In what seems like a scene out of the movie “The Big Easy,” New Orleans police are accused of beating and using a taser on Steven Elloie on June 23, 2006 and then losing the critical police tape showing the incident. The two officers, Jason Samuel and Hans Ganthier, are defendants in another such brutality case that occurred at another bar on Mardi Gras.
Elloie’s family owns the Sportsman’s Corner bar and has done so for more than 30 years. The family says that the NOPD was looking for two guys in white teeshirts, but no one in white teeshirts was in the bar. They said that Elloie was beaten, tased, handcuffed, and arrested. He was charged with resisting arrest, but (after making the family do repeatedly to court) the NOPD officers simply did not show up (leading to the charges being dropped).
They are now suing with the help of the ACLU.
For the full story, click here.
The aforementioned article appeared in the September 2nd edition of The Nation, not the 21st (a typo)…
quote from article Vigilantes: Free to Roam
“Victims, perpetrators, witnesses–nobody in law enforcement had ever spoken with them,” Thompson recalls. “It was mind-boggling.” The New Orleans Police Department had not initiated an investigation into a single case. end quote
I once witnessed a couple of New Orleans cops pummeling a man with their billy clubs. He appeared to be pretty defenseless. Sadly, it was before the days of cell phone cameras.
September 2, 2009
Vigilantes: Free to Roam?
By Esther Kaplan
This article appeared in the September 21, 2009 edition of The Nation.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090921/kaplan
Jill: A possible explanation is lack of respect – the often complete and utter disregard for a person(s) demonstrated when one causes pain to another, showing no remorse when confronted, in fact, lying about it thereby learning nothing, consequently being permitted to repeat the behavior again and again.
It’s infuriating.
I see a connection between the complete lawlessness of the cheney/bush administration and the near or actual breakdown of civilian law enforcement authorities. I think Naomi Klein is on to something in her book: The Shock Doctrine.
I am also convinced that civilian violence and cruelty is commonplace–one example being the senseless killing of a hawk that got in the way of one’s golf game. Certainly we all know one example after another of horrific violence.
There is also violence in words, some of which I have seen in the responses to this blog. I have heard many people say they go around in a rage all day.
Anger can be a helpful emotion as it moves us to correct injustice against ourselves and others. For this reason I do not believe people being angry is the problem. But this society is violent in many, many ways. So what do others think? Is this violence interconnected? Why is there so much violence, in word and deed?