After a year under wraps, Alabama cops hand over tape showing officers beating accident victim who gave chase.
(SALEM, Ore.) - Police in Hoover, Alabama, near Birmingham, have released a videotape showing five officers beating an unconscious man who crashed his vehicle while being chased by police.
The pursuit, beating and arrest of suspect, 38-year old Anthony Shannon Warren in March 2008, actually led to the firing of four white officers and one black officer; the ones shown in the video.
But they weren't fired until very recently.
The officers who attacked the man were from Birmingham Police. A police officer who Warren struck with his vehicle during the chase, is from Hoover Police.
The chase in March 2008 from everything I know, was the type of event that places a cop at maximum stress level. The fact that the man appears to run down a Hoover officer who was setting up spike strips, in the line of duty, is the kind of thing that takes law enforcement right to the edge with human anger and rage, understandably.
What happened with regard to the officers' lack of restraint was clearly something that is unacceptable to this society; crook or not the guy they beat wasn't even awake. But it is clear that they are "in the moment" and probably have their hearts racing at maximum speed.
The incident stands in stark contrast to the recent beating of an Arizona preacher at a Border Patrol checkpoint. In that event the man was repeatedly tased, then drug from his car and had his face scrubbed with broken glass. He also appears to receive a general, overall beating.
The Alabama officers in Birmingham, as bad as their actions appear to be, were dealing with one of the most serious situations they may experience in their careers.
The Arizona DPS officers and Border Patrol agents who attacked the Baptist minister were merely peeved and "getting some" as police often say. There was no obvious threat, just a Civil Rights crusader who believes his 4th Amendment Right protects him from illegal search and seizure inside his country's borders.
Yet an endless number of people claiming to be law enforcement, have contacted Salem-News.com to state that the officers and agents at the checkpoint believed they were in danger. I don't believe that they felt they were in danger. They didn't act like people who believed their lives were in danger, based on the video tape.
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I don't know how to process that, but I would clearly say that the Hoover, Alabama officer struck by a fleeing vehicle, shown on the tape, does know what it is like to have his life in danger, and he would probably not appreciate that reality of "danger" being used as a constant excuse for bad or even illegal behavior by police.
The problem in Alabama with both departments, is that they weren't forthright; and the video was not brought into the light until Hoover Police made their case against the suspect, Warren. What they provided to the DA was the footage with the officer being struck by the car, but the police beating hit the editing room floor.
Hoover Police Chief Nick Derzis admitted this week that the video turned over to the Jefferson County prosecutors, was indeed the edited version that left out the shots of five Birmingham police officers beating Warren as he lay unconscious on the ground.
Brandon Falls with the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office, says Hoover's Police Department did fail to disclose that the video was edited.
Derzis however, says one of his detectives was up front with prosecutors before Warren's trial date, that the original tape had more footage that was left off, according to The AP.
The five Birmingham officers were fired by their police chief, A.G. Roper, on Tuesday. Now the case is in the hands of the Alabama Bureau of Investigation. They are investigating the beating and the agency's story surrounding the edited video.
Also, it was announced that the FBI has launched a civil rights investigation.
Here is the video:
Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. In addition to his role as a war correspondent, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor.Tim spent the winter of 2006/07 covering the war in Afghanistan, and he was in Iraq over the summer of 2008, reporting from the war while embedded with both the U.S. Army and the Marines. Tim holds numerous awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing, including the Oregon AP Award for Spot News Photographer of the Year (2004), the first place Electronic Media Award in Spot News, Las Vegas, (1998), Oregon AP Cooperation Award (1991); and several other awards including the 2005 Red Cross Good Neighborhood Award for reporting. Serving the community in very real terms, Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website, affiliated with Google News and several other major search engines and news aggregators.You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com
Alabama Police Video Shows Officers Beating Unconscious Man After Rollover CrashSalem-News.com