By R. Scott Moxley
Four days into the sensational
Kelly Thomas murder trial, it's clear that defense lawyers for two Fullerton
cops accused of criminal conduct in the gory July 2011 police killing will rely
largely on half-truths, complete distortions and semi-cleverly spun nonsense to
win.
I reported after the Dec. 2
opening statements that John Barnett and Michael Schwartz, lawyers for Manuel
Ramos and Jay Cicinelli, declared that a severe, five-minute attack by a group
of cops was not even a minor factor in the death of the unarmed, comparatively
small, homeless man.
As if somehow exculpatory for
their clients, Barnett and Schwartz proclaim that Thomas (blood-covered,
unconscious and horrifically mauled) still had a pulse at the immediate
conclusion of the beating.
Though the defense claims
Thomas killed himself during the attack by overexerting an enlarged heart and
suffering a heart attack, the coroner who performed the autopsy ruled that out
as a possibility during today's testimony.
"He died with an enlarged
heart," said Dr. Aruna Singhania. "But he didn't die because of an
enlarged heart."
Singhania directly attributed
the cause of death to what everyone but apologists for police brutality knows:
The length and severity of the unnecessary physical attack--including numerous
crushing blows to his face--restricted Thomas' oxygen supply.
Orange County District Attorney
Tony Rackauckas quickly followed up, asking that at the very time Thomas needed
more oxygen during the incident, was his supply "getting less and
depleted"?
"That's correct," the
veteran coroner replied.
Digital audio records made by
police at the scene document the 37-year-old Thomas repeatedly and with
ever-increasing exasperation telling the much-heavier officers pummeling him
with punches, kicks, baton slams, stomps and Taser gun blasts, "I can't
breathe."
The defense team has tried to
use the declarations to, at best, underscore their laughable assertion that
Thomas' complaints of pain at the scene had no merit, and, at worse, to mock the
dead man's statement as a lie.
They've even secured testimony
that if a person can say he can't breathe, then he's breathing.
But to view Thomas' statement
without context is as absurd as holding someone accountable for the literal
meaning of the following type of utterances: "I lost my head,"
"You crack me up," "I have a chip on my shoulder" and
"Lend me your ear."
Under an attack that would kill
him, Thomas voiced an urgent expression that was ignored by the cops. He wasn't
uttering a lie. He was communicating that he felt the horrific sensation of
losing critical oxygen.
Guess what, folks?
Despite the defense team's
premature freeze-framing of events to when Thomas was alive, he ultimately fell
unconscious while hog-tied at the feet of joke-cracking cops, who rendered no
aid and fretted about minor scratches they suffered.
Shortly thereafter, the
man--who'd committed no crime and certainly no act to justify his execution by
the Fullerton Police Department--lost his breath forever.
During the three-minute
ambulance trip to a hospital trauma unit, Thomas' heart stopped beating, and
according to paramedics, he flatlined on the electrocardiogram.
(During the preliminary hearing phase in the
case, Barnett and Schwartz strongly implied that Thomas might have died because
of medical incompetence after he'd been moved from the cops.)
Over the objections of the
defense before the noon recess, Rackauckas showed the jury multiple autopsy
photographs of a badly beaten corpse.
The defense team will work to
undermine Dr. Singhania's findings beginning this afternoon and will likely
continue to press its claim that Rackauckas coached the coroner on the cause of
death, an assertion Singhania testified is groundless.
