Video Shows Black Teen Brutally Beaten by NYPD Officers Was Not Holding Drugs, Did Not Punch Officer

[marmar]

Video Shows Black Teen Brutally Beaten by NYPD Officers Was Not Holding Drugs, Did Not Punch Officer


In January, four NYPD officers were caught on tape brutally beating 19-year-old Jateik Reed in the Bronx. The officers claimed they stopped Reed after seeing him hold marijuana and a bag containing crack residue, and that Reed struck police first. Now, surveillance video obtained by New York One appears to show that the entire confrontation was unprovoked -- and that the charges officers levied against the Black youth are false.

Reed did not punch officers as they claimed, and Reed's hands -- but no drugs -- are clearly visible in the video. What is not clear, however, is where the drugs police must have submitted to evidence came from. In March, Reed's attorneys told AlterNet that the not-yet-released footage proved Reed did not hit officers or act suspiciously in any way. But they also said that the officers appear to pick drugs up from the ground.

Reed's attorney Michael Warren told AlterNet the video "clearly indicates two things."

"Number one," he said, "That it was a racially contextual stop, because they weren't involved with any criminal activity whatsoever." Jateik Reed told AlterNet the stop-and-frisk turned violent when when he threatened to file a complaint to the Civilian Complaint Review Board. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/912616/video_shows_black_teen_brutally_beaten_by_nypd_officers_was_not_holding_drugs%2C_did_not_punch_officer/

[noamnety]

1. Laws I'd like to see:

Any policeman at any level found guilty of fabricating or falsifying evidence (or covering up the fabrication) should automatically be sentenced to the longest term their victim could have gotten for the crime they tried to pin on them.

[libinnyandia]

3. And lose all retirement benefits.

[Mariana]

13. I like that idea.

If they're tried and found guilty of such an act, the mandatory sentence should be just as you say. I'd also include prosecutors who withhold exculpatory evidence, and witnesses who lie on the stand against a defendant.

Unfortunately, cops are hardly ever prosecuted for this kind of thing. It happens, but it's pretty rare.

[Permanut]

2. Okay, but he coulda had some skittles

and/or iced tea hidden somewhere on his person.

[JI7]

5. and he was still black

[eek MD]

4. Bag containing crack residue?

I'm curious how far away these cops were when they "saw him holding marijuana". Unless you're right up in someone's face, it looks quite a bit like regular tobacco. And it's not as if they knew the bag contained crack residue just from looking at it.

This shit pisses me off.... It's an obvious attempt by police to justify actions which were clearly "excessive" after the fact by painting the victim as a heinous criminal. Put my white ass in a business suit in a swanky rich neighborhood, and I guarantee you that while holding the same items I wouldn't even be given a second glance by the cops.

[GETTINGTIRED]

6. sadly

and yet these are the folks we are suppose to teach our children to obey and trust..........

[George Cauldron]

7. There's only one way to deal with the police of today:

They have to be wearing cameras that record everything they do on the job. Dashcams aren't enough. It has to be something attached to their heads so every minute of their shift is recorded and can be reviewed to verify any claims they make. It would be costly, but it would be worth it considering how a story like this seems to come forward every other day. And for every instance like this where a camera catches them lying, who knows how many instances there are of them acting like this and getting away with it because it was their word against the victi... I mean "criminal".

[Smilo]

8. Where are these so called officers

coming from - they are a disgrace to the uniform - but then isn't this the same force that used a broken broom handle to sodomize an Haitian immigrant - how screwed up and perverse are these people?

I hope Jateik is okay and that he prevails in this case - these men need to be dismissed immediately without any type of benefits whatsoever. And then they should be prosecuted for bodily harm and lying.

p.s. There is no wonder that so many "officers" are getting upset when they are being filmed by civilians - they can't get away with such terrible behavior anymore.

[DAngelo136]

9. Just goes to show...

That despite King Mike Bloomberg's assertions, we have a brutal police force in NYC. All Bloomberg turned out to be was a Giuliani with a human face. Now we're faced with the prospect of Ray Kelly running for mayor and 4 more years of this crap. Ever since the the fiscal crisis of the 1970's the FIRE (Financial, Insurance & Real Estate) interests have slowly but surely privatized and corporatized this city to the point that unless you make over $50,000 a year, you can't live here. And even that much is pretty dicey. You've got people who pay $1000 per month or more for 300 square feet or less to live in; commercial rents are so high, long time businesses have gone out of business because they can't afford the ever increasing rents. It's $7.00 to cross the RFK, Throggs Neck, Whitestone and Verrazano bridges and the tunnels to the other boroughs, and God help you if you have to go to New Jersey. These bridges and tunnels were supposed to be paid off decades ago. Just a few years ago Bloomberg floated a plan to put tolls on the remaining bridges linking the Bronx to Manhattan, with London as his model; for "relieving congestion" he said. Mind you, this was the same guy who wanted to build a football stadium on the west side of Manhattan. Now if you're familiar with NYC, you know how difficult it is to get around when the Knicks or the Rangers are at the Garden, which holds about, 17,000-imagine 75,000 people after a football game; it would have been a traffic nightmare. Between the gentrification, the police brutality, the high unemployment, somethings going to give and you may have one of those "long, hot summers" that plagued cities in the 1960's. You can't have this kind of disparity of wealth and not expect something to give. And I'm predicting that NYC will find itself in another fiscal crisis when Bloomberg leaves office because I believe he's papering over the financial shenanigans in the budget and the next mayor, God help him, will have a problem on his hands.

[Comrade Grumpy]

10. This shit happens all the time. Those NYPD punks are out of control.

Where is effective oversight of NYPD? Anybody?

[Cali_Democrat]

11. This happens all the time

It just so happens that it was caught on tape this time. But keep in mind, cops get away with this shit too often and now departments around the country are passing laws preventing people from filming their illegal actions.

[Zalatix]

12. What's the point?

The cops will make up some other reason to justify what they did, and good luck ever getting those cops to trial, much less a conviction.

Welcome to justice handed out by the world's 7th largest army.

[Mariana]

14. Once again, ALL the cops on the scene participate in the crimes.

Some folks like to keep telling us about how the "bad cops" are just a small minority and most don't do this kind of thing, and don't like the ones who do. So how come every single time we see one of these vids with more than one officer present, none of them ever tries to protect the victim from his or her colleagues?