Witness to police brutality

Status
Not open for further replies.

heatherleah

New Member
So this is what happened: after work last night I went to a local bar for a drink with friends. At last call (1:30am) we paid our tabs and someone bought me a beer. We all walked over to 7-11 and I still had my beer (because it was full and didn't want to throw it out), I waited outside. A sheriff deputy pulled up and i put my beer in my friends bag. He got out of the car and called me over and some other guy standing outside I didn't know. Then he yelled to my friend "Hey blondie, get over here". She came over and he told her to take the beer out of the bag and "get the hell out of here".
He then asked for my i.d. and the other guy, so we gave them to him, and told us to put our hands on the hood. At this point another deputy pulled up. He then searched the other guy when this poor innocent guy (20's, white) walks up to go into 7-11 and the cops yelled for him to get back. He stopped and the cops told him to get his ass moving and he moved slow...so they both went up to him and started yelling at him and actually used the phrase "What is your major malfunction?!" Then grabbed him by the back of the neck threw him down and beat the hell out of him, punching AND kicking, maced him. It scared the crap out of me, I started to shake.
So the other guy on the hood with me started yelling at them to stop, that he was a lawyer and was witness to the guy not resisting, so one of the cops came over yelling at him, threw him on the ground, handcuffed him, threw all his stuff on the ground then threw him into the back of the car and beat him, enough to make the whole car shake. Then he got out told me to get on the ground, so I did. At this point about 8 more cops were there. Anytime someone walked up they would yell to get the hell out of there. One cop had his billy club out and raised it every time someone walked up. It was like they were handling a riot with rocks being thrown at them, but it was just two people standing in front of 7-11.
So the initial cop comes back to me and asks for my i.d. again and I told him he had it. He argued that and said if he had it he would remember and I need to stop lying and give him the i.d. So I looked through my purse again and told him he had it. So he took my purse and emptied it on the car, looked through my wallet. He asked me to spell my name and called on his radio to do a check. The female officer that was there walked up behind him and picked up my i.d. off the ground and said "Is this what you're looking for?" My name checked out and he gave me my i.d. back and then told me to get my shit off the car (that was mixed up with the other guys stuff at that point) and get the hell out. So I did.
So I am ok, not to happy about going through my purse and wallet but I don't have anything illegal with me. But can't get over what I witnessed. And the initial officer was not wearing a name tag and the others weren't close enough to see. I also don't know the guys names that were arrested. So it's hard to report someone with no name...Help
 
Contact the agency and speak to an internal affairs investigator. You won't need the names, but descriptions will help. Give them your statement and they will find out who was there. They know who was working and they know who went to the 7-11.

They will ask you about how much you had to drink... and that is very significant. Don't lie about it. If you do, the whole complaint is worthless.

It is possible that the officers reacted to things that you simply were not aware of. What you might think is nothing could be a perceived threat to a police officer. I'm not condoning their actions if what you say is accurate- just allowing for the possibility that even though you were right there, you may not have all the information.

Contact internal affairs and let them do the investigation.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top