And here we see the critical intersection of overarmed, poorly trained police, bad policing policies, idiotic drug laws, and a besieged minority population. The story:
A Florida man shot and paralyzed by a sheriff’s deputy during a controversial stop was unarmed and backing away when the cop opened fire, dashcam video obtained by WPTV and The Palm Beach Post shows.
Dontrell Stephens, then 20, was riding his bike through a South Florida neighborhood when Palm Beach County Sheriff’s deputy Adam Lin pulled up behind him in his cruiser, driving over grass lawns to employ a stop-and-frisk tactic the department said is common in high crime areas, according to The Post.
Footage from the Sept. 13, 2013 confrontation was released Thursday as part of a federal suit appears to show Lin shoot Stephens, who is black and has previous arrests for drug possession, four times just seconds after getting out of his vehicle and confronting him.
Some backstory:
Lin’s internal affairs file contains ‘numerous use of force reports, citizen complaints and incident reviews’, according to the lawsuit.
He started working for the PBSO in 2004 and served for ten months in Afghanistan beginning in 2007.
The attorney who filed suit on Stephens’ behalf, Jack Scarola, said there were issues with the statements given by Lin and the other deputy involved in the shooting.
Scarola said: ‘There are no records of any commands ever made to Dontrell Stephens.
‘The deputy’s recorded statements following the shooting were absolutely false. Internal affairs completely ignored that evidence.
Why was he being pulled over? Suspicious deployment of a bike while black and suspicious dismount from a bike while black:
On the last morning of the last day Dontrell Stephens could still walk, the 20-year-old was bicycling across Haverhill Road, talking to a friend on a cellphone.
A truck slowed as he rode against traffic.
Palm Beach County Sheriff’s deputy Adams Lin was watching schoolchildren waiting for a bus.
Later, he would say he followed Stephens to give him a traffic ticket for not bicycling properly. But he also would acknowledge he was suspicious of Stephens, whom he had not seen in the neighborhood before that morning, according to court records.
He intended to stop him, ask for identification and find out where he had come from and where he was going. He considered frisking him. But Lin, who is of Asian descent, denied racially profiling Stephens, who is black, and wore his hair in long dreadlocks.
When Stephens turned down a side road, Lin followed, stepping on the gas, turning on the siren and then the lights. He thought the way Stephens rode his bike was suspicious. He thought the way Stephens got off his bike was suspicious.
So there you have it. A black population under assault, a black man wary of police ginning up charge or abusing them- particularly fearful because of his recent arrest, a trigger happy cop using bad policing techniques (stop and frisk) to harass anyone at will, a community where there are no repercussions for police shooting people so they make no effort to de-escalate or proceed with caution. All Lins needed to say was he was afraid, and he was cleared and free to go. Why no- of course he wasn’t racially profiling him- why every big city cop gets suspicious when they see someone they don’t recognize!
Some questions. Why did Lins even get out of the car? Why was a man armed to the teeth wearing body armor afraid of a guy in a t-shirt. Why did he think Stephens was holding a “gun” to his head talking to it while riding his bike? Why did he need to stop and frisk someone just riding his bike? When will this insanity stop.
Howard Beale IV
A simple remedy: Anyone in LE who discharges a weapon in the line of duty is automatically banned for life to be further employed in LE when the person who is fired upon is discovered to have not carried a firearm. Furthermore, the shields of limited and total immunity to the government needs to be repealed.
It should be no different than the penalties to those who commit financial crimes when the SEC bans them from holding office/directorships of public companies.
Lavocat
And when will the NRA start supporting the en masse arming of black people who demand their Second Amendment rights?
I really am amazed that more cops aren’t shot at given that all they are anymore are criminals with badges.
Arclite
In the officer’s defense, it is Florida, so the citizenry should expect such treatment.
Now in Oregon or Massachusetts this would be a crime.
mai naem mobile
Its a pity Lin wasn’t the one paralyzed. Fcuker.
LosGatosCA
Never.
SATSQ
Bullying vulnerable people by people empowered to bully them will never end.
It’s in the nature of bullies. And it’s in the nature of the rest of the populace to be apathetic about it.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
OT:
I’ve set up the Team Bella Q page for the May 9 NAMI walk.
You may join the team without a donation, and you can do so with your nym from here! Full disclosure: NAMI will require an email address, and will send you emails, but you can unsubscribe from their list pretty easily.
scav
At what point will it become clear to the gullible public that all this is evidence of is an invidious, deep-seated and nefarious plot of video cameras against hard-working and eternally perfected policemen (not to mention threatened at all moments by all things) everywhere?! Light itself must be in on the machinations! It is only by exercising their consummate professionalism and nobel self-sacrifice that they’re not spraying a solid covering fire at all times while on and off-duty.
Ruckus
@LosGatosCA:
There have been bully cops and good cops since the first force was formed. This is something far more than bullying. This is murder. To be more specific this is racist murder. Or attempted murder. And yes there have always been racist murdering cops. But this is still more than that. This is a turn by the law enforcement community into a military style force. It is not universal, it is of course not necessary. It comes from a country being at war. War on drugs, war on terror, war on poverty, war on minorities. That last one doesn’t have quite the openness of the first three but that’s the aim of the war. The proponents of the war on minorities have determined that minorities are “the problem” causing the need for the other three wars. But of course we shouldn’t be at war against our citizens for the crime of not attacking us. But we are. And until we change that dynamic nothing will change. But we also have a terrible disease in this country and that is the premise that if some process didn’t work it’s not because the idea was wrong it’s because we didn’t try hard enough. It clouds everything. Even denial.
mai naem mobile
I.notice in the story the writer goes.through hoops to put in there that the victim had four drug arrests before mentioning that the cop shot the.victim. If you look at the structure of.the.sentence the arrests should.come.in a new sentence after the shooting.
LosGatosCA
@Ruckus:
The difference is the exposure of the activity by the videocams.
Before the war on drugs there was Jim Crow, church bombings, bus burning, activist murders, assassinations, labor murders, etc.
It’s the way of the bullies to cow the vulnerable by any means available.
Mike in NC
Didn’t like the way he was riding a bike? Please proceed to shoot first and ask questions later, officer.
Snarki, child of Loki
Dogs are wonderful, loving, intelligent, brave, loyal….
…but when they go rabid.
#NotAllDogs
Belafon
@scav: When a white child is shot by police just because he took some cigarettes from a store.
Amir Khalid
@mai naem mobile:
Actually, I question the need to mention Stephens’ arrests at all. None of them was related to a violent offence, and there seem to have been no resulting convictions.
Gex
The system works the way we’ve designed it to. Just ask the good people of Lakewood.
http://m.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2015/04/23/heres-two-lakewood-residents-calling-the-cops-to-complain-there-are-black-people-around
This cop basically has the same position of these folks. He didn’t like seeing a black guy there. Decided he shouldn’t be there.
scav
@Belafon: Those poor upstanding noble cops were MISLEAD by the nefarious video not to mention college indoctrination into believing it was at all possible that any white rich child would make off with cigarettes. I somehow think the visceral comfort and pleasure in the outsourced violent defense of personal safety and goods will extend to the poor of all Pantene shades.
Howard Beale IV
A Liberterian Story
Ayn Rand, Rand Paul and Paul Ryan walk into a bar, where they are served tainted alcohol, because there are no rules.
They die from poisoning.
The end.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
You and I are old aren’t we?
For my entire life there have been bad cops. And good ones. There have been bullies and truly bad cops. They are after all, us. One difference is as pointed out that we can and are now showing who the bad ones are, and how many of them there are. But this is more than that. This is more than bullying and I think we need to recognize that. There is a reason that it is happening a lot more, even in the face of much less crime. Decades ago most cops never drew their guns. It wasn’t necessary. What changed? What causes a transit cop to shoot someone cuffed, on the ground, not fighting at all, in the back? What causes an officer to run down someone on foot with his car? What causes someone to shoot a person on a bicycle with a cell phone? It’s more than bullying, it’s murder. But of course it’s not considered murder, as it’s done under the color of law. That’s a pretty shitty color to me that citizens are being murdered for doing what everyone does and cops are regularly getting away with it. It’s like the idea of a misdemeanor/felony/violent felony don’t exist anymore. Any deviation from whatever it is that some cop decides is proper in the moment is a death penalty offense with the cop being all three phases of the law, capture/judgement/punishment.
ETA That’s a military type judgement, one I didn’t see in the military I was in but did happen in combat.
Kyle
@Howard Beale IV:
Hahaha
I love a feel-good story now and then.
Karma wins.
Cliff in NH
we are only 115 days into the year and 373 people have been killed by cops this year.
51 in the last 2 weeks
This is ridiculous.
http://killedbypolice.net/
Ruckus
@Ruckus:
Do you all remember that picture from Vietnam of the South Vietnamese officer shooting a small naked child standing in the road crying? The shooting of people that we are taking about that cops do reminds me of that. And I know that not all of the victims are angels. But they seem to be being shot in the road for no reason.
Tree With Water
@Ruckus: My short answer would cite the “war on (some) drugs” as to the primary cause of the sea change in the mentality of law enforcement, and its accelerated violence meted out on The (mostly black & brown) People. The burden of enforcing the unenforcible has acted as a corrosive throughout the entire judicial system, and cops are the first line of that system. Humanity’s old nemesis Mr. Cause & Effect strikes again…
WaterGirl
@Ruckus:
The Myth of Police Reform: The real problem is the belief that all our social problems can be solved with force. by TA-NEHISI COATES
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/the-myth-of-police-reform/390057/
FromTheBackOfTheRoom
I think Officer Lin should address a press conference and sincerely express his “profound sorrow” in his killing of an American citizen. We can all then look forward and not backward.
Mike G
How it should be done —
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/04/watch-vacationing-swedish-cops-show-nypd-officers-how-to-subdue-suspects-without-hurting-them/
Vacationing Swedish cops on a NYC subway subdue fighting passengers without using weapons, and maintaining professionalism and courtesy toward the suspects. Not a single injury or a “Fuck your breath”.
“How do you feel?” one of the officers asks the seated man, who says he feels fine.
The other man struggles, but the pair of officers calmly keep him pinned to the floor.
“I can’t breathe,” he screams, as he rises occasionally from the floor but is unable to escape.
“Take it easy,” one officer repeatedly tells him. “Sir, calm down, OK? Everything is going to be OK.”
The man eventually calms down, and he admits to the officers that he’s not injured after they ask.
The Swedish officers held the men until New York City police could board the train and take them into custody.
“We came just to make sure no one got hurt,” Asberg said. “We were trying to stop the fight.”
Belafon
@WaterGirl: But soldiers can rebuild nations, so why can’t cops solve local problems?
//
Brachiator
@Tree With Water: Sea change in the mentality of law enforcement? When have police forces ever been fair in the treatment of nonwhite people? The war on drugs was simply the latest excuse to rationalize standard operating procedure.
Tree With Water
@FromTheBackOfTheRoom: There are some democrats hereabouts that would denounce that remark as if spoken by a political purist who would lead the party to hell in a hand basket. Not me, and probably not most, but there are some.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
I recall another photo of a child being shot at close range by a SV officer or policeman. It wasn’t either of those.
ETA It created quite a storm when it was shown.
Tree With Water
@Brachiator: You got me there. This is a honky talking, with all the attendant honky baggage and honky world view.
In my honky defense, I do read history and keep my eyes and ears open..
WaterGirl
When I read stories like this I feel I am just inches away from Breitbart and his “stop raping people!”. Only I would be shouting “stop killing people!”, and it would be at the police, not occupy wall street.
WaterGirl
Maybe we need a huge billboard in Times Square, and a huge virtual billboard on every single website run by a sentient human being:
Instead of x days since our last accident, it would be x days since someone was murdered by the police. Sadly, we might only need one number – 0.
aimai
@WaterGirl: Very, very, good. I couldn’t agree more with TNC on trying to pull back and see the bigger picture. If we had roving bands of doctors and social workers, unarmed,we wouldn’t be seeing people shot as the first solution to whatever crisis presents itself.
Brachiator
@WaterGirl: I cannot support Coates’ assertion that “inspiring fear and insuring compliance” have a place in law enforcement. And too often it seems as though the choices being offered are obedience or death.
WaterGirl
@Brachiator: Coates probably made 10 or 20 points in that article. Did you agree with the other 9 or 19? It seems odd to me that after reading what I think is a phenomenal article the only thing one would do is assert disagreement with a minor point in the article.
rikyrah
sigh…
not shocked at all with this
Gene108
What is strange is violent crime has been dropping for a generation. But people feel more scared than ever.
Maybe it is all the fracking fluid in the groundwater these days? I just do not know.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: He was riding a bicycle wrong? He got off the bicycle wrong? Has the police murdering black people for no fucking reason become so commonplace and acceptable that they don’t even have to come up with a plausible excuse?
WaterGirl
@Gene108: FOX “news”.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
Amir Khalid
@WaterGirl:
It’s not a minor point. As it happens, part of the police officer’s job is indeed to ensure compliance with the law. But not by terrorising the public with disproportionate or inappropriate use/threat of force.
Belafon
@WaterGirl: They weren’t required before, and if it weren’t for those rotten kids and their talking dog (and video cameras) they wouldn’t have to come up with any. This whole “you have to explain why you killed a black man” is a rather new experience.
dmbeaster
Actually, that herd of escaped buffalo shot in New York got more concern than these shooting. Was it really necessary to shoot those buffalo
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
I’ve spent the last few looking and didn’t see it either. Can’t remember if it was a photo or video. Maybe it’s all in my head but it sure is a vivid memory. A young naked boy of maybe 7-9 crying as a revolver was pointed at his head and he was shot. As I said I also remember it being a real shocker. And one of the things that changed news coverage from see how bad this is and how courageous US fighting men are to WTF is this worth any of the cost.
Jim Parish
@mai naem mobile: I think the “four times” refers to the number of shots, not the number of drug arrests.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Ruckus: That really does sound like a composite of the two pictures already mentioned, both in content and in effect. My guess is that your memory is playing tricks on you.
WereBear
It’s now become code for “There’s a black President! And it’s not a movie starring Morgan Freeman!”
Chris
@Ruckus:
Any chance your memory is conflating this picture and this one?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: That’s my reaction as well. Lém, the guy shot by Gen. Loan, was crying in the video, as was Kim Phuc. Both incidents were quite horrifying.
Cheers,
Scott.
Chris
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
Ah. Sorry for saying what you’d already said…
Brachiator
@WaterGirl: I agree with you that the Coates piece is a phenomenal article, but it is almost undone by what you say is a minor point.
Too often, the police are allowed to treat the people in the community they are supposed to serve with hatred and contempt. This poisons everything. When you allow the police to inspire fear, you only end up inspiring resentment. This should be old news, especially to Coates.
That said, Coates is absolutely on point when he notes that using the police is wrongheaded when it comes to dealing with many social problems. And sadly, here we may not be even ready to rethink this. A case was recently argued before the Supreme Court involving police who shot a mentally ill woman they were called out to help. One side in the case is trying to present this as a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. A decision is expected this session. Unfortunately, court watchers don’t think that any decision will be very enlightened. But isn’t this an example of where we should rethink our attitudes and assumptions?
J R in WV
I like the idea of defining the rules of being a policeman to include you only get to use a firearm the one time, at least in the absence of a felony conviction in the incident where a firearm was used by the deceased or wounded victim. That’s not well formulated enough to go into business with, but it is pretty close to what we need.
These incidents where there was obviously no real crime, riding a bike while black for instance, those cops need to be ineligible for police work, security work, etc. Maybe not only the cop with the gun in his hand, maybe all of the cops at the scene, because they didn’t keep control of the situation.
After all, loosing your job is no big deal, happens to everyone these days, why would a government want to keep a loser shooter cop on staff, lots of exposure to financial ruin if you ask me. And we all need to be able to sue a cop who has gone over into roid-rage on us, as well as the government he works for.
This thing of a cop getting a vacation with pay after killing someone, and then getting his job back, even if the government he works for had to pay a sum of damages to the victim, this has to go, it’s crazy for a wild mad cop to be able to go back on the street in a police car to shoot someone else… crazy!!
Brachiator
@efgoldman: Coates wrote that “fear and compliance have their place.” I hope that this was just sloppiness. In any case, it is wrong.
hitchhiker
It’s not just that he can’t walk anymore. He probably also can’t pee without sticking a hose up his dick. He can’t shit without measures I’d rather not describe. He has burning/tingly pain in his legs and feet. He has spasms that keep him awake. He can’t have an orgasm. His skin breaks down easily and he gets infections that send him to the hospital.
Spinal cord injury! It’s not just for sissies. This cop, man. PLEASE tell me he doesn’t get away with this.
WaterGirl
@Brachiator:
That’s the quote from the article, and I can’t say that i disagree with it. But their place should be very, very limited. And obviously non-compliance should not ramp up to “I need to kill the person because they disrespected me” which is part of the epidemic we are talking about.
The whole thing is crazy out of hand. The cop who shot the guy who reached into the car to get his license when the cop asked him to show his license? This guy rode his bike funny and got off his bike funny? Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with these cops? If you’re that scared, you should not be a cop and you should not have a gun.
Edit: I think I was referring to that as a minor point because it wasn’t the thrust of the article. My take is that he chose to acknowledge up front that compliance does have its place – in order to neutralize the potentially distracting dismissal of everything else he wrote.
WaterGirl
@J R in WV: At this point, with it being open season on black men at this point – black men being killed nearly every single day by the people who are supposed to “serve and protect”, I would like to see every single police shooting reported to and investigated by the department of justice.
Unless somebody is truly threatening a cop’s life, then I have no problem with a “one and done” policy for cops – if you pull your gun or taser when it’s not to save your own life or the life of a hostage, then you’re done as a police officer. Everywhere and forever.
WaterGirl
@efgoldman: You said it better than I did.
Ruckus
Thanks everyone for the possibility that my mind is playing tricks. I can’t find it either and I recall both of the other pictures that you all have shown but I still remember this other one as well. It may have been a video or I may be full of it. Oh well it does speak to how the current police shootings are affecting me, and I’m a bystander, an old white guy, my risk of getting shot is very much less than that of a 10-40 yr old black man or even any random black person regardless of age or sex.
Gravenstone
@WaterGirl: I fear you would need to reduce your time increment to Hours, if not Minutes.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@WaterGirl:
I’m assuming that “riding the bicycle wrong” means he was riding on the wrong side of the street, which should be a traffic citation at worst, not lifelong paralysis.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
Also, too, I am in the camp that says that the number of police shootings is probably not increasing in absolute numbers. The difference is that people are waking up and realizing just how routine it’s become for cops to shoot citizens with very little reason. Ten years ago, the story of Michael Brown’s shooting would have been one minute on the local news, at best.
Hopefully, people are starting to wake up and demand answers.
WaterGirl
@Mnemosyne (tablet): I was thinking maybe it was because he was only holding on with one hand while talking on his cell phone with the other.
Any way you look at it, the whole “police stop” was totally fucked up.
What are people supposed to do? Stop and they shoot you when you reach for the license they asked you to get. Don’t stop and they shoot you through the window of the car. Run and they shoot you in the back. Don’t run, just back away while you’re facing them – surely they won’t shoot you when they have to look you in the eye? Nope, they shoot you anyway. Walking while black, they’ll shoot you. The mind boggles.
debbie
@Ruckus:
I believe I’m also in your age group, and the black young men dying today are doing things no worse than my brothers and their friends were doing when they were that age. It’s the cops that are different, and they’re different because even as they get less and poorer training, they’re also being given more lethal weapons.
The Ohio AG (a bit of a wienie) issued a report and summarized:
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/04/23/police_training_recommendations.html
From what I understand, Ohio cops don’t need a GED and don’t have to worry about being drug tested or going through a psych exam. Garbage in, garbage out.
Ruckus
@debbie:
I think that a lot of people are doing less than when we were young. And I think @efgoldman: is right, things used to get one a beating, not that that was right in any way but it is better than being dead. Small favors. But I think he is also right that guns are at least talked about much more and the types of guns are different. 50 yrs ago a 38 revolver was it, maybe a 357. But a lot of forces didn’t allow a 357 to be carried. That’s six shots and a relatively slow reload rate. Now it’s a 9mm or 40 cal, not much different in size or velocity but holds 12-15 rounds and if you carry two clips, that’s around 40 rounds. Plus many now carry an assault rifle in the car, that would have been very unusual 50 yrs ago. This doesn’t even mention the tactical squads in armored trucks. They want to insure overwhelming force and that’s military tactics. Not that I want people overwhelming the police but there has to be a balance somewhere and we are so far out of balance now….
I think it is many things, a confluence of bad tactics, over equipped with fire power, little contact with non police, bad training, bad expectations, bad politics, a sick culture of might is always right and is appropriate, wars against the public, I’m sure there are more.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@debbie:
Or, as some would say,
made PR noise about raising the standards for LEO hiring qualifications, which are frighteningly low. That said, most larger jurisdictions require more education that the state minimum, but that doesn’t always help.
Ruckus
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Probably difficult to desire a raise in minimum standards when the ones you have now achieve their goals.
sm*t cl*de
There’s part of your problem.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Ruckus:
I’m coming at it from my 20+ years of living in Los Angeles, the birthplace of adversarial “us against them” policing. The firepower may have changed, but it’s those underlying attitudes towards ordinary citizens that are truly toxic and have been in place since Chief Parker.
I do also think that this is the kind of bullshit that minority communities have been having to deal with for decades, but it’s only just now becoming visible to the general (white) population. I don’t think there’s been a big upsurge in 2014-2015, except in awareness.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Don’t and won’t disagree with you. As I’ve said before I was born in Los Angeles, have lived here most of my life, with some detours to mostly worse places and I reside here once again. My grandmother lived in south central till she passed away, my father owned a business for 18 yrs which I then owned for 15 yrs on the edge of there in the Newton precinct. I’ve seen LA cops, I’ve seen the bad and the worse. But even in south central things were not as bad as today. Yes people, especially blacks got shot and beaten. But we are seeing this more and more now in many areas that we never did and the shootings are much more likely than the beatings. As I said, small favors. I have a friend who was a CHP for 30 yrs and I trust him when he tells me the same, that things have gotten much worse over time, that he was glad to retire and get out. Part of the problem is that like the military there is little to no effective way for a good cop/soldier to do anything about the bad. It has to come from the top which is why your comment about Parker is so accurate. It’s not that it was good before Parker it’s that it is even more deeply imbedded now and it will not be easy to clean out.
Did you know that the LAPD currently has arrested 3 officers for excessive use of force and that prosecutors are doing their jobs as well? Hey it’s a start.
Freemark
@efgoldman: Couldn’t someone have just called a State Farm agent?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Ruckus: Dead thread but…
There are various kinds of “net launchers” or “net guns” that are used to capture wildlife. Batman had nets, also too. We should be demanding that cops have something to immobilize people for arrest that don’t involve pain (or death) for the citizen, and lets scardeycat cops do the immobilization from a distance without violence.
E.g. http://www.humanecapture.com/instructions/
But, since it doesn’t involve playing soldier, it’s not going to be demanded by the cops on the beat. It needs to come from top.
Here’s hoping…
Cheers,
Scott.
Nutella
Cop in a car with a gun claims he was afraid of an unarmed man riding a bike, like the cop in a car with a gun in Ferguson claimed he was afraid of an unarmed man walking down the street.
Maybe we need some officers who are not pants-wetting cowards.