"The Fredericksburg [Virginia] Police Department released this body camera video of
Officer Shaun Jurgens. Jurgens used a stun gun and pepper sprayed a man
who was having a medical emergency May 4. Some audio was redacted to
protect personal information of the driver."
Washington was unarmed, but police considered him a hit-and-run suspect
after his car allegedly struck another vehicle and knocked down a road
sign before coming to a stop at the intersection of Cowan Boulevard and
Powhatan Street. ..
Washington’s lawsuit claimed he was in
“obvious and critical need of emergency medical care” and never gave
police a reason to believe he posed a threat. It lists the city,
Jurgens, and Officers Matt Deschenes and Crystal Hill as defendants.
The
suit claimed Deschenes and Hill held Washington at gunpoint for several
minutes as he sat unresponsive in the driver’s seat of his stopped car.
The officers asked him to show his hands and exit the car, but
Washington could not do so because he had suffered from a stroke while
driving.
According to the
lawsuit, Jurgens arrived several minutes later and fired a Taser at
Washington with no verbal warning, striking him in the face. Deschenes
then holstered his firearm and opened the driver’s side door of
Washington’s car, “further confirming” the suspect had no weapons. The
suit said Jurgens sprayed a can of pepper spray into Washington’s face,
drew his gun and shouted: “Get out the car or I’m going to [expletive]
smoke you!”
The lawsuit says after
Deschenes pulled Washington from the vehicle, the car rolled backward
and a tire struck Washington in the foot as he lay handcuffed on the
road. Hill then drove the vehicle off Washington’s foot, the suit said.
Discussion thread at the Bad Cop No Donut subreddit. The YouTube discussion thread is even more critical.
As long as cops are trained to be defensive and adversarial, as opposed to supportive and consensual, this shit will just keep happening. That and constantly letting them get away with it. Here in the Netherlands we have the occasional murder but it's not unusual to see cops in my city throwing snowballs with kids in winter. Different attitude.
The Netherlands doesn't suffer from the gun nut mentality that we have here in America which leads to violence as the first response rather than the last resort. I'm certain you know how lucky you are.
I lived in Virginia for ten years, the cops there are TERRIBLE. One of my co-workers actually lost his adult son when an cop shot him (completely unprovoked). The co-worker was white, so it wasn't a racial thing, the son was unarmed, in PJs. In another incident, my husband was almost hit by a car when he tried to exchange insurance info after a fender bender (guy tried to hit and run). The police LOST the information from the eyewitnesses. Luckily for us, we had copies of the contact info, but if we had relied on the police to do their job, that guy would've gotten away with it. Let me say that I deeply respect the hard work cops have to do, and anyone who has worked a retail or restaurant job can understand how dealing with the public can drive you slowly insane. We need to pay our police force better, fund mental health support so police don't have to be de facto psychologists, and hold them accountable for incidents like this.
As long as cops are trained to be defensive and adversarial, as opposed to supportive and consensual, this shit will just keep happening. That and constantly letting them get away with it.
ReplyDeleteHere in the Netherlands we have the occasional murder but it's not unusual to see cops in my city throwing snowballs with kids in winter. Different attitude.
The Netherlands doesn't suffer from the gun nut mentality that we have here in America which leads to violence as the first response rather than the last resort. I'm certain you know how lucky you are.
DeleteJongeman. Ik hou je in de gaten hè.
DeleteBut, but... land of the free, home of the brave?
ReplyDeleteOh, wait. Sorry. Land of the coward, home of the slave. Fixed that for you.
I lived in Virginia for ten years, the cops there are TERRIBLE. One of my co-workers actually lost his adult son when an cop shot him (completely unprovoked). The co-worker was white, so it wasn't a racial thing, the son was unarmed, in PJs.
ReplyDeleteIn another incident, my husband was almost hit by a car when he tried to exchange insurance info after a fender bender (guy tried to hit and run). The police LOST the information from the eyewitnesses. Luckily for us, we had copies of the contact info, but if we had relied on the police to do their job, that guy would've gotten away with it.
Let me say that I deeply respect the hard work cops have to do, and anyone who has worked a retail or restaurant job can understand how dealing with the public can drive you slowly insane. We need to pay our police force better, fund mental health support so police don't have to be de facto psychologists, and hold them accountable for incidents like this.