Police beats and shock 76 year old man.

One of my younger brothers was beaten by two cops a few years ago. A cop pulled him over telling him his tail light was out. He had my brother get out and walk back to take a look at it; that's when a second officer pulled up and got out. My brother asked one of his coworkers who were riding with him to hit the brake so the light could be checked...to my brother's surprise, there was nothing wrong with the light.

Suddenly one officer grabbed him & the other was trying to handcuff him, and when he asked why he was being arrested, he was punched in the face & knocked to the asphalt. They started kicking & stomping the shit out of him until he was fucked up enough they had to take him to the hospital (he was having trouble breathing). They should've called an ambulance, but of course they didn't; they dragged him to one of their cars and threw him in the back. One of them told my bro's coworkers to "get the fuck outta here", so they drove his truck to his girlfriend's house to tell her what had happened.

When they got to the ER, my brother had road rash on his face, arm, & shoulder (his shirt was torn all to hell), he had three broken ribs, a partially collapsed lung, & multiple abrasions, contusions, & cuts all over his body. He was there for several hours, and those asshole cops kept trying to get him to sign the police report they'd filled out for him, but of course he refused. They were badgering him so much about signing it, the ER staff had to tell them to leave. They told them they planned on admitting him, so they'd have to come back the next day. When my brother heard that, he refused to be admitted, and once he was stable, he had his girlfriend pick him up. He was afraid to be there when/if they showed back up.

Needless to say, the whole experience freaked him the hell out! He didn't know what to do or where to go for help. It didn't matter that he hadn't done anything wrong; there was no doubt in his mind that they'd get away with what they did to him. He avoided coming into town at all costs (he lived outside the city limits)...when he went to work or anywhere else, he took routes that didn't come through town. He didn't know if they were still after him or not, but he was afraid.

About 6 months later they issued a warrant for him for "resisting arrest", and a county officer showed up at his job to take him to jail. It took about three months to sort it all out, but thanks to the his two coworkers as witnesses and the family making a big stink, they dropped the charge on my brother and the city paid his hospital bills...it wasn't enough IMO but more than was expected from them. The explanation he finally got was that they "thought he was someone else they'd been looking for" (who turned out to be one of our much older meth-head cousins). Nothing happened to the asshole officers who did it though; they're both still working today.

 

He's been asked many times why he didn't sue, and his response is that he doubted he would win. He understandably has no faith in this rigged sysytem, and he felt like it would make him, his son, and other family members even bigger targets to these small-town asshole cops than they already were. Growing up poor already puts a person at a disadvantage when it comes to the law, and it certainly didn't help my brothers that our older relatives stayed in trouble with the law around here. Not only did being poor have an effect, being related to certain people makes a person "one of them" in the local law enforcement's eyes.