Police brutality in Michigan, USA

This video from Michigan in the USA says about itself:

Violent Arrest by Inkster Police Caught on Dashcam

24 March 2015

Report by Detroit‘s WDIV.

Damning Video Shows What May Be the Most Violent Police Brutality Ever Recorded

March 25, 2015

In what might be the worst case of police brutality ever caught on tape, newly released video footage appears to show police officers dragging Floyd Dent, a 57-year-old black man, out of his car, putting him into a chokehold, striking him 16 times in the head and tasering him while he was held down on the ground and being handcuffed.

The arrest occurred on Jan. 28 in Inkster, Michigan, but the footage was only just released Wednesday, reports Think Progress.

In total, 10 officers arrived to the scene, though none stopped what appears, on the police car footage, to be an overly aggressive handling of Dent.

The incident: Police reports indicated Dent was pulled over for a traffic violation, according to ClickonDetroit.com, which, from the recorded footage, appears to be running a stop sign. The video then shows Dent opening the door of his Cadillac as the two officers approach the car, guns drawn, before quickly pulling him out of the car and shoving him violently on the ground.

Dent was then put into a chokehold and beaten 16 times on his head, according to the police report, as the second officer attempted to handcuff him behind his back. Several more officers then arrived on the scene, at which point Dent was Tasered three times.

According to police reports, notes the Detroit Free Press, police say Dent opened his car door and looked at the officers with the “blank stare as if on a form of narcotic” and then said, “I’ll kill you.” Conversely, according to Dent, the police yelled, “Get out of the car! I’ll blow your head off!” There is no recorded audio available to confirm or deny either claim.

The incident seemed to have escalated extremely quickly and only lasted a few minutes. An uncut version of the video is also available, but ends before entire interaction in finished:

This video from Michigan in the USA says about itself:

Police dashcam footage shows man pulled from car, punched

25 March 2015

Floyd Dent was reportedly protecting himself from being beaten and choked when he was arrested in January by Inkster Police.

The Matt Essert article continues:

The aftermath: “He was beating me upside the head,” Dent told reports during a press conference Wednesday at his attorney’s office, reports the Free Press. “I was trying to protect my face with my right arm. I heard one of them say, ‘tase the M…F. ‘”

The Free Press also reports police initially charged Dent with “assault, resisting arrest, and possession of cocaine, insisting they found cocaine beneath the passenger seat of his Cadillac.” Dent denied any drug possession, though that charge will still be considered in court on April 1.

As for the other two charges however, after reviewing the video tape, an Inkster district court judge threw out the charges, noting there was no evidence Dent did either of those things, as the video clearly shows.

“I’m lucky to be living. I think they was trying to kill me, especially when they had choked me,” Den said, according to ClickedOnDetroit. “I mean, I was on my last breath. I kept telling the officer, ‘Please, I can’t breathe.'”

Why you should care: Though the violent police footage captured on this Jan. 28 night is damning enough as it is, considering the string of similar videos depicting police brutality, as well as the deaths of multiple black Americans — such as Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Eric Garner in New York and 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland — at the hands of white cops, it’s impossible not to notice the trend in the United States of black men being targeted by white police officers.

As the Department of Justice’s report released earlier this month on their civil right investigation into the Ferguson, Missouri, police department demonstrated, there is a clear bias against black Americans in terms of how they are viewed by cops, how they are treated and how they are arrested. Perhaps, that wasn’t enough evidence to convince some people there is a problem. But if this damning video showing the brutal beating of Floyd Dent isn’t enough evidence, maybe nothing ever will be.

h/t Think Progress

Dashboard camera footage released Tuesday captured the shocking beating of Floyd Dent, a 57-year-old African American and longtime Ford worker, during a routine traffic stop last January after he ran a stop sign with an expired license: here.

By now the nation is familiar with the murder of Michael Brown in St. Louis, Missouri and Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. Less familiar are the stories of Ramarley Graham and Darrien Hunt. Ramarley, a student from the Bronx, New York, was eighteen years old when he was followed into his house by police and shot in his bathroom. Police claimed he was running and had reason to believe he had a weapon or drugs he was trying to flush down the toilet. An investigation proved he walked normally into his house and had neither drugs nor a weapon: here.

Fleece Force: How Police And Courts Around Ferguson Bully Residents And Collect Millions: here.

A piece of artwork by a local high school student was pulled from an exhibit at a mall in Terrytown, a suburb of New Orleans. The piece, ironically painted to resemble a police recruitment poster, shows an officer with a nightstick pointing and smiling at the viewer, with a picture of a pig on his badge, while figures in the background stand with their hands raised. A slogan above and below the officer reads: “Join the Force & Get Away with Murder”: here.

Video shows US police officer taser and pepper-spray African-American man who had suffered a stroke: here.

Half a Century Later, Malcolm X’s Words on Police Brutality Are Just as Relevant as Ever: here.