The
Kelly Thomas case makes it hard to be optimistic about police.
Steven
Greenhut |
Ron Thomas
SACRAMENTO
— I’ve always taken comfort in comedian George Carlin’s quip that “scratch any
cynic and you will find a disappointed idealist.” It’s not that cynics want the
world to go to that proverbial “hell in a hand basket,” but they’ve been
disappointed so many times they’ve lowered their expectations.
This
one-time idealist wants to believe that in a free society the rulers are held
to the same standards as the ruled, that the public wouldn’t stand for the kind
of official brutality that takes place in unfree nations and that juries would
punish killers even if they wear a uniform.
Yet
over years of writing about policing issues, it’s hard to remain hopeful. No
matter how egregious the incident — police gunning down a troubled teen in an
empty park, shooting a fleeing suspect in the back, or planting evidence in a
car trunk — there’s rarely any punishment. Then there’s the effect of watching
the lobbying tactics police unions use in the Capitol to quash modest efforts
to boost accountability.
So
it wasn’t surprising when, in July 2011, the Fullerton political establishment
rushed to the defense of officers who had beaten a 130-pound homeless
schizophrenic named Kelly Thomas. The public saw the published photo ofThomas’
horribly swollen and bruised face, yet the mayor went on TV saying he had seen
worse injuries in the Vietnam War and that it was unclear what killed Thomas,
who died in a hospital days after the whomping.
We
also learned that police officers confiscated the video camera of a bystander
and were allowed to watch the surveillance video of the incident and
essentially get their stories straight before giving their statements. It
looked, sadly, like business as usual.
But
then something happened to awaken that dormant idealist. Local residents were
outraged and began a series of peaceful protests — never mind that the mayor
compared them to a lynch mob. Two local businessmen organized and funded a
successful recall of council members who they viewed as culpable in downplaying
the incident. Then a district attorney with a law-and-order reputation pressed
charges against two of the officers, which is a rarity.
The
public could see what happened on the released transit-station video: Officer
Manuel Ramos confronted Thomas, slipped on a rubber glove and said that he was
going to “f---“ him up. Thomas was generally cooperative, yet the painfully
long beating and Tasing session began. Thomas begged for his life, but was left
in a pool of blood.
There
were signs that justice might prevail, but in the ensuing months, the police
union helped defeat council reformers. And in the final chapter recently, an
Orange County jury issued “not guilty” verdicts for ex-officers Ramos and Jay
Cicinelli. The latter already is pushing to be reinstated to the department.
“These
peace officers were doing their jobs … they did what they were trained to do,”
explained Ramos' attorney, John Barnett. The defense called witnesses —
including a Fullerton police training official — who echoed that same point.
Police supporters have said these officers were just doing their job. The
defense succeeded in portraying Thomas as a potentially violent, drug-abusing
homeless man who was not compliant. Now they say we should all just move on.
Nothing more to see here.
We
all know there are bad apples in every profession. But one can’t have it both
ways. This incident either was the result of rogue behavior by officers, as the
DA alleged, or is acceptable police procedure, as the defendants claimed. The
court decision effectively means the latter.
“We
offer our sincerest condolences to the family of Mr. Thomas and wish that this
situation never had to occur; however, we believe that the jury made the
correct decision in this case …,” said Mike Durant, president of the Peace Officers
Research Association of California (PORAC), a union group that runs a
legal-insurance fund that covered the officers’ legal bills. “This is a lesson
to everyone wearing a badge.”
What
will that lesson be? It may be hard to believe, but this verdict could leave
some observers even less idealistic and more cynical than before
