, and they have to stop crimes in progress, both minor and major, often while putting themselves in harm’s way in order to do so. And, most importantly, they have to do all these things within the defined parameters of the law. The police are not free to apprehend criminals in any way they see fit. For instance, if they think someone is receiving stolen property, the police can’t just kick open that person’s front door and arrest him. They have to have cause to request a warrant for the search, and they have to have a judge agree to their reasons.
Police are also under strict procedural standards. A “Dirty Harry” shoots first and asks questions later type of police officer would not be on the force for very long, and would probably end up in prison. The use of physical force by the police is tightly regulated. They aren’t supposed to beat people up for no reason, they aren’t supposed to use a taser or pepper spray on people who are not resisting arrest, and they most certainly aren’t supposed to use their clubs to pummel someone who is simply standing on the sidewalk.
It should be mentioned that for every instance of police brutality that occurs, there are tens of thousands of instances where police maintain their composure and do their jobs with professionalism, patience and restraint. What happened recently in College Park, Maryland is certainly NOT an example of this high professional standard.
For those of us who live in the Washington, D.C. region, we are familiar with how rowdy things can get after a Maryland Terrapins basketball game. The students in the area seem to create quite a ruckus whenever the Terps win (or sometimes when they lose) an important game. In 2002, College Park erupted in a riot after Maryland won the NCAA Basketball Tournament. And it does seem that burning mattresses in the streets seems to be the preferred method of celebration of victory or protest of defeat. It is a pointless way to celebrate, but the Prince Georges County Police certainly can’t say that they were unaware that such a thing was possible.
The celebrations after a victory against Duke got out of hand, and the police were called in, and there were some arrests, but the video footage of this beating (and really, there is no other word for what occurred) shows that the police reacted in exactly the wrong way. Without any apparent physical provocation, two officers slammed a student against a wall, threw him to the ground, and clubbed him repeatedly over the head until he was unconscious.
Was the student drunk? He might have been, but that alone is no reason to have beaten him senseless. Was he threatening? That seems doubtful. Literally seconds before the beating he was dancing a goofy celebratory jig with a friend. It didn’t even look like he knew the police were there. In fact, it seems like he danced down the street, looked up and found himself feet away from a mounted police officer. It certainly didn’t look like he made any threatening gestures.
Did he perhaps say something threatening? It is impossible to tell. But even if he had, surely four Prince Georges County police officers could have arrested one student without delivering such a brutal beating. You can’t hear anything that was said over the noise of the crowd, but what is significant is that on the audio of the tape (which was shot from some distance away,) you can hear the sound of a nightstick repeatedly smacking this student’s head and body.
This was a complete breakdown of officer discipline. And to make matters worse, it appears that the officers responsible for the beating trumped up charges and claimed that the student “..struck mounted officers and their horses, causing minor injuries.” They further claimed that the reason that the student was injured was because he had been kicked by the horse. The video proves all of these statements by the arresting officers to be completely false.
This is the sort of behavior that you would expect from the police force in a country living under a dictatorship. A brutal and unnecessary beating followed by trumped up charges is not something that is supposed to happen in America, and it certainly isn’t supposed to happen in a suburb of Washington, D.C.
The student has obtained the services of an attorney, which is his right, and he is currently seeking financial damages against the Prince Georges County Police Department, which is something that he is completely justified in doing. He received an unnecessary and brutal beating, for which there was no warning or proper explanation given by the police. This is one of the most obvious cases of police brutality that we have ever seen.
Greenberg and Bederman is an injury law firm that helps people in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. who have been injured due to no fault of their own. This includes those who have been unnecessarily injured while being arrested or while in custody of law enforcement. Being arrested by the police does not mean that you surrender your rights as an American citizen. There is no excuse for unwarranted force by law enforcement. If you or a loved one has sustained injuries from the police, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free legal consultation today.
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