Many like to treat police officers as if they are any more than the reflection of their communities. In doing so, they give them a pass. Cops know that, and whenever checks and balances are absent, it is clear they abuse their power. People of color bear the brunt of their misbehavior. Cases like this evil one more frequent than not go unreported, ignored, or not adjudicated.
Police officers beat Latino to a pulp
While perusing DailyKos this morning, I ran across a story where two off-duty rookie police officers beat a Latino man to a pulp presumably because he wore an army T-shirt and camouflage and they did not like the answers he gave to their queries.
It’s frustratingly rare that law enforcement officers are held accountable for wrongdoing, especially when people of color are the victims of violence at the hands of white cops. Perhaps that’s what makes this story so surprising: less than 24 hours after George Gomez was beaten to a pulp near his New Orleans home, the cops responsible found themselves in handcuffs—and out of a job.
Gomez, 36, tells The Advocate’s Ramon Antonio Vargas that he encountered John Galman, 26, and Spencer Sutton, 24, at the Mid-City Yacht Club early Tuesday morning. Turns out the off-duty cops didn’t care for Gomez’s sartorial choices.
Gomez said […] one said he didn’t like the military camouflage shirt and pants being worn by Gomez, who is Hispanic. “He asked me if I was American. I told him yes, and he got mad because he said I was fake,” said Gomez, who described himself as a U.S. native who was raised in Honduras before returning to live in New Orleans. omez, who speaks Spanish as well as English with an accent, also described being asked if he served in the military. Gomez said he did serve, including with the Louisiana National Guard, but the man who took issue with his clothing wasn’t satisfied with any of his answers.
Gomez claims he then walked to his home nearby, and got in his truck, only to encounter Galman and Sutton, who blocked his vehicle and confronted him. Gomez says that neither man identified themselves as police officers. … Both cops, of course maintain that Gomez was the aggressor. … Unfortunately for the newly-unemployed xenophobes, Police Superintendent Michael Harrison says that video footage and multiple eyewitness accounts paint a very different picture.
Yesterday I interviewed Sarah Swain, Kansas Democratic Attorney General Candidate. The Democratic Party asked her to leave the race partly because she had a poster with a truth lasso around the throat of a police officer among a few other reasons. As shown in this story and many others, police officer reports and statements, many times do not reflect the truth.
Police officers suffer from the same social diseases the country suffers at large. To believe otherwise is at best naive, at worst willfully delusional. The police union, Republicans, and others stunt the conversation necessary to hold cops and all security civil servants accountable by attacking anyone who speaks out truths about rogue police officers as not upholding law and order. It is imperative that one not cower by the insincere threat. We must extricate rogue violent racist murderous cops from all departments. People of color know for a fact that there are many of them out there. We must neuter the blue line of silence. The Trump Effect continues.