Seconds after he almost killed a cop during a police pursuit, Anthony Warren lost control of this vehicle as it overturned, ejecting him out the window and leaving him unconscious on the side of the road.
But he immediately went from attempted murder suspect to victim of police abuse as five Birmingham police officers pounced on him, beating him mercilessly even though he was already showing no signs of life.
The five officers have since been fired after a dashboard camera video surfaced this week in court.
Now Warren has filed a $100,000 claim against the city over the injuries he sustained from the beating, which could have resulted from the accident rather than the beating. Except we’ll never know for sure.
There is no doubt police supporters will say he deserved the beating. There is no doubt he might even have deserved the beating or even worse considering he clearly tried to kill a cop.
But there is no doubt that police lost control of their emotions, forcing the spotlight from the suspect onto themselves.
While police may have been get away with this type of behavior in the past, almost everything they do nowadays is likely to be caught on camera.
But rather than use this to their advantage, such as knowing they will have solid evidence against the suspects, they prefer to turns themselves into suspects.
They did it last week in Los Angeles when a cop kicked a suspect in the head after a police pursuit.
They did it last February in Seattle when a deputy punched a teenage girl who had flung a shoe at him.
And they did it last January in Oakland when a cop shot and killed a suspect who was not resisting.
In all these instances, the cameras were different. One was a dashboard camera. Another was a news camera. Another was a jail cell camera. And another was a citizen camera.
The truth is, Big Brother might be watching us. But Little Brother is also watching them. The cameras are there to protect them as much as they are there to protect us.
But they don’t seem to get that even after all these incidents continue to pop up. Even after almost two decades since the Rodney King incident.
It’s like beating a dead horse.
