Linux Uptime: up 15 days, 23:37

Yesterday as I was running on the treadmill I was watching MSNBC and, to my horror, saw a 64 year old man beaten by the cops. This wasn’t just a “Cops”-like takedown of a criminal. They grabbed him from behind and punched his head into the wall of a building before tackling him to the ground. They say he was resisting arrest, which he denies. However, even if he WAS resisting arrest, how could you beat the pulp out of an old man? How many strong old men are there? This guy had a white beard and all – unless he was a karate master, they probably didn’t have to worry.

The victim/alleged criminal says he was speaking to an officer on horseback about the curfew when another officer came and said something rude to him. He told the second officer he thought he was being a bit rude and finished up his conversation with the first. Then, on his way back home, the second cop beat him from behind with a bunch of other cops. It was all caught on tape and it’s etched into my brain as MSNBC had the tape on loop. It was only a minute or two long so in that half hour I saw the tape about 15 times. It wasn’t pretty.

The officers have been charged for the beating and they plead not guilty. Our speedy justice system, which is sadly one of the speediest, gives them a trial in January. By then who knows what anyone will remember. Anyway, I hope they get punished. I don’t think they should necessarily go to jail for life or anything, but I just can’t see how to justify what they did. Again, it wasn’t like the person resisting arrest was a young man who could have hurt the cops. And, the man says he was never put under arrest to begin with.

There was also some random asian guy in the video who wasn’t a cop, but was helping them tackle the guy. What the heck was that about? Aren’t the cops supposed to keep people from getting involved in official police business?

Oh yeah, and I didn’t want to mention it before so that I wouldn’t cloud your perception of things, but the victim was black and the cops were white. To me, that’s still secondary to the fact that he was an old man.