Dallas PD Suspect Beating Not Rodney King Redux
The headline was a real eye-grabber, especially to a police officer: “One Fired; Chief Seeks Charges in Taped Beating,” said the NBC affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth. And the deck headline was every bit as ominous: “Three Dallas officers may face charges in connection with assault.” Right below the headline was the video, tagged with the damning caption, “DPD Assault on Dashboard Cam.”
Looks bad, I said to myself. Taped beating … officers facing charges … assault on dashboard cam. Looks really, really bad.
Then I watched the tape. And I watched it again. And after I had watched it a few more times, I was tempted to queue up the Peggy Lee music. You know the song, “Is that all there is?”
Here’s how the events unfolded: On September 5, at about 9:15 p.m., two Dallas police officers, Paul Bauer and Kevin Randolph, saw Andrew Collins riding a motorcycle down the sidewalk on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. They like to maintain their Wild West traditions down there in Texas, but we may presume that riding motorcycles on sidewalks is prohibited, even in Dallas. Presented with this affront to the commonweal, the officers tried to pull Collins over, an effort that was captured on their car’s dash-mounted video camera.
Rather than pull over as the law requires and accept a lecture or a date with the traffic-court judge, Collins can be seen riding off on the motorcycle (not at all expertly, as the tape reveals), leading the officers on a short pursuit.
While driving the wrong way on a one-way street, Collins fails to negotiate a sharp right turn beneath the Julius Schepps Freeway, jumping the curb onto a median strip and coming to a stop between two of the freeway’s support pillars. The officers take the same turn and, either by accident or design, their car jumps the curb and comes into very slight contact with the rear of the motorcycle, with Collins still aboard.
Collins jumps from the motorcycle and runs out of frame to the left, but he apparently stumbles and falls to the ground as he steps into the street. During everything that follows, Collins is obscured from view in the video by the motorcycle and the hood of the police car.
An officer shouts at Collins, “Get on the f***ing ground,” a coarse but nonetheless fairly routine instruction for officers to give in such circumstances. Officer Bauer, who had been driving the police car, comes into view from the left and goes down to his knees as he begins struggling with Collins, and at one point he ends up on his back after either losing his balance or being struck by Collins. Officer Randolph comes into view from the right wielding what looks to be a collapsible baton, which he uses to strike Collins four times. The target of the blows appears to be Collins’s legs, but given the camera angle it’s difficult to say for sure.
Randolph remains on his feet while Bauer, still on his knees, continues to struggle with Collins, delivering two punches and a knee strike. Randolph then appears to kneel on Collins’s legs and uses his body weight to control him while Bauer places handcuffs on Collins’s wrists. What looks to be another baton blow by Randolph may instead have been him striking the ground with it, the only way to collapse that type of baton once it’s been expanded to full length. No more than thirty seconds elapsed from the time Collins jumped from his motorcycle to the time he was handcuffed. At no time, either on the video shot from Bauer and Randolph’s car or that taken from any of the other cars that responded to the scene, is any additional force used on Collins.
That’s all there was too it. All in all, a fairly common scenario of the type that plays out nightly on the streets of America’s major cities.
Pandering to the accusers increases the chances of rioting when the cops are vindicated in court. The best solution for all is for the dashboard tape to be made public on youtube with your commentary, and for the mayor to promote it.
As for the possibility of riots, isn’t that what riot guns are fore?
Again, had the police officers used a TASER, it would have ended quickly and peacefully, without all the hoopla.
TASERs good; Going hands on, not so good.
Use your TASERs!!!
More and more the gap seems to narrow separating the street thugs and the thugs with badges, but I tend to lean towards LE on this one.
I suspect that you are correct.
What I am afraid of is that those cops who do happen to be thuggish and sadistic will preferentially target white people, on the grounds that nobody will speak up for them and they won’t get into trouble. Especially if the recipient of the rough treatment is a working-class white person without political connections.
With regard to this particular perp, I couldn’t help but think of the old bumper sticker one-liner:
“If you don’t like my driving, get off the sidewalk!”
More and more youlie and lie.
My experience says the stench is overwhelming. I would direct you to http://www.injusticeeverywhere.com/ in order to get a more accurate picture of “Law Enforcement” in this country. Do note that ALL those reports are what that blogger has been able to pull from publicly available information. I would also note that MANY of this country’s “Law Enforcement” agencies routinely REFUSE to provide information on the malfeasance within their organizations on the grounds that it is a personnel matter. I thank God every time he removes another of these fine people from office.
So you’re saying if some other cop somewhere else was ever found to be abusive then ipso facto these Dallas cops were abusive too? That’s logically absurd. But I’m OK with applying that standard to you the next time you drive in traffic. If someone else somewhere speeds then you were speeding, too. Works for me. Sign right here on the dotted line. Case closed.
I’m saying the pigs have pulled this crap so often that their “word” is now worth nothing. The filthy maggot swill have REPEATEDLY murdered innocent civilians, then gotten together to get a common story, and lied to cover it up. I’m saying that the dashcams ONLY seem to be inoperable when there’s an accusation of brutality. I’m saying the ONLY reason that those FINE officers in Atlanta got caught for murdering that innocent woman and then planting drugs to make it LOOK like she was a criminal is because ONE of those officers had a guilty conscience A YEAR LATER and FINALLY told the truth. And I’m saying the filthy maggots running the system THEN MADE SURE HE got the longest sentence, not the filthy pig who murdered her and planted the drugs.
One could just replace your term “pigs” with a minority race and see why you’re being illogical.
Are there excessive cops? Of course. There are many cops, and if you collect every known example of a cop going too far, often way too far, it’s a compelling case. But it’s also a bit of a misleading case.
Some of the reports on these cops exaggerated the claims against them. They used plenty of force, but in this case, it’s not clear what the alternative was. And the criminal should be prosecuted for his crimes.
Instead, people like you are calling all cops maggots and pigs. That kind of attitude is irrational.
And the next time the crooks jump you, send for one of your fellow adam henrys to bail you out.
Ah, the whining anti-cop libertarians have arrived in the comments thread. Grow up. You’re not important enough to persecute.
Nobody is safe from police, prosecutorial, and judicial excesses. Nobody.
Back when I lived in Chicago, our elderly parish priest told us that he had been pulled over by Chicago cops and accused of various offenses he hadn’t committed. He was arrested, handcuffed, the whole works. It turned out that he happened to physically resemble somebody else the cops had been looking for. The judge dismissed the case, but it was a disconcerting experience nonetheless.
Another time, I was waiting in line at the office at the pollution testing station. The fellow in front of me was very upset. He said that he had a car that had been totaled in a wreck and had been taken to the junkyard. He had received a notice to bring it in for emissions testing, so he wrote back and told them that the car no longer existed because it had been totaled in an accident. Somehow, nobody made proper note of that. While driving a different vehicle, the guy ended up being pulled over by police, who said he was driving on a revoked drivers’ license. He was arrested, cuffed, and mugged, the whole works. Apparently, his license had been revoked because he had not taken the nonexistent car in for emissions testing, and he had never received any notice that his license had been revoked. I never found out whether he ever got that whole mess straightened out.
If cops are so evil, why don’t we just do away with them and let you protect yourself?
I suspect they will get rioting after the officers are acquitted anyway. Better to let the rioting begin, release the tape with adequate commentary, run the usual internal investigation and tell Al Sharpton and friends to STFU.
I wouldn’t blame the street cops if they stay home when the rioting breaks out to let the public know what letting the thugs win is like. But being the good public servants they are, they’ll show up to do their jobs to the best of their abiliites and face the storm on our behalf.
Is this a Rodney King Redux?
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/09/two-men-charged-in-violent-racist-attack-on-white-teen/
Something tells me this isn’t going to get a lot of air play outside of the Seattle area (and it will probably be sanitized and toned down there).
Left is in full howl, what a joke.
One officer I was chatting with, he was off duty at the time, some years back said that if the black community acted publically against the cops doing their job in an attempt to deal with crime, the pols up the food chain are down on the officers, well, solution, let get out the cross word puzzle, find a good parking location and wait for the 911 call. Once received, check out info on location, think about it for a bit, work a bit more on the puzzle, maybe do a donut stop and then roll to the location and see what their is to see.
Arrive, evaluate, take notes, fill out paperwork, insure the locals that it won’t happen again, return to parking location, do puzzle.
blacks want crime dealt with just as we all do, they just don’t want their kiddies head realigned and thrown into jail for the long haul, after all, they are just misunderstood kiddies, they are really good kids. Of course, the fact that most have one hell of a rap sheet is not really what it is all about.
I used to live on the east side of Fort Worth, if you are white, well heeled (means heavily armed), body armor, and you are set for an evening stroll. My neighbor assured me how smart the kid that lived next to him was, I did not reply as he appeared to lack even a dribble of common sense. This kid had spent from age 10 to 15 incarcerated for criminal activity, and this is a smart black kid. Really?
He had not been out to long when he robbed a pizza delivery guy, everyone, involved knew him, knew where he lived, back to prison, real smart, super smart. Yeah, rocket scientist.
When whitey quits tolerating stupid, things will improve.
Heard this song before…black folk want cops to crack down on crime in their ghetto…but somehow do that without arresting the black thugs responsible.
So how come the Eric Scott killing in LV did not generate the same “community” interest? Oh that’s right, he was a white victim.
I say let the inner cities burn. Let them become jungles. I am so sick of LE having to pander to black citizens. Move every police detachment out of every major city. And encircle the city so that the debris there does not escape. Let them become overrun by drugs, gangs and more squalor. Eventually the white progressives who live there will want a return of the police and order when they too become the victims of the very people they soooo support and use as slaves.
Why does 13% of the nations population control the 70% majority?
blotto, I wonder the same thing. The official “spin” seems to get worse. Metro and Costco sure have black-eyes on this and may have both worked themselves into uber-deep holes over their unprofessional and self-serving responses. Lately I’m hearing all kinds of “boycott” chatter against both of them.
To be a little contrarian here, it just seems to me that the second officer takes out the baton a little too quickly and starts whacking the guy.
Now, I do not know how much the criminal is resisting, or how much danger the first officer is in who is wrestling with the criminal and then hits him.
It just appears that the force to subdue here is a little excessive. Maybe the answer is the taser, as the “public” seems a little more ok with that methodology that whacking people with batons.
This is from a person, who based on the ENTIRE Rodney King tape and the long 100+ mile per hour car chase, thought the police officers did not act with excessive force until the very end.
WJ: Sometimes “please stop,” just doesn’t work. Disagree about the taser too. You could feather batons on them and this “community” would react the same way. The “public” in this case does not think they should be held accountable to the laws of civil society. They should be allowed to do what they please-it is part of their reparations.
Again back to my original question, why is “everyone” worked up about a supposed (?) beating and not a murder by LE? The only reason is because of race. And I am getting sick and tired of it.
To blotto:
Maybe you have my post mixed up with someone else’s on another site, but nowhere did I suggest saying “please stop”. It is an understandable mistake on your part.
I was offering up my opinion that going straight to whacking the guy with a baton looked excessive to me. If the criminal made a charge for the officers (especially the first one wrestling to subdue the criminal) that is not viewable from the video, then I completely retract the above opinion.
As to your final point on the murder of Mr. Scott and the lack of outrage, this thread is not about that topic.
Since you “do not know”, how can the force used appear excessive?
First you admit that you do not know how much force the criminal was using, then you decide, in your ignorance, that the officer’s response seemed excessive. You contradict yourself.
And, how would you know what force is necessary to use in a given situation?
How many violent, combative crooks have you fought with, subdued and arrested? NONE.
This type of situation would not happen if black parents would wack their kids when they are young for showing disrespect to society. Plus, make them do their homework too. The PC is so out there in left field, it makes me puke.
I wish the Cops had beat the kid harder. He might learn a lesson.
What is interesting I think is that for every incident of police abuse, whether the officer(s) are or are not guilty the media/community goes nuts. Then when some nut job goes out on a rampage like I don’t know, the two Seattle incidents last fall. Most of the community seems very silent or offers an underhanded insult that the innocent officers are just part of the overall system and deserving. Even worse is how some of the politicos are willing to sell the officers and police non-politico leadership up the river without a paddle all to appease the community.
Now let’s not react to this without proper homage to white privilege. Which in my case means that my parents would have done worse to me than the cops did had I pulled the stuff this guy did.
There is no such animal.When the nice policeman pulls you over you respond to him with respect, do as he says, and all will be well. Fail the attitude test and you’re in trouble. Become combative and you’ll get a lot worse than you give.
Hmmm… the old “hang the cops out to dry due to excessive force” scam again. Here’s my view, simple as it might seem. The Rodney King incident was most definitely an example of an inappropriate use of force… but not in the way most of you think. In that case and many since, the amount of force initially used was not enough, allowing the conflict to continue and get ugly. When Rodney King got out of the car that night, the first officer to make contact should have knocked his dick in the dirt, right then. No long protracted fight with multiple participants. Just knock him out. The same deal apparently applies in this most recent Dallas case.
I was a cop for almost 20 years (medical retirement due to on the job injuries), never had an excessive force complaint, did more than my fair share of street fighting. Having said that, I suppose my opinion is valid, since I have been there, done that, not forming opinions from a recliner while watching TV and thinking that must be how it is on the street.
I cannot disagree with you on this one but how does one knock a dick in the dirt in a non-combatant way? At least so far as not getting reprimanded for it?
PS I ride a very fast bike and never run from the law.
Am I looking at a different tape?
What I see is Collins leaving the frame to the left, coming back on frame and then getting down on all fours. Then Randolph enters from the right and starts wailing on the guy with his baton. THEN Bauer comes into the frame from the left, already on the ground. I don’t see how Bauer ended up on the ground or why Randolph starts hitting the guy.
I do see the that Collins appears to struggle with Bauer and then Bauer hits him and knees him, which seems appropriate. Although, if Randolph did just start hitting the guy for no apparent reason, as seems to be the case, I could forgive Collins for resisting.
Randolph’s actions don’t seem appropriate. It certainly looks like he just started wailing on the guy for no reason. I don’t think Jack has his facts right on this one.
Really? I’m not buying it. There is not enough there.
Sorry Jack, you’d better go back an take a good look at that tape.
Collins did what he was told, “get on the f***ing ground”. THEN the officer STILL STANDING came into view of the camera and started whailing on him…
Collins should be in jail,but so should the cops…
The chief, the thug, and the politicos who rewarded the thug need to dress for really warm weather when they leave this mortal coil.
The sergeant who called off the pursuit needs to look for work in another trade.
The chunk of feces who committed the violations will be encouraged to do even worse in the future, as will many who learn of his benefits.
I want a Fleeing Felon law- you run, cops shoot.
Use your TASER? You mean the LETHAL NON-LETHAL TASER that has KILLED over 300 people but is still promoted as NON-LETHAL? Pluuueezzze! Use MACE, that has never KILLED anyone EVER! Placating minorites needs to stop now, do the crime, pay the price! If the MINORITIES RIOT, let them, it is there choice, as are the consequences of the actions they take!