Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Police Lie, Liberals Abused, Sun Comes Up

Remember how accounts of police abuse and attacks and false arrests of protesters burbled up around the blogosphere last year? How we were prepped for this by the breathless anticipation of the media for possible violent confrontations and terrorist attacks?

The NYTimes decides it's time to revisit those golden days, since all those dangerous felons were caught on tape and found to be...let's say, less than fierce:

"Dennis Kyne put up such a fight at a political protest last summer, the arresting officer recalled, it took four police officers to haul him down the steps of the New York Public Library and across Fifth Avenue.
"We picked him up and we carried him while he squirmed and screamed," the officer, Matthew Wohl, testified in December. "I had one of his legs because he was kicking and refusing to walk on his own."
And then someone showed up in court with a tape:

"A videotape shot by a documentary filmmaker showed Mr. Kyne agitated but plainly walking under his own power down the library steps, contradicting the vivid account of Officer Wohl, who was nowhere to be seen in the pictures. Nor was the officer seen taking part in the arrests of four other people at the library against whom he signed complaints."
400 people. 400 people were found to have been similarly set up by the cops and arrested on bogus charges. And when simply lying won't do, because the contents of the tape is known, there's always the Hollywood edit:

"Last week, (Alexander Dunlop) discovered that there were two versions of the same police tape: the one that was to be used as evidence in his trial had been edited at two spots, removing images that showed Mr. Dunlop behaving peacefully. When a volunteer film archivist found a more complete version of the tape and gave it to Mr. Dunlop's lawyer, prosecutors immediately dropped the charges and said that a technician had cut the material by mistake. "
Yes, that's credible. Coming from the NY cops, certainly that's credible.

I only have one question: how long has it been since Abner Louima had a plunger shoved up his ass till it burst his intestines?

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