Broward County Sheriff's Office Found 100% Liable in Serious Accident, But Pays Nothing

Every Dramatic High-Speed Police Chase
Risks Maiming Innocent Members of the Public

When I see reality police shows of police chases, I often wonder why police would chase minor crime suspects through residential neighborhoods at speeds in excess of 90 MPH? Are they so concerned with catching one person that they forget that other members of the public are at risk primarily because the police are chasing another car at high speeds?

But the case of Eric Brody is different. The policeman who smashed into Eric's car was speeding to arrive at work on time.

Eric Brody was said to live a normal life,working and spending time with his family, until Tuesday night, March 3, 1998 when:

A Broward Sheriff's Office deputy, speeding to roll call in his cruiser, had plowed into Eric on the passenger side as Eric was making a left-hand turn into Windward Isle, just yards from home. They learned that even though Sunrise police had originally responded, those officers were sent away, and that the Broward Sheriff's Office [BSO] was conducting its own investigation. The deputy who had hit Eric was named Christopher Thieman; he had survived with a few minor injuries. NewTimes-Broward-PalmBeach

Eric Brody was left physically mangled and mentally disabled to the point of losing his ability to talk and walk and communicate with this family. When the family filed a civil suit against the police and the officer, a suit that was only taken to a jury seven years after the accident:

The jury took five hours to deliberate. "When the jury filed back in," Chuck recalls, "they said, 'We find the defendant, BSO liable, on all counts.' Then they started in with the money figures. So and so for lost wages. So and so for future care. When they added it all up, it was $30.69 million."

BSO was found 100 percent negligent. It was one of the largest verdicts in the nation that year.

( . . .)

[Officer] Christopher Thieman was fired three months after the trial for falsifying police records. In what came to be known as the "Powertrac scandal" involving two other officers and their superiors, Thieman was found to have invented confessions and attributed them to people he had never spoken to.

( . . . )

BSO appealed the trial verdict twice during the next three years. It lost in the Fourth District Court of Appeals, and the Florida Supreme Court dismissed the case. In 2009, when BSO had finally exhausted its legal remedies, Block submitted the Brodys' claims bill to the Florida Legislature. In the years after the trial, Ranger Insurance Co. had been swallowed up by a series of larger companies: The claim was now held by Fairfax Financial Holding Ltd., a multibillion-dollar company based in Toronto. Fairfax is legally obligated to pay the Brodys, but instead, the company prepared to fight the claim.NewTimes-Broward-PalmBeach

After a series of setbacks in a legislature heavily lobbied by the insurance company and the BSO:

The Brodys will have to begin the expensive, time-consuming claims process from scratch in the Legislature's 2010 session. The 2010 bill has already been filed by

Chuck Brody sounds fed up with the wrangling and posturing. "The insurance company just doesn't want to pay the money!" he says. "They and BSO have lied through their teeth from the beginning. My big concern now, when all the bills are paid, is: What's left for him? What happens to Eric when his mother and I are gone?

"What are you gonna do? He's getting shafted. They don't care. I hate to say it. Nobody seems to give a damn."NewTimes-Broward-PalmBeach

Now that a jury has found the Broward Sheriff's Office one hundred percent liable in this case, the question is whether police officers and the sheriff's office will enjoy the near absolute practical impunity that police officers to often abuse in the United States of America.

For each dramatic car chase we see on television and for each high speed run to Dunkin' Doughnuts in a police cruiser, there is the real risk that members of the public will end up as badly mangled as Eric has, or even worse.

The public cannot be free in a country where police act with utter impunity, whether that country is Mexico, China or the United States of America.

Minneapolis/St. Paul Twin Cities Area Has a "Communities Against Police Brutality" Group and Website

Communities Against Police Brutality in the Minneapolis/St. Paul twin cities area, a group of that says it is comprised of "survivors of police brutality and members of the community working together to fight for justice," highlights the Maria Inamagua case. According to their report:

Maria Inamagua was an Ecuadoran immigrant living in the United States. She was arrested on an immigration violation and detained at the Ramsey County Jail in St. Paul. While there, she reported severe headaches and dizziness. Over the five weeks she was there, she repeatedly asked for health care. The jail responded by giving her Tylenol. She was never allowed to see a doctor.

On April 13, 2006, jailers found Maria unconscious and severely ill in her cell. Instead of taking her to the hospital just a few blocks away, they watched her health deteriorate for four hours. By the time they finally took her to the hospital, it was too late. Maria Inamagua died of a massive brain infection late that night.

To fight against abuses like this one, they offer a links to many organizations working to stop various forms of police brutality. I haven't personally contacted the groups below, but I would be very interested in comments from readers about their experiences. The list is as follows, with a hat tip to Communities Against Police Brutality, which compiled the list:

Organizations Working on Police Brutality and Accountability
October 22nd National Coalition: http://www.october22.org/
ACLU Police Practices Project: http://www.aclu.org/PolicePractices/PolicePracticesMain.cfm
Idriss Stelley Foundation: http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeo9ewi/idrissstelleyfoundation/
National Coalition on Police Accountability: http://www.citizensalert.org/ncopa.htm
National Lawyers Guild, National Police Accountability Project: http://www.nlg.org/npap/
Police Complaint Center: http://www.policeabuse.org/
Police Crimes: http://flyservers.registerfly.com/members5/policecrime.com/
Refuse & Resist!: http://www.refuseandresist.org/altindex.php
Stolen Lives Project: http://stolenlives.org/
Law Office of Blake Horwitz (attorney specializing in police brutality cases): http://www.police-watchers.com/

Reports on Police Brutality:
Amnesty International's Race, Rights and Police Brutality: http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/usa/document.do?id=133746465C2D34CA8025690000692D98
Amnesty International's Report: Police Brutality and Excessive Force: http://www.amnestyusa.org/rightsforall/police/nypd/index.html
Amnesty International's Torture Report: http://www.webnetarts.com/socialjustice/aitortrpts.html
Human Rights Watch's Shielded from Justice--Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States: http://www.hrw.org/reports98/police/index.htm

Misconduct by Men in Blue (youth police brutality project): http://misconduct.weebly.com/index.html

Information on "Less Lethal" Weapons Including Chemical Irritants and Tasers
A Short and Sordid History of Pepper Spray: http://www.nopepperspray.org/sordid.htm
An Appraisal of the Technologies of Political Control: http://www.iwar.org.uk/sigint/resources/stoa/stoa-atpc-so.htm
Bibliography of "An Appraisal of the Technologies of Political Control": http://www.aib.de/nsa/eu/stoa-bib.htm
Chemical Cops: Tear Gas And Pepper Spray Can Be Deadly: http://www.commondreams.org/views/030900-103.htm
CPRC Report, Oleoresin Capsicum in Buffalo: http://www.cprc.org/tr/1995/04/tr-04-95E.pdf
Dugway Report (Great info on chemical composition of Freeze + P): http://www.capstun.com/english/cap-stun/reports/dugwayreport.html
The Effect of Police Officer Confidence on Officer Injuries and Excessive Force Complaints (includes info on cop killed by bad pepper spray training): http://www.sashley.com/Articles/EffectofPoliceOfficerConfidence.htm
FBI Report, Oleoresin Capsicum Training and Use: http://www.capstun.com/english/cap-stun/reports/fbireport.html
HowStuffWorks: What does tear gas do?: http://science.howstuffworks.com/question340.htm
Inmates Sue Florida Over Pepper Spray, Tear Gas Torture: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0%2C2933%2C97214%2C00.html
Is CS Gas Dangerous?: http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/320/7233/458
Montreal Medical Team Exposes Documents on Tear Gas Danger: http://www.afn.org/~iguana/archives/2001_05/20010512.html
Pepper Spray Gets in Their Eyes, Media Missed Militarization of Police Work in Seattle: http://www.fair.org/extra/0003/pepper-spray.html
Pepper Spray Madness (deaths from pepper spray): http://mediafilter.org/caq/CAQ56pepper.html
Personal Defense Sprays: Effects and Management of [Ocular] Exposure: http://www.pwdistributing.com/OC%20Eye%20Test.html
Police Sprayed Deadly Toxins at WTO; Accused of "Chemical Warfare" by MD: http://www.sparklehouse.com/awake/cp/gas_1.html
The Power and Controversy of Pepper Sprays: http://www.sunbeltshows.com/dave/pepperspray.html
Preparing for "Sudden Death!": http://www.laaw.com/cdsldm.htm
Protester First Aid (Black Cross Collective Guide): http://www.mts.net/~slord/FIRST%20AID.htm
Study by a Street Medic Suggests Long-Term Effects of Tear Gas: http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/2002/091902/news3.html
Tear Gas and Pepper Spray Reference for Medics: http://urgencemanif.meagerman.net/chem.html
Treatment of Riot Control Agents: Tear Gas and Pepper Spray: http://free.freespeech.org/a20/teargas.htm
U.S. Government Use of Chemical Weapons Against U.S. Citizens: http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/02/10/11_chemical.html
The Use and Abuse of Pepper Spray (Legal article by By Lynne Wilson, Seattle Attorney): http://www.pcworks.demon.co.uk/magazine/documents/pepperspray.pdf
Use of Aerosol Weapons by Law Enforcement: http://www.sashley.com/Articles/UseofAerosolWeapons.htm
Use of CS Gas in Gulf is Illegal, says Red Cross: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0309-05.htm
Virtual Naval Hospital, Textbook of Military Medicine: Medical Aspects of Chemical and Biological Warfare: Chapter 12, Riot Control Agents (Definitive website for detailed info on medical effects of chemical irritants): http://www.vnh.org/MedAspChemBioWar/chapters/chapter_12.htm
Wikipedia Article on Pepper Spray: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper_spray

Information on Positional Asphyxia and Hogtying
Asphyxial Death During Prone Restraint Revisited: A Report of 21 Cases: http://www.charlydmiller.com/LIB/2000asphyxrevisit.html
Patient Restraint & Restraint Asphyxia Newz Directory: http://www.charlydmiller.com/ranewz.html#directory

Information on Handcuffing and Handcuff Neuropathy
AfterCare: Handcuff Injuries: http://www.action-medical.net/library/aftercare/handcuffs.htm
Cheiralgia Paresthetica (Handcuff Neuropathy): http://www.ncemi.org/cse/cse0920.htm
Complaints of Pain After Use of Handcuffs Should Not be Dismissed: http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/318/7175/55
Focal Neurological Complications of Handcuff Application: http://aafs.micronexx.com/PDF/JOFS/JFS4651124/JFS4651124.pdf
Handcuff Neuropathy: Two Unusual Cases: http://www.aapmr.org/education/archive/emg9706a.htm
Handcuffing, Advance Stacking Techniques: http://www.angelfire.com/oh2/pti/
Liability Constraints on Human Restraints: http://www.laaw.com/finalre2.htm
Orthopedic Injuries Experienced by U.S. Prisoners of War During Operation Desert Storm: A Descriptive Analysis: http://infoventures.com/osh/abs/mili0005.html
PC Wins Handcuff Damages: http://www.cuffs.fsnet.co.uk/Handcuffs_docs/Pc%20wins%20handcuff%20damages.PDF

Communities Against Police Brutality says, "If you have a suggestion for a link, please email it to mgresist@minn.net

,"

Whitehall Police Beating of 84 Year Old Black Woman Shocks the USA and Overseas

On August 5, 2009, we reported here that a policewoman in Whitehall, Ohio flipped an 84 year-old Black woman over, banging her head on the ground and causing her head to bleed. The police had been called because the elderly woman was walking around a mall parking lot with her walking cane in one hand and a steak knife in the other.

www2.nbc4i.com news reports:

[Virginia] Dotson, who is believed to be 84 years old, was treated and released from Mount Carmel Medical Center for the head injuries she received when she was taken to the ground.

All seemed said and done with the incident until the video hit YouTube.

Now, Whitehall police are receiving phone calls from around the nation—even though there was little outrage in Central Ohio when the incident occurred.

“We’ve had people from Hollywood calling. We’ve had people from St. Louis, Houston, New York,“ said Whitehall Police Chief Richard Zitzke.

Zitzke estimates the department has received between 100 and 150 calls, some which tied up the phone line for an hour.

“We’ve had one or two people that just called and yelled and hung up the phone. We’ve had actually some death threats towards the officer,“ he said. www2.nbc4i.com

As far away as the United Kingdom, the DailyNewsOnline has reported on the case and posted the YouTube video, taken by a Black man on his cell phone at the scene.

Even the white supremacist "White Power" group Stormfront has felt compelled to report on this case, with Stormfront quoting an article by Elizabeth Gibson of the COLUMBUS DISPATCH newspaper, saying, "Police said Dotson [the 84 year-old woman] has Alzheimer's and lives at a nursing home. She was not charged with a crime."

I said at the time that if the Black woman had instead been a grizzly bear or an alligator then there was no way that police would bloody the animal's head in the process of corraling it and taking it to a game reserve. Have you ever seen a police officer shoot a dog in the back or beat a dog over its head with a night stick?

Even as some newspapers bend over backwards trying to justify the police response, they are unable to explain why the case makes news at all, if not for the shocking violence of the police response, against an old woman, walking with a cane, who lives in a nursing home with Alzheimers Disease. Beating up an old woman is shocking even when it's the police who do it, or particularly when it's the police who do it.

The police treated this woman more brutally and with less care for her safety than they would a wild animal. Would a bear, a moose or a deer or a dog have been smashed over on its head and left the scene bleeding?

Police don't treat Blacks like animals. They treat us worse than they treat animals.

Police Officer Slams 84 Year-Old Woman's Head on the Ground

If she were a grizzly bear,
then a game warden would show greater concern for her.

How many Whitehall, OH white police officers does it take to subdue an eighty-four year-old Black woman with a steak knife in a mall parking lot? It's take one policewoman to grab the woman by the hand and flip her over her back, slamming the woman's head onto the ground so hard that she gets a head wound that requires stitches to close. Then it takes four more police cars to hold the crowd back while the 84 year-old woman is "subdued".

Now, although the woman officer threw this woman's head on the ground, we have to consider what they would have done to a 40 year-old Black woman: they'd have shot 50,000 volts of energy at her with a pre-trial electrocution device, or they might even have shot her six or seven times, because they "fear for their lives" in the face of a woman with a steak knife.

And yet, we can't help but wonder if there isn't a better way to disarm an 84 year-old woman, aside from karate flipping her over the police officer's shoulder and banging her head on the ground.

What's clear in videos like this one is that a game warden would take more care with a 500 pound bear than these police officers take with an 84 year old woman who can't weigh more than 120 pounds.

Congratulations to the Whitehall, OH police department! They've shown that they're more afraid of and violent with a little old lady Black lady at the mall than a game warden is with a full-grown bear, a moose, or even an aligator.

Latino Grandfather, Pregnant Woman Tasered at Baptism

Hat Tip to Gabriel at Color of Change.

all parties agree that county police officers arrived at a children’s baptism party being held at a private residence, then Tasered a 55-year-old Bible study teacher three times and Tasered a pregnant woman once, in front of a yard full of kids, including her kids, and family members. Then they read rights. To the grandfather and the pregnant woman. For ‘public intoxication’ and ‘assaulting a police officer,’ respectively. As they lay temporarily paralyzed on the ground. RaceWire

Are these folks "Black"? Watch the above video and it's clear that they're brown enough to be considered "black" by police officers, and also they commit the heinous crime of speaking Spanish (as well as English). We have to remember that many Latinos from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua, Cuba and other Latin America countries share our African descent.

And even if they didn't, police ought not go to baptismal parties, shock and risk electrocuting grandfathers and pregnant women, all because five and six year olds are making noise at a party (acting like children) in their own backyard.

There's something terribly wrong with the United States of America when its police behave this way and then cities, towns and hordes of white people defend this sort of police behavior.

Just as whites artfully moved to the suburbs and closed public pools to avoid integration, I believe many whites who would have been Klansmen a couple of generations ago, with white hoods to protect them from fallout, those same kinds of people are now joining police departments so that they can engage in Klan-like behavior under color of law.

Follow new rules or lose tasers, Alberta police forces told

AFP/Getty Images

"Conducted energy weapons can be used only
when ‘real likelihood of injury to the officer, subject,
or bystanders'."

Much more serious discussion, reflection and official action have apparently has been going on in Alberta, Canada than in most jurisdictions in the United States.

The RCMP in British Columbia yesterday announced it has issued a directive to officers that says the direction of the solicitor-general is "complementary" to existing policy for the Mounties.

"In addition to current policy, we have additional directions from the solicitor-general that we will follow," Sergeant Tim Shields, a spokesman for the RCMP in B.C., said yesterday, explaining the RCMP's action.

Mr. Braidwood is in the midst of a two-phase inquiry on the police use of tasers and the death of Robert Dziekanski, who suffered a fatal heart attack on Oct. 14, 2007 after a confrontation with Mounties at Vancouver airport. Globe and Mail

Hat Tip to the Nateo, blog which says,

This headline demonstrates a perfect way to communicate with cops who've proved themselves untrustworthy with implements of torture:

Follow new rules or lose tasers, Alberta police forces told

Sometimes the only thing children understand is the loss of toys.

And to be sure, police should not be trusted unsupervised with tasers:

Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper is reporting that the Alberta Police Department must adhere to new Government guidelines or the police might be entirely relieved of these weapons.

Police in Alberta, including the RCMP, must adhere to new rules about when they can deploy tasers or face losing the weapons altogether, under government guidelines released Friday.

The 11 pages of regulations also say that it is appropriate to use conducted energy weapons, or CEWs, only when “there is a real likelihood of injury to the officer, subject, or bystanders.”

Fred Lindsay, Alberta Solicitor General and Minister of Public Security, said that while a suspect who is running away isn't a reasonable threat, someone in handcuffs or other restraints could still kick or bite. Globe and Mail

"Someone in hundcuffs or other restraints could still kick or bite", says the Minister of Public Safety, leaving me with the distinct impression that he is telegraphing to police and the public that police may still find or invent reasons to shock and electrocute people who are already virtually defenseless.

Meanwhile, police officials are claiming that they are already following the new regulations, which would seem to mean that any hopes for changes in officer behavior as a result of the new regulations will be hopes in vain:

He said Mounties in Alberta welcomed the new rules, adding that they are consistent with RCMP policy and enhance public trust.

Acting Superintendent Ray Robitaille said the Calgary Police Service is already following the guidelines.

Also read articles at these links about the ongoing debate in Cananda:

See also:

• Taser unveils new 'semi-automatic' model
• RCMP to adopt taser reforms
• Judge urges tighter restrictions on taser use
• Charge Mounties in taser case: watchdog

Obama Won't Confront Police Injustice Toward Blacks, Says Bob Herbert

Bob Herbert of the New York Times says President Obama and his crew are apologizing for Black assertiveness in the face of police abuse rather than confronting and condeming it.

Black people need to roar out their anger at such treatment, lift up their voices and demand change. Anyone counseling a less militant approach is counseling self-defeat. As of mid-2008, there were 4,777 black men imprisoned in America for every 100,000 black men in the population. By comparison, there were only 727 white male inmates per 100,000 white men.

While whites use illegal drugs at substantially higher percentages than blacks, black men are sent to prison on drug charges at 13 times the rate of white men.

Most whites do not want to hear about racial problems, and President Obama would rather walk through fire than spend his time dealing with them. We’re never going to have a serious national conversation about race. So that leaves it up to ordinary black Americans to rant and to rave, to demonstrate and to lobby, to march and confront and to sue and generally do whatever is necessary to stop a continuing and deeply racist criminal justice outrage. NYT

It's hard to argue with Heberto on this point because, as he points out with respect to the case of Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.,

No more than five or six minutes elapsed from the time the police were alerted to the possibility of a break-in at a home in a quiet residential neighborhood and the awful clamping of handcuffs on the wrists of the distinguished Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.

If Professor Gates ranted and raved at the cop who entered his home uninvited with a badge, a gun and an attitude, he didn’t rant and rave for long. The 911 call came in at about 12:45 on the afternoon of July 16 and, as The Times has reported, Mr. Gates was arrested, cuffed and about to be led off to jail by 12:51.

The charge: angry while black. NYT

If President Obama won't say that "angry while Black" is not a crime, and stick to his guns, then it's up to the rest of us to insist.