When Police Go Power Mad

Here's a video of a cop who is a bully and show never be given a badge:



From Huffington Post:

A mother who was zapped with a stun gun in front of her children during a New York traffic stop has filed notice she'll sue the sheriff's department.

A police video captured by a dashboard camera shows Deputy Sean Andrews yanking Audra Harmon out of her minivan by the arm and knocking her down with two Taser shots in January.

Harmon was charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and speeding. Her lawyer says prosecutors dismissed the charges after watching the videotape.

Harmon claims Andrews was improperly trained. She says a Taser isn't supposed to be used against people who pose no threat.

The sad fact is that a taser can be lethal weapon. How many people watching this video think that going 50 in 45 MPH zone is justification for being shot and killed by the police?

The sad fact is that you get the police you "deserve". They need to be trained. They need a proper salary. And they need to be held accountable for their actions. They have a tough job, but they don't have a free pass to abuse citizens. I don't doubt that Audra Harmon was mouthy and pushy. I wouldn't want to deal with her. But there is nothing on the cruiser video that justified pulling a weapon and shooting her. There is nothing to justify demanding that she lie face down on a public highway putting her life in danger from passing traffic. And there was no justification in hauling her off and forcing her to abandon her two children in the car for 40 minutes in the cold before somebody came by to pick them up and take them to safety.

This cop was put on "administrative duty". Personally, I think he should have been arrested for assault.

Here's a bit of a follow-up by MSNBC:



And it appears that it finally got settled by a $75,000 payment for damages suffered by Audra Harmon by the out-of-control cop.

Onondaga County has tentatively agreed to pay $75,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a woman Tasered in front of her two children by a sheriff’s deputy who’d pulled her over for going 50 in 45-mph zone.

...

The case drew national attention after The Post-Standard reported on it in August. A videotape of the incident taken by a camera on the dashboard of Andrews’ patrol car was posted on the newspaper’s Web site and circulated around the country. After the story ran, Harmon and her lawyer, Terrance Hoffmann, appeared on NBC’s “Today” show, and Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” featured it in a roundup of stun-gun cases.
Harmon, 38, said she wasn’t happy with the amount of the proposed settlement, but that she didn’t want the case hanging over her for two years until it went to trial.
“I just want it over and done with and put it behind me,” she said. “That’s why I settled.”
The sheriff’s office suspended Andrews for 30 days without pay in August, a week after the newspaper story. He’s still facing administrative charges, but the county was required to start paying him again after those 30 days, Walsh said. Andrews has been reporting to the sheriff’s temporary assignment unit for the past three months, Walsh said. In that unit, deputies facing pending discipline report to a room but are not allowed to do any work.

But it looks like the cop is unrepentant:

Andrews has said he could not comment. But he sent an email to his family and friends in response to the news coverage. He wrote that he did nothing wrong and that Walsh was playing politics by suspending him. Andrews questioned the timing of his suspension — long after the arrest but shortly after media coverage of it.

The “big kicker” was that a day after the arrest, his immediate supervisor wrote a memo to administrators saying Andrews did not violate the sheriff’s policies on use of force or Tasers, Andrews wrote.

I don't understand a policy that pay a guy who assaults somebody a paycheque to sit in a room and entertain himself while doing nothing productive. In fact, I don't understand why he wasn't fired immediately. The videotape is pretty convincing. But I guess in today's world the legal system gums things up enough that not much "justice" is ever delivered to anybody. Notice how Audra Harmon took the money and gave up because she didn't want two years of her life tied up trying to get "justice" from a system that is so unresponsive.