Her big offense? Standing next to her car talking on her cellphone, rather than staying seated, when she was stopped for suspected DUI and traffic infractions.
Now don't get me wrong here folks, drunks can be belligerent, and police get nervous when a motorist gets out of the car during a traffic stop. In this case however, the young woman who is half his size did nothing that could be construed as aggressive or violent. standing next to your car and talking on the phone is not illegal either. Even if she was drunk, that had yet to be determined. So in the eyes of the law, at that point, this was a perfectly innocent woman who was brutally assaulted by an officer without cause.
Watching the video, it seems abundantly clear that the only reason for flinging this girl around and smashing her face into the side of the car, was to "teach her a lesson" so to speak. Now imagine for a second, what this cop would have done to this girl's father or boyfriend, if they had done the same thing to her. In this day and age, even yelling at a woman can get a man locked up on domestic violence charges, and beat up by police who feel it is their duty to dispense a little "old-fashioned" justice on woman-beaters. Yet here is this guy, beating a young woman he does not even know, because she did not sit down like she was told.
At least the officer was fired, but he was only charged with a misdemeanor count of simple battery and will likely never see the inside of a jail cell. What you will see in the video below, is much worse than a shove or even a smack int the face.
It's also more than likely that he will either try to appeal his firing, or that he will wind up on another police department. This is common practice for police officers who run into trouble of this sort. They are fired as a public relations matter, and then re-hired after the media attention dies down. Or, without a felony conviction, they simply move on to another department. I will go ahead and include a second video below, of a woman who was arrested, and exonerated on a DUI charge. The officer in that case was also fired, but was later reinstated to the department.
As promised, here is the video of the other case I mentioned. As I was digging up a copy, I came across this one, the first split-shot of the event. You will see why that it is important in a moment.
Not only was the officer reinstated, but he was also given all of his back pay.
Board reinstates Willis, says city violated his rights
Panel says Shreveport violated Wiley Willis’ rights
By Loresha Wilson • ljwilson@gannett.com • August 13, 2009
The Shreveport Municipal Fire and Police Civil Service Board’s seven members made the ruling Wednesday in the case known nationally for video footage of the handcuffed woman lying in a pool of her blood in a police interrogation room.
The ruling means Wiley Willis can return to duty once his in-service and firearm requirements are met.
“He’ll get a year and a half of back pay, benefits, retirement, everything,” said Michael Carter, president of the Shreveport police officers union. And as far as he knows, Carter added, Willis intends to continue working for the Shreveport Police Department.
The Civil Service Board ruled that Willis’ rights, under the Police Officer Bill of Rights, were violated because an expert failed to record a polygraph examination Willis took as part of the Police Department’s investigation into Garbarino’s injuries, including a broken nose.
Shreveport Police Chief Henry Whitehorn called the panel’s finding a technicality and said he is “disappointed with the board’s ruling.” The police chief said he is moving forward with the city’s legal department to pursue an appeal.
“This is not a technicality, this is the law — the Police Bill of Rights,” Michael Carter, president of the Shreveport police officers union, said after a news conference Wednesday evening.
Carter also said Willis was fired for failing to administer first aid — a detail the Police Department never has released and would not confirm. Carter pointed out that police officers haven’t been trained in first aid since 1996 and are not equipped with any type of medical supplies.
Wayne Nissen, who administered the polygraph, testified before the board that he was aware the Police Department was investigating Willis’ actions. He said he wasn’t given a line of questions to ask during the exam but was told to ask questions about the night of Garbarino’s arrest.
However, Nissen said, he was unaware of the Police Officer Bill of Rights, which provides a certain level of protection for officers during investigations and personnel matters.
The original link where that story was found no longer functions, and therefore this copy is made for archival and educational purposes. Here is another source for the news as well:
http://www.ksla.com/story/10891613/sport-officer-in-garbarino-case-reinstated?clienttype=printable
So from these two cases alone (and many many more which I could have referenced) we see a pattern of not only police brutality, but extreme violence towards women. Meanwhile, the rest of society is held to a much different standard when it comes to inter-gender violence. In this video, we will even see a cop interviewed, basically saying that it's okay for women to hit men, but not the other way around. And yet police themselves are not held to this gender-biased standard, much less any civil standard of conduct at all in brutality cases.
Where is the outrage? Where it the justice?
So we see that gender-bias is a powerful dynamic in our society today when we see violence. A "women are always right" mentality, or "woman are always the victim." Time and time again this is played out in homes and courtrooms across the nation. Criminal courts, family courts, divorce courts. And despite all of this, there is a more powerful dynamic. That the police are above the law, and beyond reproach. While the average woman beater is loathed on almost the same level as a child molester, the police are excused from any such scrutiny or judgement.
Do you think that a man who would smash his wife's face into the side of her car would get away with a simple battery charge? Even if he had a genuine reason, like perhaps trying to stop a drunk and belligerent wife from going and and crashing her car. Or even if it was she who attacked him and was clearly the aggressor, as in the last video above, would a man be excused for defending himself? Or do you think that if police showed up at a home where a woman was laying in a pool of blood on the floor, and the man said "she fell," do you think he would get away with no punishment of any kind? Of course not, and yet police are given a pass for such violence.
Double-standards wrapped in more double-standards. This is not the land of the free, this is the land of hypocrisy.
EDIT to add:
Also check out this story, where male deputies strip a woman naked, after calling for help because she was beat up by her cousin. They wound up knocking her teeth out on the edge of the metal bunk.
Woman Brutally Stripped Naked by Male Deputies On Camera
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