FBI Investigates Taped Beating By Tennessee Police.

[Ponce]

FBI Investigates Taped Beating By Tennessee Police.

First Posted: 7/25/11 04:59 PM ET Updated: 7/26/11 03:32 PM ET

The FBI has launched a criminal probe into a January incident where Tennessee police stripped a man naked, then kicked and beat him while he lay handcuffed in the snow.

The incident, recorded by a patrol car's dashboard camera, also reveals police repeatedly shocking the man, Darrin T. Ring, of New Johnsonville, Tenn., with a Taser and spraying him with pepper spray.

For nearly ten minutes, the video shows Ring writhing and screaming in pain as a gaggle of officers shout contradictory demands at him.

"If he even flinches, shoot his ass," one officer declares on the tape.

"Roll over on your belly!" another officer then yells.

Ring, 34, intoxicated but unarmed at the time, was arrested and charged with three counts of aggravated assault on a police officer and resisting arrest. Police had been responding to a report of gunshots in the area.

Ring's injuries from the assault included four broken ribs and a punctured lung.




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Unable to make bail, Ring sat in jail for five months awaiting trial on the charges. Then in early July, his court-appointed defense attorney obtained the recording of his arrest and filed a motion requesting that the charges be dropped in light of the outrageous conduct of the officers.

In the motion, public defender Jake Lockert, a former state prosecutor, called the charges against Ring an attempt by the arresting officers -- with the Humphreys County Sheriffs' Department and the Waverly, Tenn., police department -- "to cover up their own criminal conduct."

On July 11, the district attorney prosecuting the case dismissed all charges against Ring and released him.

After the charges were dropped, the F.B.I and the Tennessee Department of Investigation began separate criminal probes into the incident.

The federal probe is examining the assault on Ring as a potential civil rights violation, Joel Siskovic, a spokesman for the FBI's Memphis office, told HuffPost. According to Siskovic, he Tennessee Department of Investigation is also examining the incident for possible violations of state law.

He added that both agencies were alerted to the matter after video of the police assault appeared on local television newscasts. WSMV Channel 4 Nashville was the first station to broadcast portions of the videotape, and the full 22-minute recording can be seen on the WSMV website.

"It was one of those unique situations where two law enforcement agencies both saw something that looked like horrific wrongdoing and jumped on it," Siskovic said.

Chris Davis, the Humphreys County sheriff, initially defended his officers' conduct, calling the video a "two-dimensional depiction" of the incident. "We feel our deputies will be shown to have conducted themselves as trained when all the facts come out," Davis said in a statement July 7.

In affidavits supporting the charges against Ring, arresting officers declared that Ring had fought wildly against police, kicked one officer in the groin and attempted to seize another officer's sidearm.

"I was in fear that the worst case scenario was going to happen until the city officer got there to help restrain him," wrote Deputy Benji Lee.

Once the state and federal investigations began, however, Davis placed the three Humphreys County deputies involved in the incident on administrative leave with pay.

Waverly Police Chief David Daniel confirmed that one of his officers was responsible for using the stun gun on Ring. That officer has been suspended without pay, he said.

"This department is cooperating with the investigation," Daniel told HuffPost. "I have been working closely with the FBI and the TBI to get to the bottom of it."

David Raybin, an attorney retained by Ring, told HuffPost that a lawsuit against the police agencies involved in the assault is in the works.

"The civil rights violations of my client were profound and absolutely unnecessary," said Raybin, a former criminal prosecutor. "What did Mr. Ring do to deserve that kind of treatment?"

Raybin said he had already gathered evidence indicating that senior officers, including Humphries County Sheriff Chris Davis and the sheriff's department's field training officer, were at the scene and did nothing to intervene.

Witness statements also suggest that Ring was beaten and tasered after being taken to jail, he said.

Raybin disputed police allegations that Ring attempted to seize an officer's handgun while being placed under arrest. "I've seen nothing in the videotape that suggests such a thing," he said.

He also took issue with the statement by Davis that officers had "conducted themselves as trained" during the incident. The fact that Ring's clothes were removed during the arrest was not consistent with any police procedure he was familiar with, he said.

"I've never had a client stripped naked by the police before," Raybin said. "There's something very odd about that."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0...y_King_Beating

[Dogman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2Ndf...layer_embedded

[Dogman]

Look how huge those walking donuts are! This is something I have been seeing more and more, huge cops. I am thinking Steroids and lot's of them. That also can explain their lack of anger management. Pumping up their bulk and killing what minds they started with.

Those ass wipes were way over the top and need to go to jail and have a fatal in the shower accident.

[Joe King]

Ass wipes? Don't be calling 'em that now.

Because ass wipes actually serve a purpose. lol

[Cebu_4_2]

Same thing as setting a dog on fire no? (cept this one didnt fry in the end)

[learn2swim]

What happened prior to that? When is the FBI ever worth more than a horse's rear-end? They don't investigate their own sniper killing an unarmed woman holding a baby in her arms. The guy on ground is a drunk POS, he deserves to get his ass kicked for being a white trash degenerate. Do these cops have a history of abuse? Anytime the FEDS play hero, I smell BS.

[Joe King]

Even if he's drunk, does anyone really deserve that?
The guy even asked, what have I ever done to you?....or something to that effect anyways.
With the typical "no response" from the cops except for more kicking and hitting and tazing etc etc.

That's one thing they should be required to do. ie tell a person exactly what it is they've supposedly done wrong. As in what law was broken. Title, Code, Section, etc.
...and talking to people as if they were human would help too.

[learn2swim]

Even if he's drunk, does anyone really deserve that?
The guy even asked, what have I ever done to you?....or something to that effect anyways.
With the typical "no response" from the cops except for more kicking and hitting and tazing etc etc.

That's one thing they should be required to do. ie tell a person exactly what it is they've supposedly done wrong. As in what law was broken. Title, Code, Section, etc.
...and talking to people as if they were human would help too.

Like I said, we don't don't know what took place prior to that. That's like watching the media's version of the Rodney King beating, they didn't show what lead them to beating him like that. The media failed to report the whole story as it really happened, the jury found the cops not guilty because that got the whole story.

But was what we saw on that grainy videotape the whole story? Was the Rodney King affair as simple and straightforward as we believed? Salon spoke with Washington Post reporter Lou Cannon, who re-examines the Rodney King case in his exhaustive new book, "Official Negligence: How Rodney King and the Riots Changed Los Angeles and the LAPD" (Times Books).

Almost the entire country, along with the federal government, thought the four LAPD officers convicted of beating Rodney King were guilty of civil rights violations. But your book casts doubt on the racial motivation of the beating.

In many everyday incidents, police just move in and hit the suspect. In cases where you have white officers and a black suspect, it's often safe to say you've got a racial thing. That was not the case with Rodney King. Here they chased this guy for eight miles, they had stopped him, a female California Highway Patrol officer advanced on him with her gun drawn, which in the LAPD is considered a very dangerous tactic. Sgt. Stacey Koon of the LAPD ordered the CHP officer back and he took over this arrest. He then directed four officers to jump on King. King threw them off his back. He was sweating on a cold night, it was obvious he was drunk. He pointed at the sky, he called around, he made strange noises, he waggled his buttocks at the woman officer, all of these things. They suspected he was on PCP, and they knew he was strong.

So the LAPD, at least in the beginning, acted correctly?

It's the middle of the night. You have this guy acting very strangely. Koon did what he was supposed to do under LAPD doctrine -- they fire electronic darts of 50,000 volts. If you get hit by them, you don't get up for a very long time. King got up. They fired another volley, he gets up again. As the second volley is fired, George Holliday, this amateur cameraman, had his new camcorder that he was photographing everything with. He had been awakened by the noises, and the police helicopter and sirens. Just as Rodney King is charging toward Officer Lawrence Powell, he starts the video. This is the first three seconds of the video. It is not terribly clear, but it is obvious what King is doing. It is not clear whether he is trying to run over Powell, or whether he is trying to run by him to get to this park behind him. Neither of them knew where he was going -- King was too drunk to know, and Powell was too panicked to know.

And then we get to the part that has been broadcast around the world, of Powell swinging his baton.

Yes, Powell swings his baton, not as he has been taught -- in a power stroke that probably would have flattened King, and this thing would have been over -- but wildly, and he hits King. The defense thought he hit him in the chest or the arm. I am convinced he hit him in the head, but Powell was just swinging. Then the next 10 seconds after this are blurred on the video. They are blurred because the cameraman moves his camera to try to get a better view of the situation.

You point out that crucial seconds of the videotape showing King violently resisting arrest were edited by a local TV news station and then beamed around the world.

http://www.salon.com/news/1998/03/13news.html

[Joe King]

The police in cases like this are typically found not guilty because the Jury tends to believe the police in question were always "just following procedures"..or some BS like that.

I don't really care what the guy did. He obviously didn't do anything too bad if they dismissed the charges against him.

My opinion merely comes from the fact that in a situation where someone is being arrested, the police officers job is not to punish but rather to take custody, and nothing more.
There is no such thing as a justified beating by the police. If they can't keep their cool better than that, they shouldn't be cops.

Taking custody is not four officers kicking and hitting and tazing someone who is already down and obviously already at their mercy.

What that video shows, are mad cops taking out their aggression on a suspect.



BTW, what does this have to do with Rodney King? Are you saying that because you think he got what he deserved that the police should treat everyone that way, or what? More group crap?

Rodney didn't deserve what he got, either. Take into custody never should mean beat the crap out of someone.

[Awoke]

The guy on ground is a drunk POS, he deserves to get his ass kicked for being a white trash degenerate.

Who the fuck are you to make that call?

I'm glad you're not a NWO pig! Or are you?