Sgt. Shawn Glans a New York sheriff’s deputy has been suspended after a video was posted that showed him verbally abusing, and apparently slapping a young man after the man refused to let Glans search his vehicle. The car had a rifle in the backseat, which is not unlawful and, when the man refuses, Glans is heard threatening that he could “rip your … head off.”
The video below shows Glans insisting that “We’ll get a (expletive) search warrant” and demanding “Let me see your (expletive) keys.” When the man asks why he wants the keys, Glans says “Because we’re searching your (expletive) car, that’s why.” After the slap is heard, Glans is heard saying “You want to (expletive) resist?”
A friend videotaped the encounter. The friend, shown in the incident, tells Glans that what just happened was “intense” and asks the officer if he’s going strike him next. The sheriff’s sergeant responds that he could “rip your (expletive) head off and piss down your neck.” He then says “You like that, huh? I can get a lot more intense.”
In this case, Glans is shown cursing the man and insisting he has a right to search the vehicle. Glans insists that the men were acting suspiciously, a common justification for police stops. Glans said that he considered it suspicious that they were wearing dark clothing and otherwise acting in a suspicious undefined way.
Glans, 48, who has been a police officer for 27 years.
Glans later made an extraordinary admission while he insisted that the video is misleading:
“It doesn’t look good, . . . I’m all about doing the right thing. I had to go to that point because of the factors that came into play. There was a gun that was involved (that) I spotted in the vehicle. . . . I was concerned. It was a public safety issue. If I had to do it all over again … I’d probably do the same thing. If I knew the camera was there, no, because it does look bad.”
The fact that he appears to have slapped a citizen and threatened another does not appear to factor into the equation. However, the camera does.
Once again, absent the video, it is doubtful that anything would have happened in a case of rivaling accounts between an officer and a citizen. We have been following the continuing abuse of citizens who are detained or arrested for filming police in public. (For prior columns, click here and here). There have been consistent rulings upholding the right of citizens to film police in public. These videos continue to disclose misconduct of officers, including recent stories here and here and here and here.
Glans, a former Marine, has previously been at the center of a major lawsuit. In 1999, the town of Wilton and Saratoga County paid $6 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the family of a 45-year-old man who was left paralyzed when Glans slammed his patrol car into the man’s vehicle. A jury found Glans negligent in his response to a 911 call. He drove a cruiser at three times the posted speed limit and crossing the line into incoming traffic.
He has now been suspended without pay.
Source: Times Union
Glans is latin for the head of a penis. This guy is literally a dickhead.
why isn’t this cop being prosecuted for assault? Rather than just being suspended without pay. Cops are out of control all over the country. The problem is no one is holding them accountable for their actions. Police are NOT above the law, I think they forget that. We need to do something to hold their feet to the fire when THEY break the law.
Actually… all things said, and done.. sgt glans is pretty tame compared to this fine fellow.. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/hawaii-cops-suspended-beatdown-game-room-article-1.1987965
Society is continuing its move backwards into aristocracy and totalitarianism, and the abuse of qualified immunity for cops is part of this digression.
Very Heartening JH, if you don’t like it you don’t have to stay here. Most of us prefer to see the glass as half full. It is not a pathetic “Need” as you say. And to go by the sensationalism of the Media is a bit much. Everyone knows the cops get away with murder, but they also get caught and get put behind bars eventually
Karen S. As hard as it is to accept.. We americans want, sometimes desperately, to believe that we are better than the rest of the world. Yet a simple google search for “cops found protecting drug shipments” reveals hundreds of thousands of hits. Granted many of those hits are duplicates of the same stories.. But I will give a quick rundown of just the first page. Police chief in East Washington, caught in FBI sting. Police chief in Hammond, sentenced 40 yrs. San Antonio. Houston. Miami. Highland Park. Memphis. Boston. Helena, Ark… The lists go on.. And this is just drugs.. since you mentioned the cartels. American cops have their own special little niche of corruption. Millions of dollars stolen from innocent americans.. People never indicted or even charged with crimes, through civil forfeiture laws. Look up officer Larry Bates from Tn. Or deputy Lee Dove in Nv. The entire police force of Tenaha, Tx. Speaking of towns. We can also add speed trap towns to the corruption list. This year alone two police departments in separate towns in florida have been disbanded for running illegal speed traps. One town was threatened with losing it’s entire charter, and being annexed back into Tampa. In short, as I mentioned in a previous post. We have put the police on such a high pedestal, and we have done so with blinders on. Though we are told time, and time again that law enforcement officers are held to a higher standard. When it comes to accountability or punishments. Cops who have broken the law, if they are even indicted at all, are given vastly reduced sentences compared to non leo civilians that commit the same crimes.
JH:
I don’t think you can compare the Mexican police with American. Corruption is far more rampant, and the Mexican drug cartels are already in charge.
If you wonder what would happen if the police weren’t there, just take a look at the monthly blotter and deduce what would happen if there was no response.
I actually believe that public safety personnel do not have the right to strike. A fireman shouldn’t let someone burn to death in a house fire, refusing to come help, when he’s received his salary from taxpayers. You can quit, and you can complain, but you can’t strike when it puts the public safety in danger. It’s threatening the public with physical harm.
Bailers, Like I said, they just quit and go onto new careers. Going up against the entrenched code of silence is foreboding. I hired a former cop who said “F@ck it” and she was the best PI I who ever had work for me.
Nick Spinelli
Bailers, A lotta cops w/ the good personalities get out of law enforcement because they can’t stand working w/ a-holes like this guy.
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Nick,
Then I hope they start to speak up. We rarely hear or see the good cops that go against the grain in law enforcement. The Serpico’s of the world are few and far between.
The claim that this was a sole incident involving an officer who had a bad day is not something I find to be credible. Most everyone has bad days and can be irritable or grouchy. That would be understandable as being just part of the human condition.
When a person resorts to slapping around someone who disagrees with another that is a more entrenched problem. I would be surprised if this was the sole incident with this sergeant.
Bailers, A lotta cops w/ the good personalities get out of law enforcement because they can’t stand working w/ a-holes like this guy.
He’s been charged, btw.
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Saratoga-sheriff-to-discuss-viral-video-5883183.php
Karen S
… They deal with criminals day in and day out, lies, the worst that people can do to each other. Sometimes, it can really get to them and cause an “us and them” mentality.
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Karen, I’d argue that there is a personality type that is attracted to law enforcement to begin with that might not be the most suitable for the mental pressures of the job. Then put them in a culture that now prizes aggressiveness, control, and absolute obedience by the public and other members of the law enforcement community (blue wall) and you’ve got a major problem where people like this nutcase is going to be teaching the next generation of cops as well as doing his own job.
There needs to be a major change in LE. Stop the war on drugs so cops don’t view themselves as soldiers fighting for “their” side. Teach them that even though they deal primarily with the 1% of society’s outcasts, they need to approach a situation like it was their family or friends with the problem. And for the love of god stop telling cops that they need to have complete control and authoritarianism in every situation. Their aggressiveness and barking commands to a population that rarely deals with that type of behavior often makes the situation worse. We are not soldiers that can be commanded. We are mentally fragile, emotionally damaged general population fruit baskets that need to be treated as individuals that may not actually be guilty of a crime against humanity.
The furor over this video will subside soon enough, and the deputy will be back on the street a week after that.