The video below is now the basis for an investigation into a raid by Long Beach California officers of the THC marijuana dispensary. The officer accused the dispensary of operating without a permit. However, one officer first steps on an employee and then other officers target the security video system and destroy the cameras before tearing the place apart.
More than a dozen Long Beach Police officers raided the store and show officers forcing one employee on the ground. Officers then proceed to step on him. The volunteer employee Dorian Brooks was entirely cooperative at the scene before being stepped on.
THe officers then notice the security cameras and proceeded to destroy them with a metal bar. The after-raid video shows extensive damage to the store. The dispensary lacked a city permit, but was operating in compliance with state law. Five people were arrested.
On its face, the stepping on the suspect is an obvious violation. There was obviously room to step over the employee and the officers did not appear to be in the course of pursing another suspect or dealing with some exigent circumstance. The destruction of the cameras raises another troubling question. We have been following the series of arrests by citizens who film officers despite court rulings stating that such filming is entirely lawful. (For prior column, click here). This video shows the instinctive hostility of officers to being filmed. There is no operational reason to destroy the video system.
The Obama Administration has been cracking down on medical marijuana establishments and pressuring states to do the same with marijuana dispensaries. Once again, if the camera did not capture the first few minutes, the account of the employee and the store would likely have been dismissed as a complaint. It would have been left as a matter of the word of the officers against this employee.
The matter is under investigation by the Long Beach police department.
Source: NBC
More and more cops seem to breaking more laws. Look at policethugs.com. Not saying all cops are bad, but the ones that are commit horrible crimes. Something needs to be done
The real reason this kind of behavior goes on is that behavior that is almost as bad as this has not, in the past, been discouraged. Cops (and others) who do stuff that is outrageously BAD BAD BAD and WRONG WRONG WRONG but who get only “yassuh whatever you say” in response become bolder and worse and more dangerous. If you don’t really MEAN IT when you lay down the rules for folks to follow, you will get psychopathic criminals like these three doing all the harm they want, victimizing normal folks, endangering normal folks.
Whatta bunch of monkeys (apologies to monkeys). I don’t think they’re smart enough to realize how stupid they look, it requires a triple digit IQ, which they obviously don’t have. The BEST kind of goons don’t have the capacity to think, only ACT, that’s why they’re hired…
It ought to be easy enough to identify the cops involved in this incident. Why not those in the Long Beach California area do just that so as to enable everyone who thinks the behavior of these cops is unacceptable to withdraw all voluntary association with them, in-person and on the Internet. No violence or even threats of it; simply no sales, no service, no camaraderie, no voluntary anything with these creeps.
Cops have a hard job. These thugs should be finding new ones, after paying for everything they wrecked. Note to Long Beach: Why not find some real crime to solve?
In Colorado, the state law requires the video cameras be on and working in all pot dispensaries. Police would be in violation for tampering or destroying evidence
Malisha, lol. And do these big fat thugs have a paypal account?
I fail to see the justification for why the man in the T-Shirt was proned out and handcuffed on an occupancy permit violation. Would a pharmacist who forgot to obtain an occupancy permit also have been ordered to the ground, stepped on, and handcuffed?
Then the ransacking of the business afterward: again would the pharmacist have his business trashed and camera crowbared?
The controversy over the video recording in public places isn’t even applicable here since it was inside a private business and most businesses open to retail sales have cameras.
Since the camera was or was going to record evidence (even of the crime the dispensary was violating) the officers’ destruction of this would be in my view at least Conspiracy of Destruction of Evidence.
Wonder why one of the hottest selling items at costco is surveillance systems that upload off site.
Yeah and there’s a place on-line where you can buy doormats made in the shape of the guy on the floor — manufactured in Virginia. I understand they’re selling out.
OK, first off, yes the officers were fat and white and thugs, and yes, the victim was young and Black, and entirely within his rights, and victimized, and hurt, and terrorized, and deliberately disrespected and punished, but let’s not jump to a bunch of conclusions.
According to one of the officers (rumor has it) the man who ended up on the floor said, when his back was to the camera, “You three homies are gonna die today,” and he put them in fear for their lives. The cop who stepped on him first was just trying to read the sign on the back of a box so he could report in to HQ as to whether or not there was contraband on the premises. And apparently they have all taken voice-stress tests and passed, especially because when asked, “After the raid were the walls green?” they said, “no.” And one of them has ADD. Tomorrow they’re all gonna have big bandaids on their feet. Oh, and that guy they cuffed? He had to go to detention one time for sassing a safety patrol.
Thugs, pure and simple. Sweet land of liberty, indeed.
I guess the guy will pay the protection money next time.
Rafflaw problem is the “city” is the citizens, their taxes could increase to pay for this criminality. The cops seem to learn nothing from the other instances where the “city” has had to cough up or like Los Angeles have the feds looking over their shoulders for years.
Here is a news article from Australia illustrating why police do not like to be photographed.
All of the herb in that store couldn’t have done as much damage as those fat a$$ohles did. Pure thuggery here, nothing more.
The war on drugs has turned into a war on the populace. Seems the lobbyists have the cops in their pocket as well as the pols.
Hope you are happy Mr. President.
I hope the city has to dig down deep into its pockets to pay for this affront to justice.
I’m sure it is just a matter of coincidence that the dispensary volunteer is a young black man while the “law enforcement officers” are slightly older, obese, over-weight, fat white men.
I wonder if the 5th will apply there……