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Balch Springs cops use taser on handcuffed man

G

GK86

Homeland Security Fail
Video here.

Article link.

A video leaked to a local news station shows white police officers in Balch Springs – the Texas city where an officer was recently fired and charged with murder after fatally shooting an unarmed 15-year-old who was a passenger in a car – using a Taser repeatedly on a handcuffed black man.

The footage, showing an April 2016 incident, was sent to KDFW-TV after the fatal shooting of Jordan Edwards by ex-officer Roy Oliver.

The man, Marco Stephenson, can be seen in handcuffs being held by one officer, while another officer sticks a Taser in his side and uses it on him. He falls to the ground and the officer fires the Taser again for several seconds.

“Don’t pull away. Don’t pull away. Do you get it? Do you get it?” the officer asks Stephenson, who responds “Yes sir.”

The officer then tells Stephenson, “Are you going to straighten up? Because I ain’t playing with you today. Now we’re going to get up and you aren’t going to do anything stupid again, you understand?”

Balch Springs Police Chief Jonathan Haber said the incident was already investigated. He did expressed concern about the timing of the video being made public in the wake of the Jordan Edwards shooting. He told the news station he is concerned about how the video might affect the perception of his officers.

Haber also put the blame on Stephenson, who appeared to be complying with the officers and was being restrained in handcuffs and by two officers when he was hit with the stun gun.

“He’s been handled 37 times through Dallas County — 37 offenses,” the police chief told the news station. “He’s been arrested or booked into the Dallas County Jail 17 times. He’s been booked in through our facility 19 times and I think 33 separate offenses.”
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G

Gravy Boat

Member
One thing I notice about these threads is that we have less and less people coming in to defend the actions of the cops. I wonder if it's because they've just learned to keep quiet or if it's because they're realising that the US police system is actually fucked up.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
I wonder about those past offenses and what he was arrested fo....

Police told KDFW they were called to the neighborhood for a report of a man waving a gun and came upon Stephenson. He was found to be in possession of a BB gun.
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He had a BB gun so they arrested him? Walking with BB gun while black. I guess he should be glad they didn't shoot him, but neither his past offenses nor carrying a BB gun justify getting arrested again, much less abused while complying. Fuckers.
 
N

NumberThree

Member
Balch Springs Police Chief Jonathan Haber said the incident was already investigated. He did expressed concern about the timing of the video being made public in the wake of the Jordan Edwards shooting. He told the news station he is concerned about how the video might affect the perception of his officers.
Click to expand...
Maybe he should be worried about his officers' behavior and not recordings of it
 
D

Dali

Member
GhaleonEB said:
I wonder about those past offenses and what he was arrested fo....


He had a BB gun so they arrested him? Walking with BB gun while black. I guess he should be glad they didn't shoot him, but neither his past offenses nor carrying a BB gun justify getting arrested again, much less abused while complying. Fuckers.
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In Texas no less, lol.
 
cr0w

cr0w

Old Member
GhaleonEB said:
I wonder about those past offenses and what he was arrested fo....


He had a BB gun so they arrested him? Walking with BB gun while black. I guess he should be glad they didn't shoot him, but neither his past offenses nor carrying a BB gun justify getting arrested again, much less abused while complying. Fuckers.
Click to expand...

Probably some sort of 'public disturbance' charge for walking around with the gun or something. It's Balch Springs, they don't need a reason.
 
Ray Wonder

Ray Wonder

Founder of the Wounded Tagless Children
Sergeant was reprimanded, then forced to take classes on conflict resolution, anti-bias, and how to respond to mental health calls. Seems like that's a fairly appropriate approach to this.
 
R

Redd

Member
I don't get it. The video looks like he wasn't resisting. He's in handcuffs but the cops still Taser him. Wtf is wrong with that cop.
 
H

Herr Schwarz

Banned
If I'm a black man in America buying a fucking BB gun seems like a legit fucking bad idea.

So does walking around but on the spectrum of bad ideas, carrying a BB gun is up there in stupidity.
 
I

Ixzion

Member
Of course, the chief had to bring up the black man's history as if that makes what his officer did A-OK. They ALWAYS do that shit and, to a thinking person like myself, it drives me insane.
 
R

R0ckman

Member
Someone brought something up on GAF, but I'm not sure if they were an insider to the police structure or that its this bad in the US that common citizens are aware of the corruption. I wanted clarification on this:

Basically they explained that corruption is so bad because any good hearted police officers who would think to stop the corruption, can't because they are blackmailed. I recall someone saying that its so bad that police officers' families are also threatened. When they speak of this are they saying that their lives are being threatened by corrupt police systems via assasination threats? This paints the picture of a cult or a mafia. How accurate is this? It sounds absolutely insane to be this corrupt.
 
F

Forerunner

Member
R0ckman said:
Someone brought something up on GAF, but I'm not sure if they were an insider to the police structure or that its this bad in the US that common citizens are aware of the corruption. I wanted clarification on this:

Basically they explained that corruption is so bad because any good hearted police officers who would think to stop the corruption, can't because they are blackmailed. I recall someone saying that its so bad that police officers' families are also threatened. When they speak of this are they saying that their lives are being threatened by corrupt police systems via assasination threats? This paints the picture of a cult or a mafia. How accurate is this? It sounds absolutely insane to be this corrupt.
Click to expand...

It’s referred to as the Blue Wall of Silence. It’s a snitches get stitches mentality. Nobody wants to say anything because you get disowned, fired, or worse.
 
K

KarmaCow

Member
R0ckman said:
Someone brought something up on GAF, but I'm not sure if they were an insider to the police structure or that its this bad in the US that common citizens are aware of the corruption. I wanted clarification on this:

Basically they explained that corruption is so bad because any good hearted police officers who would think to stop the corruption, can't because they are blackmailed. I recall someone saying that its so bad that police officers' families are also threatened. When they speak of this are they saying that their lives are being threatened by corrupt police systems via assasination threats? This paints the picture of a cult or a mafia. How accurate is this? It sounds absolutely insane to be this corrupt.
Click to expand...

The original story doesn't seem to be online anymore but This American Life did an episode about a police officer being who tried to record and expose the wrong doings in his department. He was harassed and even committed to a mental health facility against his will for a week by his fellow officers after they learned what he was doing.
 
L

LoserMakesGood

Member
So we are just going to do this whole be mad at the leakers and not the people committing crimes thing, this is just how things are now?

Balch Springs Police Chief Jonathan Haber said the incident was already investigated. He did expressed concern about the timing of the video being made public in the wake of the Jordan Edwards shooting. He told the news station he is concerned about how the video might affect the perception of his officers.

also put the blame Haber on Stephenson, who appeared to be complying with the officers and was being restrained in handcuffs and by two officers when he was hit with the stun gun.

“He’s been handled 37 times through Dallas County — 37 offenses,” the police chief told the news station. “He’s been arrested or booked into the Dallas County Jail 17 times. He’s been booked in through our facility 19 times and I think 33 separate offenses.”
Click to expand...
Oh lets throw some heavy victim blaming in there too.

I'm about to snap, this country is such a fucking shithole
 
A

Apt101

Member
Ixzion said:
Of course, the chief had to bring up the black man's history as if that makes what his officer did A-OK. They ALWAYS do that shit and, to a thinking person like myself, it drives me insane.
Click to expand...

That's how many people reason. "He has a record, so he must deserve it". Even people high up in government. This is probably part of the reason why they (police) purposefully turn away people who are too intelligent and inquisitive.
 
N

NoRéN

Member
Gravy Boat said:
One thing I notice about these threads is that we have less and less people coming in to defend the actions of the cops. I wonder if it's because they've just learned to keep quiet or if it's because they're realising that the US police system is actually fucked up.
Click to expand...
Learning to keep quiet.


Or they are busy explaining away racism in a previous thread or wondering what the black female security guard said to warrant getting punched in the face.
 
E

Enzom21

Member
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/new...lch-springs-long-police-killed-jordan-edwards
Under the next chief, the black officers suffered hostility, Brooks says. He felt it particularly when he married a white female officer. ”They fired my wife first, because she married a black man."
Often, he said, white officers refused to help black officers on calls. ”Cases where lives are being threatened, they would not send anyone to back us up."

Brooks said that when he complained, a City Council member supported him. ”They burned a cross in his yard."
Brooks, his wife and the two other black officers sued the department for harassment and discrimination. In 1990, a federal judge ruled that the chief had violated their rights by allowing them to be harassed, and the city agreed to pay $150,000.
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I am shocked that a city like this would call this "just an administrative issue."
Also, that shithead police chief needs to go. He was out there lying for that murderer until they viewed the bodycam footage.
 
C

commedieu

Banned
B

Bunta

Fujiwara Tofu Shop
GhaleonEB said:
I wonder about those past offenses and what he was arrested fo....


He had a BB gun so they arrested him? Walking with BB gun while black. I guess he should be glad they didn't shoot him, but neither his past offenses nor carrying a BB gun justify getting arrested again, much less abused while complying. Fuckers.
Click to expand...

Well, in the video they kicked the "gun" away. I would assume they didn't know it was a BB gun until they picked the weapon up after the whole incident. Which obviously still wouldn't justify the cop tasing the guy. He was complying and didn't appear to be pulling away as the cop claimed.
 
T

thecouncil

Banned
"Don't pull away. Do you understand?"

Y'see, the problem here was that the man was resisting and pulling away. I mean, yes, one man's "pulling away" is another man's "falling over on the ground because the cop stuck a taser in his side for no reason", but still...

edit: here's an interview with the guy.
 
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