Excessive force used by police witnessed at Park Street today
I think I witnessed police brutality on my way home from work today. I was with 3 friends walking up Winter Street near the Park Street T-stop when it happened, around 7:30 PM.
A police car had driven through the set of lights, and had to stop to allow a drunken homeless man slowly make his way across the street. The homeless man probably said something to the cop, but I was too far away to hear what was said.
Next thing I know, the cop pulls his vehicle over, and comes running at the homeless man screaming obscenities. The homeless man, caught by surprise, stood motionless with his hands in his pocket as the cop ran at him, calling him “a dickhead” and a slew of other things.
The cop then grabs the homeless man by the neck with both hands, and starts screaming into his ear “How dare you threaten to shoot me while I was on the phone with my kids.” The cop was clearly enraged, and just kept screaming and choking the relatively docile, unarmed, compliant man. From where I was, only a few feet away, it seemed that the homeless man was far too intoxicated to resist, and probably wasn’t even aware of what was happening.
The cop continued to fly off the handle, and wrested the man to the ground, still clenching his neck. Onlookers began to gather around, some snapping photos at the rather unbelievable scene the cop was creating.
A second cop then approached the two, looking somewhat shocked at his partner’s behavior, yet wanted to be supportive. He assisted the first cop in handcuffing the man. Again, the homeless man was not resisting at all, yet the two cops threw him around like he had committed a violent act.
The two cops then violently threw the man in the nearby cop car, causing the man to lose his baseball cap. An onlooker called out to the cops saying that the man had lost his hat, which the cop ignored. In an almost embarrassing display of machismo, the first cop, still enraged, called out to the crowd asking “who’s next?!”
So, after witnessing this whole event go down, I was able to piece together what I believed happened. It seems the homeless man was trying to cross the street when the cop stopped his vehicle. Based on what the cop was shouting, it appears that the homeless man uttered some insults or threats to the cop, who was on the phone with his kid at the time. This affected the cop personally, resulting in the display of force.
As you can imagine, I found a number of things disturbing about the incident. First, the cop reacted personally and unprofessionally to a situation, likely because his kid was (remotely) involved. I don’t think the homeless man was a perceived threat, and surely his words (even if they were threatening) didn’t warrant the excessive force used by the cop. I’m confident they don’t teach cops to subdue suspects by choking them during police academy training, and I’m sure they teach cops to determining the potential threat of a suspect before using force.
Also, if the cop was in uniform patroling, why was he talking to his kid on a cell phone?
I agree that being a police officer in a large city has got to be a stressful job, but this officer deserves to be reprimanded. I’m confident that if his superior had witnessed his embarrassing display in such a highly visible area, he or she would not approve, however justified the offending cop might think he was.
Likewise, this kind of activity, had it been videotaped, would be fodder for any civil liberties lawyer, despite the homeless man’s status within society.
You’d think that cops would be more judicious in their action, especially with the recent highly publicized incidences of excessive force and police brutality. Clearly this officer did not have the public image of the Boston Police Department front of mind, and instead, reacted emotionally from his gut.
All in all, it was a scary display. I’d seen cops in action before (having lived in the city for years), but I’ve never seen such abuse of power and blatant disregard for law, civil liberties, and fairness. It’s these kind of incidences that cause people to distrust police, and isn’t easily forgotten.
(If you were one of the people who snapped a photo, please send it to me so I can post it here)
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i really am sorry you had to see that.
i see that on a regular basis, and it’s really sad to think that it’s a fact of life where i live.
the thing is, some people (police or otherwise) just can’t handle having any measure of power over another person. they don’t know what to do with it, other than lord it over others. they usually just take it out on the weakest, most vulnerable targets, or the ones others are likely to assume ‘had it coming anyway’.
i wish i could say i was surprised…