How many times will police trot out the “fear for their safety” mantra, before investigators disregard it as the “boiler plate” copaganda that it is?
Two Alameda County deputies used their batons to beat the ever lasting crap out of a suspect who fled their arrest from the Oakland area into San Francisco, as you can see in the video below.
Stanislov Petrov suffered 30 baton strikes.
Without civil rights watchdog group, the [__Center for Human Rights and Privacy__](http://www.cehrp.org/), we might never have seen the 22 police reports filed on the single, bloody arrest.
California deputies Paul Wieber fellow deputy Luis Santamaria managed to miss the entire beating on their body cameras, which were conveniently turned off.
Nine more deputies arrived at the scene.
Nine more body cameras were turned off.
Without the grainy surveillance video, nobody would ever know why Petrov had broken bones and needed to be hospitalized, or they might’ve thought he did something more to resist than anything he could to keep his face off the pavement.
But then deputies Wieber and Santamaria got scared, yelled “Get on the ground!” and when Petrov complied, they went to town, in fear for their safety from their mincemeat prey.
According to [__SFGate.com__](http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Deputies-in-SF-beating-video-say-they-feared-for-7041530.php):
> In a statement, San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi said the deputies’ description “does not match the surveillance video of the brutal beating.”
> Adachi, whose office initially released the footage, said that the video camera was the “ultimate objective witness” and that it shows deputies “striking a man with their batons more than 30 times while he writhes helplessly.” The public defender said the deputies’ failure to turn on their body cameras was “an attempt to cover up their misconduct.”
Adachi wants the San Francisco District Attorney to charge the cops.
In fact, [__Michael Haddad__](http://www.sfgate.com/search/?action=search&channel=bayarea&inlineLink=1&searchindex=gsa&query=%22Michael+Haddad%22), the Oakland civil rights attorney representing Petrov, told SFGate that the two deputies used “similar, boilerplate language to try to create some plausible defense for why they struck Petrov in the head so many times,” because “You can see Petrov is not resisting. He’s lying prone on his stomach while he’s being beaten on the head.”
According to SFGate’s interview with Haddad, Petrov suffered a concussion and will “never have full use of his hands again,” and his lawyer expects to represent Petrov in a civil suit for damages against the Sheriff’s Office, which he intends to file soon.
Broken body cams, bashed bodies and a high speed chase with a needlessly bloody ending?
All in a day’s work for the safety conscious Alameda Sheriff’s department.
http://photographyisnotacrime.com/2015/11/14/california-deputies-caught-on-camera-repeatedly-beating-suspect-with-batons/
