Policeman of the year beats and tasers unarmed man

More disgusting abuse of power.

A 66-year-old Melbourne man with dementia spent a month in the hospital after he was violently arrested in October 2011 by officers from the Melbourne Police Department in Melbourne, Florida. The officers who arrested Albert Flowers charged him with battery on a police officer, but a dash-cam video obtained this weekend by WFTV Channel 9 News in Central Florida shows that Flowers did not assault either officer before being kicked in the stomach, punched repeatedly, choked, and Tasered

http://reason.com/blog/2012/01/16/melbourne-police-kick-punch-and-taser-a

And a fringe chump like this will soil the reputation of the good cops.

Best fringe chump of 2008!

well at least the info was obtainable and now his true colors have come out .I hope he gets jail time minumum.

Jail time + civil penalty. Stiff civil penalty...

Jail time, still penalty, and community service in an old age home dealing with alziemers patients

Jail time in general population

Fringe Chump fixer!

Oh, that should be jail time.

I'll be the devils advocate.

I see a large man approaching an officer in a rather determined manner. The officer appears to have his hand on his gun while the man is approaching. Rather than shooting him, he kicks the crap out of him and tries to detain him. The man resists being detained. The officer pins him down and calls for backup.

Enter another officer with a tazer. He appears to to threaten to taze the man resisting. Seeing that he can't without also tazing his fellow officer, he holsters his tazer. At that point the man resisting is subdued and cuffed and paramedics are called.

One other point. The officer was supposed to know the man had dementia how? I didn't see it on his shirt in big letters.

I had a grandfather with dementia. Think of a 2yo with the strength of a man that was a farmer all his life. That was my grandfather for the last 5 years of his life. I, my parents and siblings all had the bruises to show what a 2yo like that has the strength to do, but not the brain to control.

Sorry for the man, but without all the facts, like what the officer and the man was saying, a lot of people are jumping to conclusions.

In reply to Toyman01:

Now you did it.

You stepped on a parade of responses to an agenda-driven article and a video with no audio. And then you have the nerve to point out the cops weren't clairvoyant because the suspect failed to wear his court-ordered ID apparel.

Have you no shame?

Love it when people come to judgement without reading the whole article!

"Flowers owns a lawn care business, and said an employee called the police because he said Flowers pulled a knife on him during a fight about money.

When police arrived, the family said Flowers never pulled a knife and that the issue had been resolved."

So an officer walks into a potentially explosive situation after being called about an altercation involving a knife. A man walks toward the officer in a threatening manner and the cop does what it takes to protect himself given the potential of a knife wielding maniac. All this about dementia is after the fact analysis.

If two cops have to resort to that to subdue an old man, this place needs more physically fit cops.

Anyone else read it as WTF Channel 9?

Appleseed wrote: Anyone else read it as WTF Channel 9?

Yep. They should work that into their marketing.

oldsaw wrote: In reply to Toyman01: Now you did it. You stepped on a parade of responses to an agenda-driven article and a video with no audio. And then you have the nerve to point out the cops weren't clairvoyant because the suspect failed to wear his court-ordered ID apparel. Have you no shame?

They're was video? Damn android. Should have been first! I really just saw pictures, otherwise I'd pick er apart.

rotard wrote: If two cops have to resort to that to subdue an old man, this place needs more physically fit cops.

Only someone as small as me would truly know, what you see may not be what you get. (don't run the wrong way with that, snorkel.)

N Sperlo wrote:

rotard wrote: If two cops have to resort to that to subdue an old man, this place needs more physically fit cops.

Only someone as small as me would truly know, what you see may not be what you get. (don't run the wrong way with that, snorkel.)

I think they should make fatass out of shape cops do bike patrol. Is that bad?

rotard wrote:

N Sperlo wrote:

rotard wrote: If two cops have to resort to that to subdue an old man, this place needs more physically fit cops.

Only someone as small as me would truly know, what you see may not be what you get. (don't run the wrong way with that, snorkel.)

I think they should make fatass out of shape cops do bike patrol. Is that bad?

What could be bad about that? Seems like a good thing for all parties involved.

Random thoughts (as if I had any other kind):

The report says the cop turned off audio and video, but we do have video. What exactly did he turn off, and why?

The video does not show what the officer was doing with his right arm before contact - on the mic, in a stop gesture, picking his nose ...

How, exactly, is subduing a suspect rapidly approaching you and reported to have a knife different from subduing a suspect rapidly approaching you and reported to have a knife and dementia?

Tueller Drill, anyone?

not sure about you.. but if I was a cop.. I would want to be in decent shape. I realise driving around a cruiser is not condusive to being fit, but if my life depended on being physically fit, I would be in the top 10%

As it is.. I am in decent shape, just have never been able to get rid of the small belly I developed in college

Whether he was right or wrong, sounds to me like cop of the year filed a false report and did not follow department procedures (turn off the dash cam when getting out of the car?)

It's hard to say for sure what happened and it's always easy to play monday morning quarterback on situations like this. Even with that disclaimer I'm a little shocked by what I saw. As has been said, why would he turn his dash cam off? There's no good reason to do something like that and that immediately makes me suspicious of everything else. Would the officer have behaved differently if he thought he was being recorded?

When you're being attacked it's very hard not to fight back. And from what I saw Mr Flowers wasn't fighting back he was trying to defend himself. I think this is completely worth doing a proper investigation on and I look forward to reading more about it.

Toyman and oldsaw,

Then why file a false report?

z31maniac wrote: Toyman and oldsaw, Then why file a false report?

a lot of times when the cops realize they might have screwed up, they'll "pile on" extra charges like assault on an officer, resisting arrest, jaywalking, etc. to do two things, 1) overwhelm the suspect with potential legal problems 2) serve as a bargaining chip when they show up with their lawyer or it ends up on the news, "ok, we'll drop charge x, y, z and you plead to the jaywalking and pay a fine, we all go home happy"