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From the youtube info bar:
*LVMPD found itself "exonerated"
(Of course they did.)
*The Clark County Citizen's Review board found in favour of Metro.
(This is most telling. Not actually a jury of their peers but a review board is no joke. And "courts always siding with the cops" is a rally cry that sounds stupid when you have the most sympathetic subject on Earth. Unless he had lost a limb, I can't see anyone siding more with Sgt England than they did the moment they heard about this.)
*Attorney Cal Potter is representing Sgt. Mark England in the lawsuit against Metro
The LVMPD Officer named as the cause are Jennings and Clark who beat and tased the Sgt. respectively.
(See last entry.)
*The District Attorney's Office says that LVMPD does not have enough evidence to pursue charges of violation of airport rules (more specifically: interference with security procedures) and resisting arrest.
(This is what is known as "an away game" for cops. When assisting a separate agency or department, officers can affect an arrest/action even though they are not the arresting officers. Ex: Escorting an unwanted party from a private business or residence. Helping your hometown cops arrest someone when you are off duty from a separate department.)
*OCT 13 Exclusive information obtained - Cal Potter is no longer the attorney for Mark England
(When someone gives up a case like this, you know there's more to it than "Cops attack brave US soldier."
Regardless of what I do for a living, I see this as being a suck-ass situation. I always go out of my way to afford every courtesy and/or leniency to our men and women currently and formerly enlisted. That being said, I've been in a position where I had to arrest them and/or call the MP/SP down to pick them up. I thank you for your service, but when inside the castle walls, there's only so much we can allow.
What I do see here is that:
1) A basic rule of every airport is "No liquids over 3oz." I find this rule ridiculous on so many levels, but it's a condition of air travel. Same for everyone. I can't take my gun on board a plane, even though I can take it into the New Jersey governor's mansion and I can't take a bottle of Sprite on either. My friend had to FedEx a gold lighter to himself because TSA airport security stopped him coming back from our trip.
2) I was not there. When the TSA security said "I'm a lieutenant," they could have been trying to relate to the guy. Now it's a shit rule but the guy just had to go back and make an issue over it. When told the same thing, did he leave it alone? Why did he demand to see the security employee's military ID? My friend is cop and a heavy equipment operator, should he have to show his CDL when he gives someone a ticket? When told to continue through security in a busy airport, did Sgt England just stick around and argue, taking up space and distracting TSA from it's job of protecting us from 20oz soda bottles? Did the security detention last long enough to make him miss the flight, or was he going to miss it anyway? I had a separate security detention for a jar of mustard. It lasted exactly three minutes and fifty-one seconds. I insisted to my complaing sister that it wouldn't take more than five minutes.)
3) As I said before, I do my best to accomodate our military enlistees. It's kind of an unwritten rule actually that encompases clergy, military, LE, firefighters, teachers, hospital workers, EMTs and the like. It's pretty much one of those "across the board" things. Unlike ticket quotas it actually exists and for a cop to whip out a baton on anyone, especially a soldier must take a lot. Perhaps the full video, eyewitness accounts and the testimony of Sgt England and the officers showed him to be the aggressor. Like I said, I wasn't there. None of us were.
4) Fact that a baton and a taser were used sickens me. Not because they were an undue use of force. I am not familiar with LVMPD's "use of force" policy. The part that sickens me is that the taser is used elsewhere as a means of preventing the need to hit someone of a baton. "We've got a big guy with combat training here, refuses to stop harassing TSA, refuses to board plane or leave the airport. Do we use a baton the guy whose actions are blocked by a big old bank of pay phones (what I believe that visual obstruction was) or take him down with the three shocks of a taser?" The answer should never be both. Again, I don't know what the "use of force" policy is in Vegas. It depends on whether tasers are considered "mechanical force" or "deadly force" there.
5) A final point: Right now, the New York/Tri-state area is in an uproar of the accidental slip of the F-bomb by long respected news anchor, Sue Simmons, when the cameras went live a second before she thought they did. At the same time, did anyone notice that Ben Deci told the audience exactly what was being discussed, what a hand gesture meant and the tone of a conversation that he was not privy to and then crop and speed up two footsteps and describe it as "skipping." My major in college was journalism and this is basic ally a textbook example from one of my old ethics classes. For shame Ben Deci. At least Michael Moore doesn't pretend to be a reporter when he pulls this crap.
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"I am fully confident in saying that there is no problem on Earth, personal, mathematic or otherwise, that cannot be solved by hitting something with a big rock."
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