Not New York's Finest

This is special. Two off duty female police officers didin't like it that there was a man parked with his car door open on the street side. They started cursing him, he yelled back - so they punched, pistol-whipped and beat him with a baton. They did, however, remember to notify him that they were police. As in, "You don't know who you're dealing with, we da $#%#^ police!" How special is that? ugh

Comments

[seekeronos]

Ah, this is never a good thing. Some folks just do not deserve to "protect and serve".

[joeb]

In general it is best to comply with police anywhere in the USA. In this case he should have shut his door and kept his mouth shut. Then there would have been no confrontation.

[templar knight]

Good point, joeb. But you have to admit that these people who block the road and won't move do get on people's nerves. In this case a traffic ticket would have been the punishment that fit the crime.

[seekeronos]

"--- In general it is best to comply with police anywhere in the USA. ---"

Generally, this is true.

But one thing that is noteworthy is that there is a disturbing trend to a lack of moderation and self-restraint on the part of many younger police officers: the willingness to pistol-whip a citizen (who unknowningly mouthed off to the wrong people at the worst possible time) into submission or to pull out the TASER as a first recourse to any given situation speaks ill of both modern police training and the individual officer's perception of his/her power over the rights and liberties of citizens.

Though one might be inclined to have little sympathy for the selfish road-hogs backing up traffic with their open doors, there is little chance that Mr. Road Hog had any notion that the two mouthy black women shouting obscenities at him were actually off-duty NYPD transit officers.

As TK observed - a flash of the badge and the ticket book (they were off-duty transit cops) should have been the beginning of the escalation process, and not the pistol whipping that resulted in 20+ staples to stitch the guy's broken skull back together.

More than half a lifetime ago, when I was particularly late for class, my lead-foot ran me afoul of an off-duty Fort Collins cop (who also happened to be a student at the same school) tailed me in his pick-up truck.

It was only after I parked did I notice this seemingly aggressive line-backerish guy, with a certain threatening demeanour, and I begin to wonder if I was about to have an unscheduled appointment with an emergency room: no sooner did I emerge from my car, was he upon me, flashing a badge with one hand, and his other hand under his jacket - not too discretely securing an obvious, large lump near his left underarm, commanding me to produce my license and registration.

Fortunately for me, I managed to produce the same, whilst frantically trying to keep from lower anatomy from trying to vault upwards through upper anatomy out of fear, and more fortunate still was the rather stern talking to he gave me that he'd be keeping an eye out for me to speed again.

Luckily, I complied most apologetically and promised that I would be more careful to plan my travel so as neither to be late nor unnecessarily speedy... and he didn't have a ticket book with him, or I'd most likely have gotten a ticket or been cuffed and worse.

For the record, I was easily doing 80 in a 55 zone (or so I was told)... ordinarily quite a moving violation. I am singularly glad it wasn't a bad-tempered cop with an attitude of smashing their perps into submission.

[Native Floridian]

What? No mace? No Taser? Guess the guy got off pretty easy...

[seekeronos]

Actually he got maced:

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20080819/2-nypd-officers-accused-of-assaulting-motorist.htm

If you check out the video, there is also some testimony that they maced the driver, then one of them pistolwhipped him, while the other officer beat him with a police baton.

Such is the lastest in a string of police brutality incidents with the NYPD, a product of the liberal Rudy Guiliani's influence. I'm a little surprised that this didn't escalate itself into the two fem-cops shooting the guy and planting a handgun on him.

The Giuliani-era NYPD seems to have attracted the bottom of the barrel of NYC, many of whom seem to be little better than thugs (and gangsta wimmins) with badges.

Hopefully this crime is punished most severely, and that these two vicious females are sent up the river for a very long time.

[LenS]

"The Giuliani-era NYPD seems to have attracted the bottom of the barrel of NYC, many of whom seem to be little better than thugs (and gangsta wimmins) with badges."

Interesting. But perhaps you should blame the Mayor who was actually in charge when they were joined the force.

"Anglin, who joined the NYPD in January 2005, was released on $25,000 bail. Robinson, who joined the force in January 2006, was released on $10,000 bail." See http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/08/18/2008-08-18_officers_beat_guy_bloody__fled_cops-2.html

They both joined years after Giuliani had left. Robinson even joined during Bloomberg's second term.