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
Beldar, Halfmoon NY is north of Albany, 170 miles north of NYC. Cop is not from NYC, not a NYC accent.
If they fire him, he can go to another police agency in NY State. New York does not have a statewide certification law. About 45 states do have such laws. A board is appointed by the Governor. All cops must qualify to get a certificate by going to cop school and passing tests and whatnot. If a cop is bad a complaint goes to the State Board, not his local coverup squad. The State Board can decertify a bad cop. Then when bad cop goes to Long Island for the next job they must ask for his real certificate. If he was decertified then they cannot hire him. But, New York is one of about five states that have no such law, no board, no certificate and no way to police these police. If you live in one of those states without a certification law then you should speak to your state representative and get them moving.
I am reminded of the movie Blazing Saddles when the Mayor is agreeing to let the new Freedmen move into town. Then he thinks a second only and says: But Not The Irish!
Nuff said.
We dogs would never let an Irish Setter be a dog cop.
That is what they want you to believe.. That their job is so hard..So dangerous.. but lets face facts. Of the most dangerous jobs in America, law enforcement does not even rank among the top ten. I browse through multiple so called “police only” websites, and blogs. Almost daily I read cops writing posts of how if they all went on strike, the people would quickly see the country descend to lawlessness. Yet it is proven.. such as what occurred in Acapulco, Mexico, when the police there did strike.. Not only was there no discernable increase in the rate of crime, the people, and tourists actually became happier, and suffered a lot less intimidations, and shakedowns. Of course the cops there did not like this, and started to demand the government to give them their jobs back, but the people did not want it, and the government actually sent in the mexican military to disarm the still on strike police. Now here in America.. I do not know if it is an increasing trend, part of me thinks it is. Or it is just that with so many people having easy access to cheap video capturing technology. Reports of police brutality on citizens has been increasing exponentially over the past decade. Not a day goes by that I do not see fresh stories of cops who have killed someone, mostly homeless, or mentally ill.. or killed someones pet.. or robbed, or raped someone.. Just recently a cop in oklahoma has been indicted on 32 counts of rape. Another former officer was just found guilty of raping a 5 yr old girl with a pencil. While this country is full of cop apologists who buy the “bad apple” propaganda hook line and sinker.. At lot more people are waking up to the reality, that the cops are not there for your safety or protection. The majority of a cops time is not spent in criminal investigation, but in victimless infractions such as traffic violations, or arresting 90 yr old men that want to feed the homeless. Now you ask me personally. I say it is the height of stupidity for people to depend on government agents for their security. I would have no problem whatsoever living in a world without cops.. I think the authority they are given goes to their heads, and laws be damned they are going to do whatever they want, and they expect non-law enforcement people to bend over, and kiss their hineys on command.. Screw that.. I take responsibility for my own self, and security, and you should too.
It sounds like he has anger management issues, and there needs to be an in-depth investigation, conducted while he’s removed from duty. So glad this was videoed.
I’ve known a lot of cops. 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. They spend so much time with the dregs of society that it makes them jaded and angry. Not all, by any means, but some get burned out or got to a dark place. Others never had the character to be cops, and should have been weeded out by the selection process.
The law applies to everyone equally. There is an added layer of betrayal when a police officer, or other trusted figure, breaks the law or otherwise acts against the public’s trust. We need to ensure that we act swiftly when there is wrongdoing, because we depend on our police to have the character and presence of mind to do the right thing under stress.
Weeding out any bad apples is necessary. It’s just the other side of our gratitude for the men and women in uniform who put themselves between us and danger every day. Neither negates the other.
isaac, well said.
The US suffers from a deficiency in the quality of its teachers, (not all teachers of course), and in the quality of its officers of the law, including some prosecutors and attorney generals. The two factors contributing to this are one, the entry standards are too low. To solve this raise the bar, wages, and scrutiny. In some places a cop must have a university degree in justice to get on the force. Secondly, the results of this sort of offense should be more severe. The cop should not only be released from the force, but prohibited to carry a gun until completing a full course of anger management. He should also be open for charges of assault, at the very least. I thought we had evolved out of that shameful past when cops beat the living bjsus out of anyone whenever they felt like it. There must be a higher authority. If, indeed, we are all equal under one law, then we should all be treated equally under that law.
When I taught high school, I would teach all my students how to handle a cop asking to search their vehicle. Explaining the 4th Amendment rights is really fairly simple. But, knowing cops, I taught them how to deal w/ the different tactics; bully, guilt trip, manipulative. I NEVER covered this scenario. Wow!
Regarding the vehicle accident, to be fair a jury attributed half the responsibility for the accident to a dangerous condition of the road.
Maybe it has something to do with the head of the fish.
New Jersey police officer Richard Recine was the cop in this incident in July:
“I’ve made objections about what’s going on at the shelter over there,” Wronko tells the police officer, adding, “My first and fourth amendment rights were violated, my civil rights were violated.”
“Obama just decimated the freakin’ Constitution, so I don’t give a damn. If he doesn’t follow the Constitution, we don’t have to,” responds the cop…“
No cop has ever… ever.. been given the same charges or sentence, that any other citizen would face for the same crime. Glans has been arrested for Official Misconduct – Penal Law 195.00 sub. 1- class A Misdemeanor
Harassment 2nd Degree – Penal Law 240.26 sub. 1 – Violation. Had anyone not in law enforcement walked up, and slapped a kid like that. The bare minimum we would be looking at would be simple assault. But cops are graded on the curve.. and quite frankly it is we the people who are the idiots that put them on the pedestal that allows them to get away with the crap they do. Of course asking people to understand that cops can, and do break the law, is like asking people to believe the world is flat. and yet… despite all evidence to the contrary… we are told, and swallow it like good little children, that cops are held to the higher standard. This video, by the way, is a perfect example of what I am saying. If I ask most americans “How many bad cops do you see in this video.” 99% are likely to answer the cop that slapped the kid of course. But to me that is what is wrong.. I see at least two bad cops.. The cop that hit the kid, and the cop that was given the keys to search the kids vehicle, and did, or said nothing to the first cop. If the second cop truly took his oath to honor the law, and the constitution seriously, he would have immediately arrested the first cop for his illegal actions.
Why is he not charged for assaulting the mundane as others without the badge would be. He is not just a bad cop he is a criminal with a badge.
I have a feeling he has done this before. Just has not been caught before.
BTW, this is not enough to get him fired. A couple of days off without pay, maybe.
Ordinary citizens being stopped by police are genuinely at risk – time for Americans to speak up and get those cops under control – or better yet, fired.
As a former Marine, he may have picked up his lines there. Cops like to use verbal judo to force citizens to do what they want and to control the situation. If you know what they are doing, which this man seems to be aware of, you can hold them off.
If you want to see them sweat bullets, tell them to call for a supervisor. Whatever they have been doing, they have to be able to explain it. 🙂
This kind of Roman Centurion behavior coupled with asset-forfeiture laws have made some police forces just roving gangs of thugs, but with the imprimatur of the State.
Will likely just move on to a dept in another city
Fire his ass… but get him a job at McDonald’s first…..
I see a rising tide of sentiment recognizing the police are out of control, that many of them no longer see themselves either individually or as agencies as public servants, but as ends unto themselves.
This growing sentiment among all classes and races now perceives the situation as highly adversarial on the street.
While the “warrior cop” mentality of patrolling a war zone was not necessary several years ago, by brining that attitude and those methods to bear they may succeed in creating that war zone through there own actions. I am aware of people who see the PA barracks shooting as an expression of that growing tide of frustration.
This is not good.
It will certainly create a vicious cycle.
It would certainly serve the police to return to a more community centric model of policing and forgo the militarized aggressive models that have become popular post 9/11.
I had hope Ferguson would spark discussion in this area, but of course all the media could really focus on was race & the original shooting. Not the over the top responses after the fact.
Something needs to be done. From the top down.
Sgt. Glans needs to get new writers. His “rip your head off” line is ancient — I think it was one of R. Lee Ermey’s lines in “Full Metal Jacket.”
I don’t normally comment on people’s names, but “Glans” seems particularly anatomically appropriate here.
The car wreck mentioned at the end sounds like an accident.
But the cop is an accident waiting to happen. In fact hiring an ex marine might be an accident waiting to happen.
If he gets fired or quits under some duress here, will some other police agency in NY hire him? They do not have a state wide system of following bad cops or even issuing certificates for cops to serve. Or a system to decertify a bad cop. All that aside. Real justice would be served if the cop would be stripped of his uniform and gun and have to duke it out with someone his own size. Maybe he is a bad as his shout. Without the gun, the badge, the NYC accent, perhaps he is not so tough.
I visited NYC on my tour of the U.S. on behalf of my Planet Remulak. It is a low spot on the planet. So to speak. Well, particularly the way they speak. Like that guy called The Donald. He doesnt quack like a duck.
Anyone who lives in New York state should push the legislature to pass a police certification law. You are ungoverned.