Friday, November 09, 2007

Where there's enough smoke . . .


Over and over and over again, through the years and in a torrent the past month, Omahans in the rougher parts of town have complained that police have a brutality problem.

Over and over and over again, through the years and in a torrent the past month, the Omaha Police Department has responded that there's no problem, officers followed procedure . . . move along, nothing to see here.

And the public moves along. Probably because folks don't want to get the hell beat out of them by a cop.

You know, once or twice, you can blow off complaints of police brutality as a miscreant trying to blow smoke to cover up his own misdeeds. The trouble in Omaha is that the smoke is getting so thick, you have to assume there's a fire somewhere.

I READ STUFF
like this in the Omaha World-Herald today, and I'm thinking something's rotten at the Omaha cop shop:

A woman said Thursday that she saw Omaha police officers hitting and kicking a 12-year-old boy as they held him on the ground.

Police officials, however, continue to say they have no evidence that officers did anything other than sweep Reinaldo Rodriguez's legs out from under him when he refused to stop for police and show his hands.

Janice Hazard spoke at a press conference Thursday called by Ben Salazar, publisher of Nuestro Mundo, a Spanish/English newspaper in Omaha. State Sen. Ernie Chambers also attended to demand that appropriate disciplinary action be taken against the officers involved.

Salazar provided photos of the boy, Reinaldo Rodriguez, that were taken at Children's Hospital several hours after police confronted him. The photos show scrapes on Reinaldo's face near one eye, on one cheek and on his forehead.

A medical report prepared by Dr. Alan Fuss at Children's Hospital states that Reinaldo also suffered multiple bruises on his head. Reinaldo's family took the boy to the hospital several hours after the incident.

Police Chief Thomas Warren said the injuries to Reinaldo's face resulted from when officers placed Reinaldo on the ground against his will.

"I wouldn't describe it as the result of a punch," Warren said. "I would describe it as more of a welt or abrasion."

The officers were in Reinaldo's neighborhood, near 27th and Harrison Streets, on Oct. 30 investigating a report of a boy walking down the street with a rifle. Reinaldo and several other boys ran from officers when they approached.

Reinaldo has said officers pushed him to the ground when he told them he wasn't doing anything wrong. They then punched his face three times, he said.

Hazard, a grandmother of another boy who was with Reinaldo that evening, said she tried to stop officers from punching and kicking Reinaldo by saying she knew he had done nothing wrong.

"They were beating him, hitting him, kicking him," she said. "I knew he was hurt because they hit him so many times."

The officers told her to get away and accused her of obstructing them, Hazard said. She stayed, she said, because she wanted to witness what was happening.

Warren said Reinaldo refused to stop or show his hands to prove he didn't have the rifle.

The officers also had no way of knowing whether Reinaldo potentially had discarded the weapon somewhere, Warren said.

Reinaldo was taken to his mother's apartment later, and he did not receive a ticket.

According to Salazar, the officers explained to the mother what had happened to Reinaldo by saying, "He was acting stupid." They did not apologize or seek help for Reinaldo, he said.

The family has not made a formal complaint at the Police Department. Reinaldo's mother told Salazar that she was scared and had no one to help her, Salazar said.

"When I went to see her . . . she was still in fear," he said.

Paul Landow, Mayor Mike Fahey's chief of staff, said the internal affairs unit would begin an investigation into Rodriguez's claims after the family filed a complaint.

NOT TO MENTION stories like this, also in the World-Herald today:
Jerome Clark Sr. asked a mayoral aide Thursday to look at his son's raw, battered face.

"He was arrested Tuesday night," Clark said of his son, 19-year-old Alejo Clark. "He was arrested and beat up."

Police Chief Thomas Warren said the injuries to Alejo Clark, who was arrested on suspicion of being a minor in possession of alcohol, occurred when Clark tried to run away. The arresting officers followed proper procedures, Warren said.

Clark said he did nothing to provoke the officers.

Clark was accompanied by his parents, Jerome and Marie Clark, to Police Headquarters on Thursday to file a formal complaint. They then went to the Mayor's Office, where Chief of Staff Paul Landow assured the south Omaha family that the complaint would be investigated.

Alejo Clark said he was with five friends about 9 p.m. Tuesday in a car parked at Brown Park near 15th and V Streets when a plainclothes officer approached on the driver's side and asked him for his license and registration.

"When I was handing it to him, he grabbed the registration," Clark said. "He then opened the door and pulled me out of the car and threw me to the ground for no reason."

Clark said the officer "stomped me on the back of my head" on the concrete, causing cuts and bruises. He said he was then arrested for obstruction of justice and resisting arrest, "but I never did anything wrong."

Warren said the two plainclothes officers approached the car to investigate why the occupants were hanging out at the park. The officers saw open containers of alcohol inside and asked the occupants to get out.

"Several of the people cooperated, but Alejo Clark did not," Warren said. "He tried to evade officers and physically had to be restrained."

It would be proper procedure, Warren said, for an officer to take down a suspect by "using a knee in the back to establish or maintain control."

Clark also said the officers threatened to beat him up on the way to jail. The officers, he said, pulled over in an alley and asked him if he wanted the handcuffs on or off when they beat him up.

Clark said he was scared for his life and asked to go to jail, which officers did without further incident.
SEN. ERNIE CHAMBERS can be a pain in the butt a lot of the time. But he nailed it during Thursday's press conference on the Reinaldo Rodriguez case: It's time to bring in the FBI.

There's been too much smoke billowing out of the Omaha police headquarters for too long. And where there's smoke. . . .

1 comment:

Kevin - "pax tecum" said...

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