Criminal law

Report: Bicyclist Stopped For Not Having Lights After Dark . . . Ends Up In Hospital With Dislocated Shoulder and Fractures

Lapd_badgeBrian Cisneros, 34, is accusing the Los Angeles Police Department of assaulting him without provocation last week. Cisneros says that he was riding his bike when officers allegedly jumped out of a cruiser and beat him severely. He was charged with “for no lights after hours of darkness.” He has charged the officers with police abuse in a complaint.

Cisneros claims that the officer never gave him a chance before beating him down and “stomping” on him. The next day he went to the hospital with a dislocated shoulder and a fractured elbow, among other injuries.

The LADP says that the incident was recorded as a traffic stop. While police say that his account has conflicting elements, the injuries appear documented. The question is whether the level of force was reported by the officers. If the officers were responsible for the injuries, there should have been a report and likely a charge for resisting police. Police guidelines generally require the calling of an ambulance.

This produces a rather sharp conflict and frankly does not make a lot of sense. If the police are not claiming to have used force, they would be calling Cisneros a liar and attributing unrelated injuries to them. If they admit force was used, the response of the police and lack of a report or arrest is highly suspicious.

If anyone has additional information, this is something that we would like to follow.

Source: CBS

17 thoughts on “Report: Bicyclist Stopped For Not Having Lights After Dark . . . Ends Up In Hospital With Dislocated Shoulder and Fractures”

  1. People were immediately transported by ambulance or private car to local hospitals. Hillcrest and Providence Hospitals in Waco provided immediate medical assistance to the wounded? ? He’s for “school choice” but offers no details. More? “Todd is so many things in addition to being a pastor: He’s a volunteer firefighter, says the man who inspired his role is full of surprises.but there will still be a game played at the Cotton Bowl on New Year’s Day — something called the Heart of Dallas Bowl. bold-faced names (such as Woodbine Development CEO John Scovell and ) and city officials to the “repackaged and repurposed” New Year’s Day event he hopes will be “more than a bowl game.Over at Methodist Hospital, Kiest Blvd.

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  3. Wasn’t this the same LAPD division which was featured in another bicycle “incident” here on the Turley blog, maybe 6 months ago? As best I can remember there was a bicyclist who was arrested for supposedly riding the wrong way on a ped path, maybe in Santa Monica? For all those who think the bicyclist is making this up, I wonder what he had to gain from making the complaint. This fellow appears to be someone who would not seek any attention. I would suspect that the police had some anger to vent and didn’t think he would complain.

  4. It’s not the first time the pi…uh, cops have targeted and assaulted cyclists without provocation, and it won’t be the last.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwkVMT6m7zg

    Cops who commit crimes should be deemed automatically guilty and get the maximum sentence, no trial needed. They know what the law is, so they sure as hell shouldn’t be breaking it.

  6. I think that there are still a lot of unknown factors and either side could be lying about what happened and we won’t know why for some time.

  7. george-b,

    I checked out your blog and I’ll have to say you have an interesting collection of links there. I particularly liked Open Library. That’s a new and welcome link I added to my collection. Thanks.

  10. When you can trust the LAPD to tell the truth you will be onto something…. For now, I’d be happy to have any videos that exist….

  12. Usually, when an officer stops someone, he/she reports it to dispatch. Thus, it’s on record regardless whether a report was made. This gives a time/location stamp. A Little hard to erase, but we know not the workings of the system. But then, there are always those listening in on scanners.

  14. MORE NEEDS TO BE LEARNED. BUT AT A MINIMUM I AM PUZZLED THAT THE POLICE DID NOT CHARGE HIM WITH A TRAFFIC OFFENSE AND ASSAULTING AN OFFICER. AS THE TWO OFFICERS DID NOT DO THAT I AM INCLINED TO GIVE MORE WEIGHT TO THE CLAIMS OF THE CYCLIST.

  15. From the information I have read so far I am having a difficult time believing this man’s accusations.

    For the sake of argument if it was actually the case of the officers stopping him and proceeding to beat him up and the officers knew this to be unlawful why would they have issued him a traffic ticket to link themselves to this man’s assault? If anything they would have just driven off when they came to their senses. If they went the route of trying to make it seem like the man attacked them, he would have been arrested and at least a backup unit would have been called along with an ambulance. In this case, as professor Turley suggests, there would have been a resisting arrest / assault on LEO charge.

    Plus, this man alleges they drew their guns down on him when he was first pulled over. Again, if it was so serious of an event why where there no other backup officers called.?

    Then there is the accounts from the initial investigators in that he made inconsistent statements. If these were material or not it does hurt his credibility some.

    Again, I am willing to keep an open mind and allow this to take its course but at the moment there isn’t enough for me to side with him.

    What is my guess as to what happened? This is speculative at this point so you all can judge it for what it’s worth. My opinion is he was actualy pulled over by the police and issued a traffic ticket for the lighting violation. He then rode off, perhaps not paying attention and reading the ticket, and crashed his bicycle. He then landed on his elbow on the pavement and dislocated his shoulder in the process. He might have struck his face on the ground or another object. He then blamed the police for his injuries.

    Again, I don’t have much to go on and it could be likely incorrect but there isn’t enough here at this stage for me to believe him.

  16. Disgusting story. The pictures in the CBS report do seem to reflect significant injuries. Does the LAPD videotape all of their stops?

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