Orange County Criminal Lawyer Blog

An excerpt from a recent article in the Orange County Register reads as follows:

The acting Fullerton police chief has ordered an internal-affairs investigation into the October arrest of a man who was later acquitted of attacking a police officer and resisting arrest, a police sergeant said.

(Hamilton) became very concerned because upon initial investigation, it appears we may have arrested the wrong guy that night," Goodrich said. "During our examination of the video, it appears that Mam was not the person who assaulted the first officer earlier in the video, but that's what the investigation is going to look into.

First, it must be noted that this kind of investigation and admission of wrongdoing would not be happening were it not for the brutal beating death of Kelly Thomas. Secondly, it should be lost on no one that this "investigation" is taking place AFTER a trial has already occurred.

Another excerpt from this revealing gem of a quote by Sgt. Goodrich:

Goodrich said investigators will examine court transcripts and talk to the parties involved to determine what happened and why.

This is akin to the CalTrans saying, "in light of the fact that the bridge collapsed, we have decided to inspect the structure of that bridge." That is, "talking to parties to determine what happened and why" is what the police are SUPPOSED to be doing in the first place, BEFORE an arrest is made and BEFORE a case goes to trial. Of course, Fullerton PD, like most other police departments, have perverted this solemn duty to both free the innocent and arrest the guilty into "arrest the guy with the bad attitude because you're drunk with power."

Later in the article, Sgt. Goodrich asks rhetorically:

Did the officers lie? Did they make a mistake? Did they have other information that wasn't captured in the video?

Did the officers lie? Yes. Yes they did. They were there that night. They arrested Mam. They testified at trial about the reasons for the arrest. If they did not lie, there would not have been a case to prosecute.

Thankfully, in the rarest of outcomes, despite the officers' testimony, Mam was acquitted July 7 of misdemeanor charges of battery on a peace officer, assault on a peace officer and resisting arrest. Thankfully there was a jury willing to do the right thing and a defense attorney committed to justice willing to explain it to that jury. The vast majority of the time, the testimony of the officers is enough to get a jury to convict and innocent people go to prison.

Incidents such as this, in which the police admit wrongdoing, are incredibly rare, but revealing of what goes on all the time in our justice system. It is becoming obvious that the problems with police officers are far too endemic to be solved with "additional police training," as has been proposed by many who are not grasping the scope of the problem. What must be done instead is to overhaul the hiring standards for police officers, and to "take out the trash" from the current staff. Only individuals of the highest moral character are truly qualified to perform the duties of a police officer. Lie detectors, psychological examinations, and other such objective testing must be used in that process, and not by the police department itself, but by a neutral organization charged with the duty of weeding out the thuggery and garbage rampant in the ranks of our police departments.

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.