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After a handcuffed ride in the back of a police van, a man was left paralyzed and needed his legs amputated, lawsuit alleges (edition.cnn.com)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/news

35 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Cuffed in the back of a van with no seatbelts. You can get a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt in your car.

all 40 comments

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[–] stanleytweedle 216 points 8 months ago (3 children)

The incident bears similarities to what is known as a “rough ride,” a term used to describe police placing a detained person in the back of a van, without a seatbelt, and then driving erratically. The term came to mass prominence after the controversial 2015 death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, who suffered severe injuries as he was being transported in a police van.

Wish we could stop tip-toeing around it. This was clear extrajudicial punishment but everyone from cop to judge will pretend it's some kind of accident or misunderstanding and ignore the totally systemic source of the problem- that cops have zero accountability.

[–] [email protected] 133 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Speaking of not tip toeing things:

controversial 2015 death of Freddie Gray

The murder of Freddie Gray. The cops knew that what they did was dangerous because they have to clean up car accidents. Choosing to give someone a 'rough ride' is premeditated murder or attempted murder and anyone other than a cop would be charged.

[–] [email protected] 71 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It is also not in their job description to disperse "justice", or do anything but apprehend suspects and then allow the Justice System we have in place to deal with that. The second they step outside of that description they should be treated like any other citizen who took vigilante justice into their own hands, being charged and tried as such.

[–] BrokenGlepnir 63 points 8 months ago (2 children)

If I remember, Gray didn't even commit a crime. They arrested him for something the officers didn't realize was legal in their state, and he wasn't even doing it any way.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Freddie_Gray

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago

This was clear extrajudicial punishment

I think it's great how Americans mistrust the police so they live vigilantes but apparently the police also wants to play vigilante even though they would be in the perfect position to ensure that vigilantism isn't needed.

[–] tacosplease 183 points 8 months ago (1 children)

A homeless guy slept in public too many times, and the police decided to arrest him.

They handcuffed and chained him then drove fast and slammed the brakes on purpose with him in the back of the van. That broke his neck - paralyzing him from the neck down. Both legs needed to be amputated as well.

For falling asleep in a grass lot...

[–] [email protected] 103 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Call me crazy, but I would be happy to pay extra in taxes to make sure everyone had a roof over their head, healthcare (including dental, vision, mental health care), and their basic needs of life met (including hygiene products). If that comes out of police budgets, so be it.

[–] thesilverpig 70 points 8 months ago (1 children)

What's crazy is it would likely cost less in taxes to do!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

it 100% costs less to house the homeless instead of leaving them on the street. the cruelty is the point

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

whats more it costs less to also give them money for basic needs as well.

[–] Lommy241 28 points 8 months ago (2 children)

that's called socialism.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Maybe that's what I want

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

I live in Canada and I want more socialism but our politicians keep destroying the system because they have rich friends that need help getting richer (Doug Ford I'm looking at you)

[–] Specal 16 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I know this is a joke but we should stop making it. It confuses the dumbasses.

[–] drivepiler 14 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Genuine question; How is it a joke? That's pretty much what we do where I'm from, and we're generally considered socialists.

[–] Specal 12 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If you take an industry, and make it owned and run by the workers, take the NHS of the UK for example. It's paid for by taxes, therefore owned by the public, and is run by the public, that's socialism. But just paying tax alone to have more services isn't socialism. Socialism is defined by the ownership and regulation of business and service by the people.

So paying taxes for the government to pay a private company to do the work is not socialism, for example madicaid in the US.

It doesn't seem like a big difference at first but the results are massively different.

[–] drivepiler 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I see, that is a very good point and an excellent explanation. Thank you.

[–] Specal 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Just want to say when I said "confuses the dumbasses" I wasn't referring to people like yourself, I was talking about hyper capitalists.

[–] drivepiler 1 points 8 months ago

I figured as much :)

[–] [email protected] 23 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah but then you'd get people trying to be homeless on purpose

spoiler

This is a joke, please don't hurt me

Edit: how the fuck does spoiler text work

[–] FlyingSquid 11 points 8 months ago

The sad thing is some people don't think that's a joke.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

As always, ACAB.

(I hate that this is becoming a daily occurence.)

[–] [email protected] 32 points 8 months ago (2 children)

It's always been like this, friend. We just have better optics on it now.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

So true. Still depressing as hell tho. :(

[–] Jimmyeatsausage 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It has, but exposing enough people to injustice like this as much as possible as loudly as possible is how to peacefully change entrenched systems.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

No doubt, I'm all for the increased optics. But, police abuse of power has likely dropped a bit since everyone has a video camera in their pocket, but due to the nature of the statistics we'll never know for sure one way or another.

I was mostly arguing against the notion that things have gotten worse when the truth is that it's just more visible. Same goes for stupid people and crazies.

[+] douglasg14b -6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Spell it out for me?

[–] Garbanzo 19 points 8 months ago (1 children)

All cops are bastards. No exceptions.

[+] douglasg14b -22 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

This is not a healthy outlook on the world.

Population generalization is extremely toxic. Yeah, lots are corrupt, but "Everyone that has job x" is patentably false, and is simply an emotional reaction and lashing out.

It does nothing to solve any problems and just produces new ones. No progress is made that way, it's the opposite of progress towards solving a problem. Are you here to just emotionally vent or are you here to actually hold a conversation?

We don't need more people acting like petulant adults who are entirely emotionally driven. We need more people who are willing to look at problems and figure out how we can organize to solve them.

[–] Garbanzo 21 points 8 months ago

Population generalization is generally wrong, but we're not talking about inherent personal traits here. Anyone who chooses to become a cop is suspect to begin with, and they'll find they aren't a cop for very long if they don't back the bastards. Do a google search for police whistleblower retaliation if you need an infinite source of examples.

[–] Viking_Hippie 14 points 8 months ago

Would you agree that all fascists are bastards? What about the fascist-adjacent collaborators who do nothing to stop the fascists, sometimes even actively defending them? Do you agree that they're all bastards?

For most professions, you'd have a point, but just like fascists aren't like most politicians, cops aren't like most professions.

[–] hamid 20 points 8 months ago

American cops are Nazis

[+] [email protected] -8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

From watching the video, it's honestly hard to say whether this is extrajudicial punishment or just gross incompetence and negligence.

The first thing that's immediately clear is that departmental negligence is involved at minimum. It really seems like police vehicles should have the ability to have seatbelts in them, and if there's reasons they can't (say anti-suicide or something), then they should not be allowed to drive more than like 20mph with someone in them unrestrained without a medical emergency.

But whether it's intentional assault or not is not clear to me. It absolutely could be an intentional rough ride, they didn't turn the camera on for the majority of the ride, but that does beg the question of why they would turn the camera on when they heard a loud crash in the back and incriminate themselves rather than just leave it off. Even the victim's lawsuit doesn't quite allege that they were intentionally driving to hurt, so much that they were incredibly negligent:

Thacker drove “in a reckless manner and at an unsafe rate of speed,” before he suddenly came to a hard stop at an alleged red light, the suit states

It honestly seems like this could be a case of criminal negligence on the cops for driving too fast and then having to stop quickly as often happens when you're driving too fast (as opposed to attempted murder / assault).

And then given that cops presumably have first responder training, it also seems like criminal negligence the way the cop handled the guy who clearly had a likely spinal injury.

I doubt anywhere close to appropriate charges or accountability will come from this since they're cops, but at first blush this doesn't seem like an intentional rough ride to me the way that Freddie Gray was.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Falsely arrested, maliciously prosecuted, and taken on a rough ride where he received permanent life-altering injuries.

I'm done giving cops the benefit of a doubt on this shit. I cannot see this incident under these circumstances to be accidental.