The death of Kelly Thomas after being taken into custody by six police officers at a public transit station last month in Fullerton is the object of federal and local investigations, sparking weekly protests outside the police station.
"Dad, Dad," were among Thomas' final words, captured on video by a cellphone as police subdued the 37-year-old just after darkness fell at the city's central bus and train depot July 5.
The video has been viewed more than 695,000 times on You Tube. A hospital-bed photograph Ron Thomas took as his son lay in a coma shows a face grotesquely swollen and bloody, eyes blackened.
There is one difference between this incident and countless others in the past where the unchallenged conclusion was commonly "he attacked and threatened the life of a police officer," or "he tried to grab my weapon," or "he refused to submit and kept trying to injure the heroic officers attempting to subdue him."
That difference is the cellphone video camera.
This incident is neither isolated nor a trend in a coarser, more violent modern society. This is the unshrouding, via mobile phone cam, of a disturbing problem that has Always existed. Capital "A" Always because violence under color of authority can be traced from ancient Rome, to Nazi Germany to late 20th Century Los Angeles.
Without technology, of course, incidents such as these have been easily concealed in America, where concealing them was imperative to preserving the public's naïve reverence of political leaders and the agents selected to carry out their policies. Any good criminal defense attorney can recite from memory the boilerplate language of every police account of such an incident:
Suspect #1, who [appeared to be under the influence of drugs/matched the description of a wanted suspect/was jaywalking] refused to comply with our commands, and then [reached into his pocket for what I suspected may be a weapon/took an aggressive step in our direction/stared at me in a way that, based on my training and experience, clearly indicated violent intent]. We therefore administered a "compliance strike" using our department-issued batons to suspect #1's leg area, at which time suspect #1 [yelled statements endangering our safety/flinched threateningly/attempted to run away from us and toward a car, which I suspected, based on my training and experience, may contain a stash of weapons]. We then chased suspect and forced him to the ground using department-approved techniques. At that point suspect became highly uncooperative, forcing us to administer additional compliance strikes to his head area and upper torso."
Such reports are routinely filed by police officers in cases where a suspect is severely injured by a police beating. Filed, by the way, in support of criminal charges against that "suspect" for resisting arrest and battery on a police officer. And then, without any video evidence to the contrary, often echoed by prosecutors at trial as follows: "ladies and gentleman of the jury, you have before you the testimony of these fine officers, versus the self-serving words of this Defendant, who is a lawbreaker found carrying marijuana, who violently attacked the officers, and who inexplicably refused to cooperate in putting his hands behind his back even after officers had him pinned to the ground."
Which would then have likely been followed by a swift conviction, doubling as permission to officers to use force in whatever way they see fit.
In the age of ubiquitous surveillance cameras and free mobile video technology from AT&T when you sign a two-year service contract, these incidents will seem to increase in prominence. But, as with past advancements like the microscope, we are now simply seeing what was always there.
