Anyone who has ever watched the reality TV show COPS... has seen arrested suspects beating their heads on anything available inside or outside the vehicle to claim they were abused.

No proof has emerged this was not the case here... in fact there is evidence and a witness indicating it was the case.

Now Tal I agree with you police have to be accountable. Breaking some guys back in a van whether misadventure, negligence or violence is just not on. Long ago we had an inquiry here as to why black men were dying in police custody, the death rate changed after that because the police came to know they would be accountable. Sometimes you just have to start again

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Originally Posted by talaniman

The issue was he DIED in police custody. He ran, but that's not illegal, except he was a black guy. I am not of the notion that cops can just stop, and search, detain a guy who has done NOTHING wrong. The 2 cops were white, and the rest were summoned later.

The notion that a cop should be given such a wide latitude to deal with a segment of the population with no accountability is utterly ridiculous given the history of abuse, and bad behavior, and fatal outcomes visited on a population of the people they are supposed to serve.

Such systemic institutional oppression is unacceptable except to the narrowest of minds.

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When he ran ,he gave them probable cause to do a search . When they searched ,they found an 'illegal 'weapon. That ,and his priors gave them a legitimate reason to detain him. The only question is what happened in the van . As smoothy points out ; a witness in the police van told the story that he was throwing himself against the van walls and door ;and it is possible that he injured himself .

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Originally Posted by tomder55

When he ran ,he gave them probable cause to do a search . When they searched ,they found an 'illegal 'weapon. That ,and his priors gave them a legitimate reason to detain him. The only question is what happened in the van . As smoothy points out ; a witness in the police van told the story that he was throwing himself against the van walls and door ;and it is possible that he injured himself .

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Was he throwing himself against that wall, or was someone "helping" him? The other passenger was in the van only 5-6 mins during a half-hour van ride. And it's impossible to give oneself the injury he had by throwing oneself against a wall. In other words, there's far too much missing information.

Yes he may have fallen on a bend or a sudden stop and injured himself, he might have been causing a nuiance and was encouraged to cooperate. When he was put in the van he didn't look 100% anyway. Maybe he was high and acting out his rage and we will have to wait for a report to get some facts

Either way there is a lesson here in the digital age, cameras might also be needed in police vehicles to keep the perps under full time survellience, for their own safety, of course

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Originally Posted by Wondergirl

Was he throwing himself against that wall, or was someone "helping" him? The other passenger was in the van only 5-6 mins during a half-hour van ride. And it's impossible to give oneself the injury he had by throwing oneself against a wall. In other words, there's far too much missing information.

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I don't know and neither do you. If I was a juror I'd consider the self inflicted injury as plausible . The prosecutor will have to prove the cops gave him a beat down .

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Originally Posted by tomder55

I don't know and neither do you. If I was a juror I'd consider the self inflicted injury as plausible . The prosecutor will have to prove the cops gave him a beat down .

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Like I said, too much missing information. If I remember, it was said that, medically speaking, he could not have injured himself the way he did by throwing himself against a steel panel. The prisoner is dead, and the police may not be reliable in their testimonies. We may never know how the prisoner got his injuries.

Depending on the actual vans construction... the front of the van can not be accessed from the back or vice versa. For the safety of the cop driving that has his back to the suspects.

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Originally Posted by smoothy

Depending on the actual vans construction... the front of the van can not be accessed from the back or vice versa. For the safety of the cop driving that has his back to the suspects.

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But was there a policeman in with the prisoner who died? Did the van stop en route? To pick up the other prisoner? A stop before that? If so, why and what happened? A lot can happen during a half-hour ride.

Apparently. We are aware the van did stop enroute, probably to deal with the disturbance. There will be an enquiry, an inquest and facts will emerge. It is a shame there cannot be summary justice and a quick lynching but law must be given a chance sometime otherwise your police force would be quickly depleted and chaos ensue. The community needs to take some responsibility here also by not committing acts contrary to law and giving the police opportunity to enforce it

This was not the first incident of this nature with transporting a prisoner by the Baltimore police,

Freddie Gray not the first to come out of Baltimore police van with serious injuries - Baltimore Sun

Guess those other lawsuits didn't wake them up.

More padding needed then, restraints or seat belts and some driving instruction

How about prosecuting rogue cops who think they are above the law.

Head shots for fleeing suspects saves all the bickering...

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Originally Posted by talaniman

How about prosecuting rogue cops who think they are above the law.

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Don't you think you should deal with the systemic, endemic problem. Why do the cops think they are above the law? Why is there a perception that they act this way? There must be policy behind this somewhere. Perhaps it lies in local law enforcement where it is hard to be objective. The local political process is obviously failing because it fails to ensure accountability and it would seem this applies to more than the police force

Prosecuting the rogues is a GREAT start!!

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Originally Posted by paraclete

Don't you think you should deal with the systemic, endemic problem. Why do the cops think they are above the law? Why is there a perception that they act this way? There must be policy behind this somewhere. Perhaps it lies in local law enforcement where it is hard to be objective. The local political process is obviously failing because it fails to ensure accountability and it would seem this applies to more than the police force

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There is a far greater problem here than a handful of cops that might think they are above the law... its a big percentage of a certain ethnic minorities that feel they are.

Yes that can also be a problem where the communities enforce their own standard allowing undesirable behaviour

Cleveland policeman Brelo cleared over unarmed black deaths - BBC News

With results like this it is no wonder the police think they can do whatever they like

meanwhile 12 dead and 43 wounded over the Holiday Weekend in Chi-town.
meanwhile 9 dead and 20 wounded over the Holiday Weekend in Baltimore .

In Melborne Fl a mob of thugs attacked a cop trying to arrest a punk ..... The Rio Rancho Police Dept lost it's first officer killed in duty in it's 34 year history to a shooting .Murders are up in Comrade deBlasio's NYC .You have a 45% chance increase to get murdered in Manhattan than previously when law and order Mayors ran the show.

Go ahead and keep chipping away at the thin blue line between order and anarchy