Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Free Speech, Justice, Media, Torts

Bleed on a Ferguson police officer? Get charged with destruction of public property. Oh My!

By Charlton S. Stanley, Weekend writer

We should have seen this coming. I believe it is going to get worse before it gets better, if ever. At some point there is going to be a “pitchforks and torches” backlash.

Ferguson MO logoIt may be starting in Ferguson, MO. Take a look at one of the latest stories to come out of there. It’s sad that we have to look overseas to get reliable and up to date news about what is happening in the good ol’ US of A. Because of the great sucking sound that is the US corporate mainstream media, people who want to get a more balanced read on the news check sites such as Al Jazerra, The Guardian, RT, The Epoch Times, and Der Spiegel.

This is a brief clip from a story posted yesterday on RT (Russia Today). Emphasis is mine:

Nearly four years to the day before Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson opened fire and killed Brown, 18, a complaint filed in federal court accused the same law enforcement agency of violating the civil rights of a man who says he was badly beaten after being wrongly arrested, then later charged with “destruction of property” for bleeding on the uniforms of the cops alleged to have injured him.

Full story at this link.

It gets better. Reading the court filings, we learn that on September 20, 2010, Henry Davis missed his exit and found himself in the the St. Louis County community of Ferguson at 3:00 AM. As it happened, there was a warrant was out for a Henry Davis, but the wanted man has a different middle initial, different birth date, and different Social Security number.

However, Davis, a 54 year old African-American welder was assaulted by four officers (one of them female). The records show that he was thrown forcefully into a one-person cell, but the one-person cell already had an occupant. He would have had to sleep on the concrete floor, because the one bunk was already occupied. There was a pile of sleeping mats near the cell, so Davis asked for a sleeping mat. Because he asked for something to sleep on, he was called disobedient. At that point, Davis was thrown to the floor, and put in restraints. During this assault in the jail, one of the officers kicked Davis in the head.

After being restrained and kicked in the jail cell, paramedics took Henry Davis to the hospital where he insisted that his picture be taken before he was treated (photo and story at the link). The Emergency Room doctor diagnosed him with a concussion and stitched him up before releasing Davis back to custody of the Ferguson PD.

He was released 3 days later on a $1500 bond for “destruction of public property.” If they kick and beat you, you better not dare bleed on their uniforms.

Davis sued. When the four officers were deposed, all four denied that they had blood on their uniforms as they had signed on their affidavit of complaints. What does this mean? They either perjured themselves at trial or had falsified affidavit. That level of perjury is a felony. The county prosecutor declined to prosecute because he claimed Davis’, injuries were de minimus.

Bob McCullouch
Bob McCullouch

Let’s take a look at the prosecutor. The St. Louis County Prosecutor is a man named Bob McCulloch. He has a reputation of being extremely harsh in his prosecution of offenders. However, McCulloch has some personal baggage which calls both his judgement and racial neutrality into question. You see, Bob McCulloch is the son of St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department officer Paul McCullouch. Officer Paul McCullough was killed in the line of duty on July 2, 1964. Officer McCullouch was 37 years old at the time. His son, current prosecutor Bob McCulloch was 12 years old in 1964. I remember that cop killing, because we lived in St. Louis, and it happened not far from where I was working at the time. Officer McCullouch was responding to a kidnapping call at the infamous Pruett-Igoe Housing Project when he was shot in the head by the fleeing kidnapper. His killer was a black man.

Bob McCullouch wanted to become a police officer like his father, but lost a leg as a teenager. That eliminated him from joining the police force, so he went to law school and became a prosecutor, a position he has held for the past twenty years. His tenure as a prosecuting attorney has been marked by controversy. He has a reputation as being almost fanatical about prosecuting alleged perpetrators, but turns a blind eye to even the grossest misconduct by law enforcement officers. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has a story about him.

Mr. Davis’ injuries were de minimus, and according to McCullouch, not worth pursuing, yet Davis’ spattered blood on the officer’s uniforms did warrant charges. Maybe somebody smarter than me can explain that logic.

Henry Davis sued the city for civil rights violations, but late last year Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker ruled in favor the city. His attorneys filed a notice of appeal in March, and the case is currently slated to be considered later this year by the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals.

A PDF of the filing to the Eighth Circuit is embedded in the RT article.

–ooOoo–

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441 thoughts on “Bleed on a Ferguson police officer? Get charged with destruction of public property. Oh My!”

  2. Darren
    If you truly believe in justice, then provide this officer a fair due process and don’t convict him based on anything else.
    = = =
    It appears that the PD already has attempted to try the victim publicly, denying him any due process while smearing his character in the press. What is the term used in courts when one side comes to Justice with dirty little hands?

    What robbery?

  3. Take Governor Jay Nixon out of office for the way he handled the situation in Ferguson, Missouri
    https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/take-governor-jay-nixon-out-office-way-he-handled-situation-ferguson-missouri/Z6z5mZwj

    The way Governor Jay Nixon handled Ferguson is a disgrace. The way he allowed the officers and swat teams to take away our First Amendment. The tear gassing of innocent protesters which included woman and children. The waste of our tax dollars on calling in the National Guard, the Missouri State Troopers, and other authorities. For arresting news reporters for doing their job. He handled the situation poorly and does not deserve to be our Missouri Governor.

    Created: Aug 18, 2014

  5. Darren:

    You shoot an unarmed young man and the burden should be on you to explain your reasons. We’re not in a criminal setting yet. This is for the peace of the neighborhood. His story should be out there now and we should be able to evaluate it because Michael Browns can’t be. Plus his department has no business being involved in the investigation. It should be independent when people feel this strongly about what happened and the objectiveness of the police is in question.

  6. The real measure of how true the justice system is here is if despite all the outrage and calls to arrest this officer, especially from politicians and pundits, who have not even waited until an independent investigation has concluded that this officer or anyone else in his situation actually receives his right to fairness and objective justice.

    That would be a stronger statement of a democracy based upon civil liberty than simply giving in to the will of the mob, and the political aspirations of several. Whatever weight of the burden of all of society’s bad fortunes should not bear on the shoulders of one man’s actions.

    If you truly believe in justice, then provide this officer a fair due process and don’t convict him based on anything else.

    Alas, I suspect that no matter what the outcome of the investigation, anything will be unacceptable unless he is put in prison for the rest of his life, regardless of any defense he might have. Because it is very convenient to throw away this man’s life to appease those most vocal and to pontificate for political advantage.

    I can’t help but think, if this does in fact happen, of the movie Breaker Morant.

  11. John:

    Sorry to disappoint you but your heroes aren’t perfect and your villains aren’t always bad. You may want a black or white world, the problem is there Isn’t one. Come to think of it, you might want a black vs white world and with that thinking you might get it.

  13. Let me deflate this false dichotomy. You should define clearly what you mean by “right” or “wrong,” but assuming the usual meanings of doing the most good for the most people as “right,” and doing the opposite as “wrong,” the following may answer your question:

    Lincoln was right on some things — like preserving the Union and emancipating slaves — but wrong on some things like suspending habeas corpus and promoting a slave exodus. That, of course, makes Lincoln human.

    The Civil War was surely “right” for the Union as it gave us the nation we have today and quashed the silly notion of rights to secession by the states. It probably is regarded as “wrong” by Southern slaveholders and those predisposed against African-American citizenship and their civil rights for the obvious reasons of self-interest in the case of the former and racism in the case of the latter.

    Where shall we count you?

    Mespo,

    “Doing the most good…” Your dogma sounds like the Manifesto or a religious tract and is not related to American founding documents wherein there is no mandate for the “most good” or being one’s “brother’s keeper.” It sounds as if you believe America is communistic or theocratic. Ignore “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” and try “secured the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” Those who wrote the Preamble also “promoted the general welfare” while making no mention of “doing the most good.” With all due respect, your religious beliefs are immaterial.

    Where shall we count you? Theocrat of the Bible or Koran? Communist of the Manifesto? American of the Preamble, Constitution and Bill of Rights?

    Secession was bad for the U.S but good for the USSR???

    That dudn’t make any sense.

    Divorce was good for Ronald Reagan. It would have been good for the U.S.

    Lincoln was brilliant on secession and war, while erroneous on contrived unconstitutional citizenship or repatriation? The full weight of Lincoln’s faculties and sensibilities brought to bear were effective in one instance and eminent failure in the next? That just doesn’t have the ring of truth and honesty to it. Was Einstein bright one day and dim the next?

    I think Lincoln was great and brilliant. That is why there is a national monument in his honor. Lincoln’s plan was to kill 1 Million Americans to resolve a labor/wage issue. Lincoln’s plan to disallow divorce or separation of clearly delineated states into several states was brilliant. We should not allow marital divorce today based on the same rationale – keep ’em together even if it kills ’em. I like it. And if one knows the definition of unite, he must also be familiar with the inverse. All who united, contemplated ultimate separation. All good things must end; it’s intuitive. Lincoln was also brilliant in subsuming confederate states after the war and ramming through unconstitutional laws and amendments tyrannically. Absolutely brilliant, even if posthumous.

    I think Lincoln was consistent and equally brilliant in knowing that the most good for the most African ex-slaves was to compassionately and generously repatriate them because it was their origin and it would provide them with a deeper sense of belonging, honor and responsibility. Ex-slaves needed to heal and begin to grow again. They deserved no less than to be returned to the place they had been taken from. Additionally, Lincoln, in his brilliance, understood that repatriation would preclude potential problems between population segments, real or imagined, including his own.

    Given the population’s persistent “irreconcilable differences” of the past 150 years, I’d say Lincoln was not only brilliant but prescient and transcendent.

    Lincoln’s Repatriation Plan constituted the most good and the most righteousness for the most people, African and American.

  14. @mespo

    What a 6’4″ 300 pound “kid”??? Maybe, but all the facts are not yet in. Which makes me wonder why we are even talking about this stuff. Oh I know ! Because it might play into the Left ‘s racism narrative.

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

  20. mespo,
    Do you think he was trained by the former Chief of police?
    … You know, the one that had “special” training in Israel?

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