Posted on 08/02/2011 11:19:32 AM PDT by Smogger
FULLERTON – Surveillance video surfaced Monday of two witnesses describing a fatal confrontation between a homeless man and six police officers.
The video from an Orange County Transportation Authority bus shows a woman and a man getting on the bus shortly after the July 5 incident between the officers and Kelly Thomas, 37, a homeless man who suffered from schizophrenia.
The woman, who appears agitated, gets on the bus at the Fullerton Transportation Center and tells the driver "the cops are kicking this poor guy over there. ... He's almost halfway dead."
The male witness tells the driver that the man, later identified as Thomas, was sitting on a bench when he was approached by two officers and ran from them. "They caught him, pound his face, pound his face against the curb ... and they beat him up," the man said. "They beat him up, and then all the cops came and they hogtied him, and he was like 'Please God! Please Dad!"
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
B: What happened? This lady said two…
(Multiple talking)
B: Two Cop cars…
W: They killed him.
W2: They Killed him?
W: Yeah.
(Multiple people talking at once)
B: Wait wait What hap, what happened? M: I’m telling you Homeless guy was just chillin’, and then the cops came, two cop cars came, two cops, they tried getting him but he just ran off from them, ran away from them, and then they caught him pound his face, pound his face, against the curb, was red, and they beat him up
W2: They can’t do that.
M: And two other more cops came, and tazed him six times
(W2 mumbles)
M: They beat him up, and then all the cops came and they hog tied him, and he was like, “Please God, please dad!”
B: They killed him?...
M: Yeah
Full Transcript here: http://www.fullertonsfuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/OCTA-Beating-Transcript.pdf
did the homeless guy have any kind of record at all? if so, this was justified. /sarc
Obviously, the homeless man was resisting arrest and he clearly assaulted a peace officer.
At least I’ll bet $100 that the ‘inquiry’ will say this.
They might have mistook him for a dog.
If you are homeless there will be no trial, no judge, no jury, offenders will be tortured and executed on sight...brought to you by Obamanation!
These are the JBT’s who will be serving their Progressive masters if 2012 goes left.
I see no reason why these officers shouldn’t be tried for murder.
To some, everything the police do is justified.
We citizens must understand that a policeman is a target always.
I do not know all the facts but even if the man continued to "resist" did it really take six of them to subdue him? Did only one or two continue the beating and the others did nothing?
Acts like this and the cop losing his temper near Canton Ohio and another cop literally assaulting someone in Las Vegas show something really dark about police work.
The cop who arrested the woman in her own front yard when she refused to comply with his order I can understand. If the cop had beaten her that is when the officer should be prosecuted.
I do not know the outcome in Las Vegas of the (ex?) military officer being gunned down in a major retail establishment there. The (I think it was) three policemen opened fire when he moved his hand toward a pocket or some such act. Reports were that he had done nothing wrong but employees called police because one of the employee thought the man was carrying a gun.
Here in the Sacramento area a "suspicious" man was shot to death last night because, the reports have so far stated, he did not exit his vehicle fast enough.
Wouldn't matter if he had a record or not. Police violence against citizens is ALWAYS justified. You want them to be able to go home to their families at night don't you? I'm sure he made a "threatening gesture" of some sort (like maybe looking at them).
And to prove my point I bet that if there is an investigation of the police (by the police), their actions will prove to be justified, and they will have followed "departmental procedures."
No - they didn't shoot him. They shoot dogs.
I have no idea why this was moved the “local news.” It can’t even be placed in “California” once moved there. This is certainly national news since the FBI is investigating and it’s been reported by every major paper in the country: The NY Times, LA Times, CNN, heck it’s really international news since the first I read about it was a link on Drudge from The Daily Mail in the UK.
I think this is too important to be buried in the smokey back room or something.
Actually you need to understand that police officer has one of the lowest death rates of all professions. Ranking about 4th I believe. Their job isn't as dangerous as they would have you believe.
Where do you get this idea? Police are targets like stassi were targets.
Well since it took six officers to kill just one unarmed guy, he MUST have been very, very dangerous.
They would NEVER do that to a dog.
Dogs have advocates.
This hapless soul was the equivalent of a Michael
Vick dog.
Certain of the Admin Mods are very intolerant of threads that are even the slightest bit critical of police.
I bet you the outcry would be a lot different if this homeless guy had be black.
PS, this is the list of the top 10 most dangerous jobs in the US, cops don’t make the list, so I was wrong about 4th place. As you can see there are other people who put their lives on the line every day just to earn a living, AND they don’t shoot other people’s dogs while doing their jobs(or kill homeless people).
1 Logging workers
92.4
85
2 Aircraft pilots
92.4
109
3 Fishers and fishing workers
86.4
38
4 Structural iron and steel workers
47.0
31
5 Refuse and recyclable material collectors
43.2
35
6 Farmers and ranchers
37.5
307
7 Roofers
34.9
94
8 Electrical power line installers/repairers
30.0
36
9 Driver/sales workers and truck drivers
27.6
905
10 Taxi drivers and chauffeurs
24.2
67
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