Remember our article from the March 3, 2010 melee after the Maryland / Duke game?  Kids went wild, set fire to trash cans and in general celebrated way too much?  Some UMD Students Need to Grow Up showed students too happy over their win over Duke.  Some  footage also discovered what appears to be some serious police brutality on the part of Prince George’s County Police.  At least 2 students had the living hell beaten out of them with night sticks, fists and it appears the one was rammed with the horse. 

I generally don’t  holler brutality.  However, PG County has long had  a reputation from not running with the straight and narrow.  Judging from this video, is sure looks like PG County has a few rotten apples:

 

What do you think?

21 Thoughts to “PG County Cops Tape Shows Brutality after Maryland/Duke Game”

  1. Wolverine

    You can see early in the video that this kid made the dumbest mistake possible: playing games with the police in a crowd control situation. It does look to me like the kid had one too many of something for sure. He was not caught in a situation. He deliberately (or mindlessly) went into the situation.

    Nevertheless, it definitely looks like excessive force to me. The kid went down and was helpless pretty fast. He should have been grabbed, cuffed, and taken to the paddy wagon for later disposition. Those last couple of baton whacks by the cop on the left ought to cost somebody dearly. Totally unnecessary and unwarranted. It looked to me like an administration of punishment, as if the cop decided to be judge and jury as well.

    It’s not like this was a bloody revolution on the streets of College Park. I can understand cops getting upset when they have to deal with this kind of stupid crap from the students;but you would think that they would have enough training and street leadership not to lose it over something like this, especially when you can see no signs of the police being overwhelmed by a surging crowd and finding themselves in acute danger.

  2. Second-Alamo

    It appears to me that the group was encroaching on the Police blockade, and the two beaten were trying to challenge them. Looks bad, but then I’m sure if those two weren’t dealt with quickly then more would have followed suit, and it may have turned into an even bigger ordeal. There won’t be any public outrage even if it is considered Police brutality, because it appears the kids were white (couldn’t dance). Had they been any other color…….God help us….again! Just another payday for Al!

  3. I think he was just a drunk kid skipping around singing the MD fight song. He was at a dead stop at the wall. I couldn’t hear if he was running his yap or not. Doesn’t matter.

    Bam! I almost never side with drunks or kids in these kinds of situations. It really appeared to be excessive force to me. You don’t do that to anyone unless your life is threatened. I hope the perps are fired. We don’t need bad cops out there. Cuff him and run him in or whatever the game plan for crowd control was. Cops in this area have had a bad rep for many years. Now I see why.

    It shouldn’t matter what the race is. Unarmed people should not be threated like this. With cell phone video etc, more and more bad cops will be exposed. These sure got Rodney Kinged, and good. Mr. Howler said this kind of crap has supposedly gone on for year….being the old turtle that he is.

  4. PWC Taxpayer

    According to the news this morning, more video has surfaced that confirms that the attack was unprovoked. There was a similar incident at JMU this past weekend – also caught on video and youtube. In both examples, charges were dropped. In the Prince Georges case the crime now is the official reports filed that do not comport to the video — as in cover-up. Not sure apologies are enough.

    More troubling is – why. What is is about our current economic problems or social class structure that is causing this among trained and supposedly disciplined officers – or is it all the same. In the old days we defferred to the police because it was their word against some nobody’s. That is often not the case anymore.

  5. I suggest that there are certain departments that have a culture of abuse. (Remember the movie/book Serpico?)PG Co has has a bad reputation. I have heard about it for year. It is beginning to sound like some of it is true.

    I had heard when I did the original article (see blue highlight above) that Maryland officials were looking for additional footage. They must have uncovered more than they bargained for. It is always easy to blame drunks and college kids. And people generally assume that the perpetrators were the ones at fault.

  6. @PWC Taxpayer
    Excellent question, PWC Tax: “What is is about our current economic problems or social class structure that is causing this among trained and supposedly disciplined officers – or is it all the same.”

    I think back to events such as Kent State and recall studying social unrest more as part of a social revolution, not necessarily a result of the socio-economic divide. Why is that? Was there less of a rift between the haves and the have-nots then, but the tension was caused by rapidly changing cultural norms as opposed to social status? Let’s look to history to see if we can’t uncover some roots of todays’ unrest.

  7. Kent State was young, not so well trained recruits having all sorts of debris (broken glass, dog crap, etc) thrown at them. Someone panicked. Kent State was not a seasoned police force. They were members of the Ohio National Guard. That situation was not a single sided issue back in the day.

    I am having a hard time figuring out who the haves and have nots are at College Park, MD. The cops are fairly well paid. College students aren’t exactly inner city kids. College students have been making asses of themselves since time began. Many are away from home for the first time and simply aren’t as accountable as they would be if their mamas were there. And there have always been a few rotten apples on police forces.

    I don’t think there are deep rooted social causes.

  8. marinm

    I think it’s a clear case of brutality. No doubt about it. My guess is the kid mouthed off to the cop and the cop felt his authority challanged and served him some justice at the end of a riot stick.

    When police officers are the only ones we trust to be armed; this non-sense happens. A cop became a bully and he and his friends decided to exact some social justice by way of skull thumping to this citizen.

    But, this type of activity doesn’t even phase me in the Peoples Republik of Maryland.

    Now, I’ve only read of Kent State in history books. My impression was that the NG wasn’t given good orders and the element effectively got scared and fired in self defense killing and wounding students. Anyone got more info to enrich mine?

  9. Mr. Howler said he saw the arrest report on TV that said the kid resisted arrest and he had hit one of cop’s horses. (a felony) Obviously this did not happen quite like that.

  10. re: Maryland situation-How about coming up with a different name for the state. That is a baseless name. There should be no thumping in the name of social justice anywhere. I expect there was some slack jaw for sure. Marin, I don’t think you are suggesting arming drunk students are you? That would have certainly escalated things.

    I don’t think Kent State NG was highly trained and they got tired of being pelted with debris is what i heard at the time and read for years after that. It is still very controversial. I don’t think there was good and bad here.

    It taught me instantly as an arm chair observer that if things start heading sound leave immediately and go in the opposite direction. Standing around to watch isn’t a real good idea. That advice has always served me well.

  11. marinm

    No, it’s not about arming drunks (but I have no proof that student or any other student in the video was intoxicated) but rather the idea that police corruption runs amok in areas where the citizens are disarmed. We hear constant problems in PG County or Montgomery County (Maryland) but don’t really hear much about police corruption in Virginia. Sure you have it (Virginia Sheriff was ousted and I think thrown in jail for drug related offenses and 2 PWC cops in recent history have raped women) but when I turn on the local news I either hear of a shooting in DC, a shooting in MD, or how police are under investigation in MD for xyz.

    On the upside, we don’t usually deal with holligans to the level that the UK does when soccer season hits. 🙂

  12. PWC Taxpayer

    @Moon-howler

    I am kind of fond of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Maryland, with its one party rule, social justice as defined by a party aligned with big government and market management. If you take out the federal employee residents, take out the state and local government employee residents, take out the Federal and State contractors and then take out the 47 (plus) families that pay no taxes, there is not much left in Maryland to not consider it anything different. Just a thought.

    Not to show my age or anything, but the one rules of thumb that Mr Howler may recall – in the day – and good today – was to keep one eye on the television cameras and the other on the name plates on the police uniforms. When they started to disappear and leave that was your cue to get out of there – it was about to get nasty.

  13. anona

    I see a serious case of “We’re Going to FIGHT for our RIGHT to PAAAAARRRTY!” gone amok. Police and students behaving very badly. Perhaps they’ll turn it into a new reality TV show “College Park Shores”

  14. pwctaxpayer, he went there in the early 60’s. Should I ask him if they even had TV cameras then? He did say he never had got caught be them. I will run your theory past him. Are you a fear the turtle person also? 😉

    Anona, no argument as to party…

    marin, have you followed the story? There was lots of DIP and disorderly and historically that happens. There are also lots of townies in the mix.

  15. marinm

    @Moon-howler

    True, but a video won’t tell me if the student involved was intoxicated. Nor will a video show me if others were. They may have been but I can’t prove that. All I can prove from the video is that a disarmed person who had done nothing obviously illegal was taken to the ground and hit with sticks.

    Unless I see a BAC report showing the suspect was intoxicated; I’ll assume he wasn’t. That’s not to say that people weren’t running around being stupid or obnoxious but thats not always against the law.

    The officers involved should lose police powers and be charged with crimes.

  16. Since history is important, I will assume they were drunk since I dont have to prove it in a court of law. I dont disagree about people losing their jobs.

  17. El Guapo

    I haven’t heard anyone suggest that this isn’t outrageous. That’s pretty clear. What interests me is that cops would do this knowing that digital cameras exist. I have a video camera in my iPod, and the image clarity and the sound are both shockingly high quality. Cell phone cameras. Every group of people is going to have several cameras. Why would a cop behave like that? I just don’t get it.

  18. It looks like some cops picked on the wrong kid. The kid’s grandfather is a former Mongomery County circuit court judge. This grandfather knows his way around the court system. He was Deputy States Attorney. Judge McKenna. He and his wife own Sugar Loaf vineyard in Montgomery County.

    There have just been too many incidents from this one police force. The video speaks volumes.

    http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/local/university-of-maryland-student-claims-unprovoked-attack-by-police-041210

  19. Rick Bentley

    They beat him, and then filed false claims against the kid saying that he attacked them, and any injuries he had were from being hit by the horse. Clearly some of those police belong up on charges.

  20. Wolverine

    Unfortunately, this stuff sometimes happens on the street anywhere when tempers are raw. From what I hear, the PG authorities seem to be taking action against the officers involved. There can be no excuse for that overuse of the baton by an officer supposedly trained in crowd control.

    However, I do think the Beth Parker article is just a tad misleading in one respect. She states: “He stops.” It makes it look like the kid was just standing there innocent as a little angel. Not from what I saw on the thread video he wasn’t. He deliberately pranced and danced his way toward the police line like a damned fool. If you look closely, the kid who started off with him in that direction had the good sense to stop before he got too close to the police. When the other kid did “stop”, it looked to me like the looming presence of that big horse was what stopped him — which is exactly why the crowd control police use horses.

    To me this is, indeed, a clear case of excessive use of force and deserves punishment. And I say that as someone who was once a police advisor and trainer. But it also looks like that force was used on a kid who was acting like a durned fool. There is another thing Judge McKenna might want to do in this case, in my opinion. Sit down with his grandson and tell the kid he would do well to start acting like a rational, thinking adult.

  21. Being a damn fool shouldn’t end in being beaten senseless. They could have killed that kid. They were on him like a duck on a june bug.

    And I don’t disagree about sitting Young McKenna down for a good talk about responsible adult behavior.

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