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| No | 72% | 31 votes | Total: 43 votes | |
| Yes | 28% | 12 votes |
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Add to FavoritesOn May 5th in Philadelphia a local television news helicopter recorded a vicious assault on the three shooting suspects in Philadelphia. After a nationwide broadcast of the beatings the community and the world were outraged. Once again we where pushed into a familiar and unwelcome past that was now back in our present.
So many had questions, and wanted answers. Have we as a people grown since the days of Rodney King? Have the police fallen back into the GOD complex? Many began to draw correlation with the Sean Bell verdict. Is it evident that the police in metropolitan cities aren't held accountability when they brutally attack suspects? Most people believe that the police keep order, so why do they continue to create the chaos? The questions are plentiful but the answers aren't.
19 officers "take down" the suspects, a barrage of men with batons and guns hitting, kicking and pummeling men who are on the ground and helpless. Similarities to Rodney King beating are phenomenal, in both cases the suspects were African Americans and the officers were Caucasian but with the recent beating there was one African American officer involved in the fray. Another similarity, racism is being denied from Police as expected. Has there ever been a modern day case where the police readily admit the beating was because of the color of the suspects' skin? At the time the answer is no.
There was quick reaction to the shameful event. The Mayor of Philadelphia who is an African American man, stood up and denounced the activities of these officers, with his backing immediate action to terminate, suspend without pay as well as demoting the officers involved. In the urban community it was quick noticed, that these actions were a complete opposite of the Sean Bell case. In that case the Mayor of New York decided to not make a move until the trial was decided. The question lingers, why would there be such drastic difference in actions? In the Sean Bell case a young man was murdered on his wedding day, shouldn't the laws be stricter? No one wants to take away from what the three young men who were beaten suffered. However, the confusion is large, the way a murder case was handled should be the model for the people in charge but the opposite has happened and the beating is leading the way rogue police need to be handled.
The United States of America should admit to itself that we can never move forward with the mistreatment of individuals until we admit the root of the problem. History has taught us that this country was created based hatred and deceit. How far have we grown from our founding fathers legacy? Sad to say but not fair at all even with an African American man running for President Of The United States of America.
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Yes
A qualified yes: There's usually no instance in U.S. law when cops are permitted to deliberately injure or kill suspects, unless the cops or bystanders are in immediate mortal danger. From the videos that have been released to the public so far, it appears that the dire situation was not present at the Philadelphia beating scene. At the distasteful risk of sounding like ACLU lawyers who usually want all murderers immediately released from jail, I believe the premise has to be that the suspects in this case are innocent until proven guilty. And so are the cops.
Legally, it appears that those Philly cops had no right to act as on-the-spot judge, jury and instruments of punishment. However, the police report states that the armed suspects were in a street gun battle moments earlier, and had wounded three people before jumping into a car and racing off to escape the pursuing police. They were armed, dangerous and had already fired their weapons. If the beatings after the capture can be proven to be based on that information, then maybe the Philly cops were using necessary force to subdue them. Of course, the courts will have to make the decision.
Remember Rodney King, who suffered a beating by Los Angeles cops in an eerily similar scene in 1991? Activists and rioters then turned the city streets into destructive mob scenes, where they beat up innocent people, burned buildings, looted stores and took home new TV sets. Then, the martyr King said those immortal words, "Can't we all just get along?" Sorta makes your eyes tear up, doesn't it.
However, after the Los Angeles smoke and ruin had cleared, the truth came out that he already had a long rap sheet, and it was revealed that King had served time as a petty burglar and drug dealer. Testimony also reported that King, on the night of the infamous beating, was high on drugs, had led police on a dangerous 100-mile-an-hour chase on the L.A. freeways. Then, when the cops tried to subdue him, he cursed, spit and kicked at them.
Just months after his martyrdom, the noble King was arrested several times again, once after dragging his wife into the street so that the neighbors could see him beat her up. Like the King fiasco, the usual crowd of professional activists, led by millionaire tax-evader Al Sharpton, are already out on Philly streets demanding justice for those poor, abused street thugs. What's next on the demonstration schedule, the parade of stolen new TV sets?
Philadelphia, which has some of the highest street crime statistics in the country, was the scene a week earlie of the murder of a police officer, Sergeant Stephen Liczbinski. He was shot down when he confronted heavily-armed bank robbers, and understandably, the members of the city police force are under a heavy strain.
The beating of the three suspects this week will be under investigation for some time, and the city cops will not be cleared just because they're angry that one of their own was killed in a senseless murder. Neither will the fact that they must face more dangerous streets every day be considered by the courts. So, that's the situation at this time, but where's Rodney King to offer a plea, just when Philly needs a meaningless cliche to beg street thugs to be kinder and gentler with their illegal weapons?
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