This video is disturbing, as it is two Louisiana cops murdering a man because he asked to see an arrest warrant when told he was under arrest:
I’m sure you will not be surprised to learn the police were not charged.
by John Cole| 40 Comments
This post is in: Post-racial America, Shitty Cops
This video is disturbing, as it is two Louisiana cops murdering a man because he asked to see an arrest warrant when told he was under arrest:
I’m sure you will not be surprised to learn the police were not charged.
Comments are closed.
Humdog
And they have an ex cop, now a professor of criminal justice, who says the cops were right to do this.
rikyrah
Just nothing but a lynching.?
hueyplong
The most depressing part isn’t that this happened.
It is that we’re not surprised at all.
And this is the worst administration/president ever because Trump doesn’t just turn a blind eye, he actively encourages it in public utterances we get to see and hear.
To top it all off, if we enter a time in which this kind of thing is frowned upon, there will be a “backlash” over it.
MomSense
No charges. That is just disgusting. I wish I believed in hell.
JPL
@MomSense: Same. It’s horrifying, and if only the officers had a conscience they would suffer now.
germy
And the man was a veteran.
germy
I notice broadcast TV nightly news ( like CBS ), whenever they run a story like this, they immediately follow it up with either
1) a heartwarming story about a policeman who helped a homeless guy get a job or helped an inner city child get a new bicycle to replace a stolen one
or
2) a story about a Chicago gang shooting
It’s obvious the producers sit there and arrange their news segments like this deliberately. For “balance”
Cermet
I can’t watch an execution so exactly what went down?
WereBear
@germy: I no longer watch TV news at all, it’s full of distortions like this.
cmorenc
Why didn’t the cops simply passively detain Mr. Frank in-place up on the tractor while they radioed another deputy to bring a copy of the arrest warrant? Had they done that, I would have cut the deputies lots more slack had Mr. Frank still resisted being taken down off the tractor at that point. With all the additional police personnel who were on-site well within the 10 minutes of this film, it isn’t like they were in a remote spot where that would have been infeasible.
These cops were intolerant of their word-of-mouth authority being challenged by a black man demanding due process (a warrant). And what exactly what crime/cause was this arrest warrant for? Attempted murder vs failure to pay a court fine on time?
Aimai
I have bookmarked TheRoot . It is impossible to keep up with the atrocities with regular news.
gene108
The cop with body cam, towards the end explains to someone else he’s the son of a guy, whose gate we ran down. I am not sure what that means or why it is relevant, but I get the feeling they had it out for this guy due to some past incident that made them look bad.
Gravenstone
@cmorenc:
That’s it in a nutshell. The fact that the victim was African American was just icing on the cake as far as these little tin gods are concerned.
scav
@gene108: Charming. They now feel (apparently with cause) that even documented evidence of their lethal application of personally defined and executed lawnorder is without consequence. What’s next? Discovering a secret youtube channel of cops competing with their personal bodycam videos of most XTREEM takedowns?
RedDirtGirl
Nope. Not gonna watch. Fucking US of A.
Skippy-san
I’m not surprised by this at all. A lot of people from my college have gone into law enforcement, and they defend this type of behavior on the college’s Facebook politics page. If it were not a closed group you would see some really shitty people posting defenses of the indefensible. Law Enforcement attracts bullies the way pedophiles are attracted to the priesthood.
I can’t believe I went to the same college as they did. Life has really fucked up their values.
gene108
@scav:
The YouTube channel probably exists. There are plenty of message boards on the internet, where cops let their inner asshole loose with other cops.
Elizabelle
Not watching the video either, but here are excerpts from the long article excerpted in The Root. Reporter is Ben Myers; excellent work.
from the Advocate: Pathologist: Marksville man killed by strangulation during arrest last year; cites neck holds, struggle and gasping for air
The cops’ accounts (and those of other police, backing the arresting officers up) and the pathologist’s findings on watching the tapes do not add up.
The cops murdered this man in the process of arrest. They did not even attempt CPR. Had Mr. Frank survived, the parish and police force might be on the hook for a multi-million dollar settlement. Mr. Frank would have suffered terrible brain damage from the lack of oxygen. These men should not be cops, and the police should be seriously retrained on use of force.
Can the parish bring charges after all? Maybe they need another grand jury. This could have happened to anybody, but especially to black residents. I am curious if there were any witnesses to the arrest and death. Wal-Mart parking lots usually have lots of people roaming around.
Will follow The Advocate on this. I hope this tragedy goes viral.
Elizabelle
More from The Advocate. Reporter Jim Mustian, yesterday: Records: Man fatally choked by Avoyelles deputies had long history of mental illness
You could guess this, from the reporting on previous court-ordered treatment at the VA Hospital in Pinesville, from the Ben Myers article.
That DA is a real problem. And this case is not just race. It’s mental illness, too. Did the officers know about the mental illness? It sounds like maybe at least one of them was familiar with Mr. Frank and previous run-ins.
I hope this thing blows up bad on Ayolles Parish. They need to change their training and procedures, yesterday.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: They need to change their training and procedures, and PERSONNEL yesterday.
fixed that for you.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: Yes they do. Perhaps Mr. Frank’s death at their hands will change that.
Michael Harriot of The Root is a wonderful writer. The image of the hawk, swooping down on the unsuspecting innocent and consuming it alive.
We will have to follow this case. This stuff has to change. It’s like Eric Garner, but also like motorist Walter Scott of North Charleston, SC, who was shot on camera.
The police officer, Michael Slager, got a 20-year sentence from federal charges. He will serve about 18 — no parole. Walter Scott’s family eventually got $6.5 million from the city. Also, the state jury trial deadlocked. So it got kicked upstairs to federal.
I think Mr. Frank’s case will go federal, too. We have to see that that happens. Yes, it is the Trump administration’s Justice Department. For now. But there are professionals within who must be deeply troubled by this stuff. There was a history here. It was known Mr. Frank suffered from mental illness. How can the cops even be saying they did not know that? And if they did not, there’s another huge problem within the department.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: The whole thing is just sickening. Scream, cry or throw up? This makes me want to do all three.
BubaDave
Sometimes I think Micah Xavier Johnson had the right idea.
Other times I’m certain.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: We have to get this changed.
The arc of justice … will arrive way too late for Mr. Armando Frank. As for Trayvon Martin. But the good guys win some, too.
Highway Rob
I’ve got white privilege and male privilege and a law degree, and yet I’m either too jaded or too unimaginative to think of any way to leverage these things to prevent this shit from happening. Signing on with the ACLU feels like a recipe for getting even more jaded. All I can come up with is starting plaintiffs’ practice with a business model of suing local governments and PDs after police misconduct — slogan, “Blue Crimes Matter” — but then I think “dude, you have a family, are you nuts?” and I get jaded again.
Anybody got any ideas? Seriously.
scav
@gene108: It did rather sem the obvious next step — beyond the badge-wearers obvious pride in their efforts and practice, there certainly are enough blue line supporters to make the snuff films click-profitable.
burnspbesq
Not really. You could also look at it as premeditated murder.
Elizabelle
@burnspbesq: Yes you could. Negligent might be more chargeable, but not having a plan to deal with these situations is dealing out premeditated murder.
I think national scrutiny is on Avoyelles Parish and its Sheriff’s Office and its police-protecting district attorney. Good for The Advocate and The Root and JCole and everyone else who made this tragedy — a preventable tragedy, mind you — go viral.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Highway Rob: The problem isn’t police in the US, the problem is inconsistent standards of policing. Some cities the cops are good, others’ they are just thugs with badges. It’s one of those things that needs a national or at lest state wide effort and it won’t happen until the Republicans are in a minority status in government because the only thing Republicans do these days is obstruct reform.
Ol'Froth
While I do not condone choking someone to death, police don’t drive around with copies of arrest warrants. The car would be filled with filing cabinets if they did.
? Martin
If they had a warrant, send someone over with it. The guy wasn’t going anywhere – he was sitting out in the open in a fucking tractor. Nobody was at risk of harm until the police became the risk. And that’s the standard that police review boards should take. The guy was perfectly content to sit there, feet on steering wheel, until a warrant arrived.
BruceFromOhio
All these checks and controls (a constitution, due process, a warrant, body cams), and it comes down to a jury giving two murdering fucks with badges a pass. Over a warrant for fucking criminal trespass. Oooh, crime of the fucking century! Good job, Deputy Dawgs!
What the living fuck is wrong with people. I hope the civil suit awards the family twenty eight jillion dollars. Not that that will ever amend for a man’s life, but that it bankrupts the fucking shithole parish, the worthless district attorney and the stupid murderers along with it.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: It was the death of Trayvon Martin that truly opened my eyes. Hard to believe that was over 5 years ago, yet this is where we still are. I say that as if cops murdering young black men – not to mention mouthy black women who get pulled over – just started 5 b years ago, and it most definitely did not.
But with video, there is no excuse for giving the cop the benefit of the doubt when the murder is caught on camera. The mind boggles.
Mr Stagger Lee
@Elizabelle: In the Dotard’s reign there will be justice? Ha ha ha haa Bwahhaaahaaa! AG Klan Keebler is going to do something about it? Bahahaahhahhha! It will happen when and if when we will have a Democratic administration, plus one not afraid to do it.
Ksmiami
@Highway Rob: well since the right has gone all in on being anti-union, then all law enforcement unions should be broken up and busted as they are not about serving the public, but defending their own. And before you say I’m anti- law enforcement, I’m just Anti-thug dressed up as law enforcement
Evil Paul
[Long time lurker commenting for the first time]
I’m not a lawyer, and I’m living in Canada so I’m not 100% up to speed on the law in the States, but I was under the impression that cops had to actually have a crime to arrest you for something? They never specified what crime Mr. Frank had committed. They just said “There’s a warrant for your arrest.” He asked them what it was for, and they said they didn’t know, but that there was a warrant back at the station. He calls bullshit (which it was), so they kill him.
Don’t they have to specify what he’s being arrested for? Even if they didn’t have the physical warrant with them, shouldn’t they have known what he was being arrested for? He called bullshit on them and refused to move until he had some kind of just cause presented to him, and so they treated it like he was resisting arrest and killed him.
Even if they could somehow justify the level of force they used on him (which they can’t, from what I’ve seen in the video) shouldn’t they be fired for simple incompetence? I mean, pretty much the first question any suspect’s going to ask when he’s arrested is “What did I do?” If you’re only answer is “We’ll tell you later,” it seems to me that you’ve failed at policing.
sukabi
@Elizabelle:
Good policing should REQUIRE de-escalation first and foremost regardless of the mental health condition of the person involved.
Law enforcement, not judge, jury and executioner.
sukabi
@Ol’Froth: if they’re arresting him for an outstanding warrant they should AT LEAST know what the charges are.
WaterGirl
@Evil Paul: Welcome! Don’t wait so long next time. :-)
Regine Touchon
Horrific