I had to start a blog after witnessing the Kelly Thomas Case
on numerous news outlets, facebook posts and the many personal conversations
I’ve had in the last couple of weeks. For those of you who have not yet heard
or are aware of this case, you should be. It is a perfect example of not having
a snowball’s chance in hell of convincing a jury in the “Great” County of
Orange (arguably the strictest County in the entire US and not at all the
Utopia the OC and Laguna Beach TV shows portray it to be) to hold police
accountable for their absolutely shocking and appalling actions. I don’t even
know the words to describe what this is. Grotesque? Disgusting? Repugnant? Inhumane? No
that’s not even close to adequate for what this was. There is no
all-encompassing word in fact, but it is the perfect example of a police state at
its worst that has gotten completely out of control. And it's not just about this incident in Orange
County, California. This drift towards total blanket immunity for authority has
been going on for some time now and people are finally starting to take notice.
If you think the United States is “the land of the free and
home of the brave,” you need to seriously reassess. William Wells Brown once
said:
This [the United States] is called "the land of the
free and the home of the brave"; it is really
the "asylum of the oppressed," and some have been foolish enough to
call it the "Cradle of Liberty." If it is the "Cradle of
Liberty," they have rocked the child to death.”
Well it’s been a rocking for a while. And it’s reached the
tipping point.
I am quite familiar with the mentality of the authorities in
Orange County all too well having started law school in 2004 at Chapman
University in the city of Orange. I’m sure I will elaborate more in future blog
posts but for now we’ll stick to this incident. Anyways, it surely doesn’t take
first-hand experience to understand how horrific this truly was. So let’s get
to the facts…
In short, what happened a couple weeks ago was that two
former Fullerton, California cops charged with killing a homeless man in 2011
that was schizophrenic, Kelly Thomas, were found not guilty of all charges.
The officers not only beat the living shit out of Thomas until
his face was so battered it was literally beyond recognizable, but they also
broke several of his ribs and crushed his thorax. In layman terms, that means
it pretty much made it impossible for him to breathe, and quite obviously, was a big contributing factor to the cause if his death.
To any reasonable person, this was murder clear as day! There’s
really no question about it, no matter who you are. But Orange County you see,
is not made up of a majority of reasonable people. In fact, you could say that
same statement for the generally uninformed population in the entire United Police States of America. You see, I
added that police part? Well in my opinion, that is what it has become I’m
afraid. (**Obviously this is not to say that all authority figures such as cops
are evil and responsible for this type of action-many truly lay their lives on
the line and anyone who can’t see BOTH sides of the argument depending on the
given situation at the time is an
idiot. And I don’t consider myself an idiot so I wanted to point that out. But
it is the trend towards this police state mentality that I am worried
about. And it is an extremely disquieting one. The American people need to wake up
to this. Take a quick look here to get a quick reference to what I am talking
about Beginning of a Police State
Now getting back to the facts, despite these truly
horrendous injuries, defendant police officer Ramos' attorney, (the same scum
bag that represented one of the LAPD officers involved in the beating of Rodney
King) had the audacity to say the police officers involved were attempting "to use less force, not more," in beating
Thomas to death.
John Barnett, the aforementioned attorney scumbag, told one
of the most obvious lies I’ve ever heard at the trial, which included the
following:
1.
Prosecutors conspired with four dishonest
doctors to “frame” the defendants
2.
Kelly Thomas posed a violent, lethal threat
necessitating responding deadly force by officers.
3.
The several-minute police beating did not lead
to the death that occurred…somehow, someway, the cause of death will be forever
an unsolved mystery (Maybe we’ll see the old host of the show come back for
this one ).
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Kelly died as a
direct result of these unspeakable acts by the police, you know the same ones
that are supposed to “protect and serve.”
At the end of the trial Barnett, lying through his teeth, said, "The jury
clearly understood the law and the facts,"
Oh really? Did they?
Ramos was the first to instigate. And as Ramos (the main
police officer charged) stood over a frightened and disoriented Thomas he made
a show of putting on his latex gloves.
"See my fists?" Ramos asked Thomas.
"Yeah," Thomas replied. "What about
them?"
"They are getting ready to f— you up."
"Start punching, dude," Thomas replied.
After this, Thomas was tackled, hit with a police baton, held
to the ground, punched multiple times in his ribs, kneed in the head, tasered
four times and then struck in the face with the taser device eight times. As a
result he suffered brain injuries, a shattered nose, a smashed cheekbone,
broken ribs and internal bleeding all resulting, all while crying out to please
stop and asking his Dad for help multiple times. This truly sickens me....
See for yourself on this video. But I warn you, it is truly graphic:
See for yourself on this video. But I warn you, it is truly graphic:
There’s really not a whole lot more
to say after you see this. It's got to be hard for anyone to make it through this video without feeling sick. And such a thing can happen from the
very people who are supposed to be protecting us? This surely has to be an
isolated incident right? I’m afraid not folks.
Some additional things that might
pique your interest:
These are also a couple of pretty good sites that provide a great
summary of the case and other information I won’t get into now.
For those of you who have your doubts about the direction
the US is heading, check the following stories out that happened in the last couple
of weeks as well.
And this article from a year ago in Rhode Island which shows
that this exists on both extreme sides of the US. Sorry to say but the United Police States of
America mentality has been going in this direction for a while now. This is not an
isolated incident. It's time to wake up to this abuse of power by those in authority. Please sound off in the comments.
