Cops do it again. Now it's "Charging Your Electric Vehicle While Black".
A Santa Monica man was arrested on April 21 while attempting to charge his electric vehicle, and the incident is sparking discussions of racial profiling and the use of force that mirror the current national debate.
All sides agree on a basic set of facts. Justin Leland Palmer, 36, an African-American, NYU grad and father of four with no criminal history, was at the Virginia Avenue Park electric car charging station on the evening of April 21. He was asked to leave the charging station by police, he refused, he was asked for his identification, he refused, he was then tackled to the ground, pepper-sprayed and arrested. However, details, including why some of those actions were taken, are heavily disputed.
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Camarena said when contacted, Palmer refused to leave the charging station and after making multiple requests for him to leave, officers decided to issue Palmer a citation. Palmer refused to provide his identification as part of the citation process, at which point officers decided to make an arrest for obstructing an officer and violating the posted hours of the park.
“During the arrest, the subject actively resisted,” said a statement issued by SMPD. “Officers deployed pepper spray and physically restrained him. The subject was taken to Santa Monica Public Safety Facility where he was fingerprinted and booked. At the Santa Monica Jail the subject complained of pain. He was transported to the Santa Monica Hospital for treatment and was medically cleared. The subject was subsequently issued a citation and released.”
http://smdp.com/police-pepper-spray-santa-monica-man-park-dispute/147521#sthash.S9rXP1TS.dpuf
More details:
Palmer would not comment. Instead, he directed questions to his attorney, Justin H. Sanders, a Partner with Sanders, Roberts & Jewett.
According to Sanders, Palmer routinely uses the charging stations at the park. On April 21, he said, Palmer entered the park at about 9:30 p.m. and found all the charging bays in use. He waited in his car until about 10:30 p.m. when a charger became available. Palmer drove from one side of the parking lot to the now-open charging station, where officers contacted him.
Sanders described the officers’ behavior as “aggressive” from the start and said his client was singled out for police contact despite the presence of other people using the park and charging vehicles. He said when Palmer asked officers to explain why he was being prohibited from using the stations, the officers demanded to see identification. Palmer questioned why his identification was needed, as he felt he had done nothing wrong, and it was at that point he was arrested. According to Sanders, the arresting officer cuffed Palmer’s hands behind his back, swept his legs from under him and took him to the ground. While on the ground, Sanders said, a second officer used pepper spray on Palmer.
http://insideevs.com/attempt-to-charge-nissan-leaf-after-hours-ends-with-owner-pepper-sprayed-and-tackled-by-police-wvideo/
= new reply since forum marked as read
He should know better. Cops become enraged when they see a black man with a car they themselves can't afford.
Sorry for my French, but this is just nuts. I'm so tired of hearing this almost daily now, that I'm ready to drop by my local police station and ask them what the hell is wrong with you people!
Have these cops always been doing this and only because of the internet we are finally hearing about it, or is this a fairly new phenomenon?
And thirdly, what can we do about changing this? It has to stop, it's sick, it's disgusting, and we as a society shouldn't be allowing this to go on.
...because I like to pretend I live in some kind of Democratic Republic, not some "Papers Please!" fascist state.
I'm way more bad-ass than any "Second Amendment" gun nut. I don't need guns to feel secure.
I'm also keenly aware I can get away with that because I'm very white and usually very polite.
I learned polite by bad example. My wild west mom and her mom often failed in the polite department. But way back then any cop who provoked a physical altercation with an angry white women and lost would have been marked forever as a sissy. Damaging or killing a white women wouldn't enhance a cop reputation.
When the courts declared my grandma a danger to herself and others, she held off the police and paramedics for about four hours that seemed like centuries, hitting, kicking, clawing, throwing things, biting, and cussing like the World War II shipyard welder and after hours party girl she once was.
My mom had previously removed the guns from grandma's house, but later we found more.
Either my grandma had forgotten where she'd hid the guns, or she'd still been sane enough not to escalate a hopeless situation.
I wouldn't trust many of today's cops as far as I'd have trusted my grandma at her very, very, wild west worst.
Grandma's Berserker states could almost be considered an art form. But in cops such behavior is simply very crass, ugly, unprofessional, occasionally escalating to outright murderous.
My great grandma owned a home there, sold in the 'fifties, but that's a historical detail. My grandma and her sister ran away to Hollywood as teens. My great grand mom followed shortly after to protect her daughters' honors. She was not successful. My great aunt had multiple Hollywood husbands, and my grandma graduated from UCLA and married a very eccentric Army Air Force rocket scientist.
The reason I was sleeping in my car was that I'd just returned from some very dirty desert evolutionary biology field work, stinky and dirty, and I didn't want to want to wake my girlfriend up too early.
My wonderful plan was to surprise her as her morning alarm went off and make her breakfast before she went to work.
Double plus fail. I got rolled by the police and my girlfriend was angry I hadn't called ahead.
Charging While Black? What's next? I mean we already have DWB and WWB. I guess Breathing While Black is in there, too.
