Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Here's yet another example of police brutality against a schizophrenic man in Passaic, New Jersey.
Surveillance tape from Lawrence's Grill and Bar in Passaic on May 29 shows a police car pull up to Ronnie Holloway, who is standing still on the curb outside the restaurant. After a few moments Holloway zips up his sweatshirt -- because the female officer in the car instructed him to do so, Holloway said.At that point, the other officer in the vehicle, Joseph R. Rios III, exits the car, grabs Holloway and slams him onto the hood of the police car. He then pummels Holloway with his fist and baton.
Here's a report from the local TV station that shows the surveillance tape. It shows the man standing on the street corner, a police car pulls up and they start talking to him. He zips up his sweatshirt, as he says they instructed him to do, and the cops get out of the car and one of them just starts beating him. There is nothing even remotely threatening in anything the man does, he's just standing there talking to them.
The man says he didn't say anything to them to justify the beating, but that misses the point. It doesn't matter what he might have said to them. Even if he was telling them that their mothers were whores and they can go fuck themselves, that could not possibly justifying beating him down with a baton.
And yes, the cop who did this is still on active duty. Worse yet, the victim has been charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and a ridiculous crime called "wandering for the purpose of obtaining controlled dangerous substances." The cop should not only be fired, he should be prosecuted. That's what would happen to him if he didn't have the badge on.
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Although I agree with you that the cop needs to suffer the full consequences of his actions as if he didn't have a badge, it's never going to happen. Way too many people in this country are authoritarian enablers, and will probably think that even if Mr. Holloway wasn't guilty in this particular instance, he's probably done other things that mean he should have gotten this beating. I'll be surprised if the cop gets anything worse than an administrative note in his personnel file and a forced two-week administrative leave (with pay), otherwise known as "vacation."
Posted by: Shawn Smith | June 13, 2009 10:16 AM
I don't know if this was racially motivated, but the image of a white asshole beating down on a black man for little reason other than the satisfaction of the cop's dickhead urges is a powerful image in this country, where overseers once whipped black slaves.
Posted by: Chuck | June 13, 2009 11:33 AM
Time to listen to some Ice T.
There really ought to be a law that if a policeman is even suspected of an act of brutality, he gets thrown in prison for two weeks with "Police Brutality" tattooed on his chest. I promise you, there won't be any more brutality after a few months of that.
Posted by: Andrew | June 13, 2009 11:40 AM
I suspect the resisting arrest charges are from Ronnie's refusal to stay down once the cop threw him to the ground. This will probably be enough to change the focus from the cop's brutality to Ronnie as a criminal.
"wandering for the purpose of obtaining controlled dangerous substances" sounds like some made up crime just for this case. Perhaps there needs to be some made up crimes applicable to raging cops?
I can't wait to hear the spin from conservative talk show hosts.
Posted by: GaryB, FCD | June 13, 2009 1:03 PM
Note it down everybody; wearing a hooded sweatshirt on a street corner means you're a drug dealer. Why do we hire people like this to be policemen? Shouldn't there be some sort of process to, at the very least, attempt to weed out such brutes during recruitment and training?
Posted by: Julian | June 13, 2009 2:25 PM
From the AP:
Posted by: Alan B. | June 13, 2009 3:17 PM
I once read that cops should get twice the punishment for crimes because not only did they commit a crime, but they also betrayed the trust the public puts in them.
Throw him in jail for a few years, this is insane.
Posted by: joewanderlust | June 13, 2009 3:18 PM
It's been over a decade and a half since the Rodney King beating and the Los Angeles riots resulting from the acquittal of the officers. If this event had occurred in Los Angeles, I would have suggested that they not bother with the legal system and instead engage in vigilante justice against the officer and the police department itself.
In my view, the acquittal of the Rodney King beaters was a declaration of war against the LA black community. The LA black community had been complaining about their treatment from the LAPD for years, and with the videotaped beating, they expected something finally done about it. The last thing the LA black community should have done is simply back down and disappear. War was declared. I wish that they'd targeted their violence, though. It would have been a glorious sight, seeing a hundred police stations go up in flames in LA.
Posted by: John M 307 | June 13, 2009 3:49 PM
John M 307, you sound like a conservative pretending to be a liberal.
Posted by: GaryB, FCD | June 13, 2009 4:24 PM
Is it against the law Passaic for a guy to walk around in public without a shirt? I couldn't see any physical resistance to anything the cop did.
There's a non-profit agency here in Shreveport that hires off-duty city policeman for security at several homeless shelters for the severely mentally ill they operate. One of the stated goals of the program is to train police officers in dealing with the mentally ill. Another is to reduce fear of the cops in the mentally ill.
Over the years, the program has had several hundred police officers involved. There's no way of knowing how many incidents have been averted due to this program.
And, I'm not sure that any training would have helped in this case. That officer was violently angry.
Posted by: Donna B. | June 13, 2009 5:04 PM
I suspect the resisting arrest charges are from Ronnie's refusal to stay down once the cop threw him to the ground. This will probably be enough to change the focus from the cop's brutality to Ronnie as a criminal.
Not to be confused with other cases where a "suspect" is charged with resisting arrest (or failure to follow orders or somesuch) for not getting up, perhaps while being tased.
It's so confusing.
Posted by: Uncle Glenny | June 13, 2009 6:09 PM
It's stuff like this that makes even a liberal-minded person like me side with gun nuts. Not because I think violence from the victim would be in anyway justified, but because I think there needs to be more fear in the hearts of cops and figures of authority in general in regards to how they treat the average citizen.
Gimme the good ol days when the powers that be actually feared the citizens they governed...when was that, again?
Posted by: Justin Schenk | June 13, 2009 6:34 PM
As with Justin this kind of thing makes me absolutely furious. I don't even want to give them a chance. It's take away the badge and make their family pay for the bullet. It's absolutely ridiculous.
Posted by: rsm | June 13, 2009 7:32 PM
I'm afraid I have to disagree with Justin - if the cops have a greater fear that you might have a weapon, I'd wager they would be come MORE likely to respond to any sort of resistance (real or imagined) to their authority with excessive or deadly force.
Now if they were afraid that abusing their authority would cause them to actually face justice, possibly even greater than that of a member of the general public would face, perhaps THAT might help lessen the chances of them performing acts similar to those displayed in the above video.
Of course, it might be even better to also hold officers' superiors accountable for the actions of their employees, which might help motivate police departments to remove potential authoritarian troublemakers from amongst their ranks.
Posted by: sinned34 | June 14, 2009 12:40 AM
The cop should be charged with aggravated assault, kicked off the force, and be forbidden from ever being in any position like this again, not even mall security. That guy has some serious issues he needs worked out before he should be put in any position of authority. He actually put himself and everyone near him in danger. His flying tackle maneuver was terribly irresponsible for him, since he merely pushed the guy down, and made him fall himself. The "perp" could have easily whipped out a weapon and injured someone. That's IF he was actually trying to subdue a real criminal, and not just some guy who was zipping up his jacket. What a Bush-League rent-a-cop.
Posted by: itsalljustaride | June 14, 2009 2:18 PM
GaryB: Think of it as giving a conservative a taste of his own medicine. Imagine him seeing his favorite gun ad targeting the black community -- "you need big guns" -- against the oppressive government -- in this case, the "gangsters in blue."
Posted by: John M 307 | June 14, 2009 2:18 PM