Friday, June 03, 2005

Sadists in uniform--no, not Abu Ghraib this time

You have to wonder what is the matter with these cops. They seem to represent the spirit of George Bush's America. These guys could work at Abu Ghraib.

I guess I should explain, in case the link stops working. Two cops--this is in Florida--stop a black woman who continues to talk on a cell phone to someone, telling the person she talking to that she is being pulled over. The cops tell her to put the phone down (like it's some kind of weapon!) They tell her to get out of the car, very belligerently. She continues to talk on the phone, saying, with a kind of unbelieving tone in her voice, that they are going to arrest her. They threaten to "tase" her, and then do so. Their excuse presumably is that she in not in "compliance" with their orders. (Later one of them accuses her of assaulting an officer--which certainly was not visible in the video. Did he say it to put a more plausible excuse for their behavior on the record? You decide.) She begins to scream uncontrollably, and thrash around. They tell her (I think) to stop screaming, and to get up. Then they tase her again. The screaming redoubles, and you see glimpses of her limbs thrashing like she is having a seizure. Screaming continues, a long time.

It's pretty gruesome.

The cops say it doesn't hurt, we had it done during training. Obviously, the woman knows they are full of shit. They are saying it for the video, I think.

(One of the things I have read about police training, is that they do get tased--but not with the full power tasers they use people on the street, which are by all accounts _extremely_ painful. As you see here.)

I dunno about you, but I found the video pretty intense, and pretty horrifying. If you did something like this to an animal, you'd be arrested for cruelty. Even in Florida. Even in Texas.

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