Unbelieveable gestapo tactics against 76 yr old woman

[Ilsa]

Letter to the editor of my hometown paper:
January 24, 2004

Editor, the Advocate:

Re "Yoakum businessman questions use of force policy," Jan. 15:

On Dec 12, Mother (age 76) was going to work. She passed a police car going the opposite way. In her mirror, she saw he had turned on the overhead lights. She thought he had received a call and was pursuing it. She arrived at work.

The officer pulled up behind her. He said something, but she couldn't hear him. It was still dark outside, so she told him to come inside if he needed to speak to her. When he came in, he told Mother he needed her to come outside to speak to him. Feeling safer inside, she told him he should speak to her inside. The officer asked her if she knew she was going 34 in a 30 mph zone. She didn't.

When she wouldn't go outside with him, he informed her he was going to arrest her. He grabbed her right arm. Years ago, Mother broke her right shoulder in three places. Doctors were sure she would lose the use of her arm. With determination, doing the assigned exercises faithfully, her arm has limited movement.

She frantically tried struggling out of his grasp, telling him to please not put her arm behind her because it would break. He told her he had heard that before. She was told she grabbed the handcuffs from his hand but doesn't remember that. She had to keep him from putting her arm behind her.

She ended up on the ground with the officer trying to restrain her. While she was begging him to stop and telling him he was hurting her, he sprayed Mother in the face with pepper spray. As he radioed for backup, Mother was desperately calling out to the dispatcher for help.

The backup officer arrived and told the officer to take the cuffs off. (She was handcuffed in the front.) The backup officer had my brother called.

When Jimmy arrived, the officer told him Mother had been going 41 in a 30 mph zone.

The following week, Yoakum's city manager and chief of police came to Mother's home. The city manager apologized for the excessive use of force. The chief of police said the officer was suspended 10 days without pay.

I pray something like this doesn't happen to other citizens.
SNIP

http://www.thevictoriaadvocate.com/opinion/letters/story/1638886p-1929090c.html

Only 10 days without pay? How about firing him for stupidity?

[aintitfunny]

1. Ridiculous

If this policeman will treat an elderly woman this way, then what will he do when faced with a sassy teenager, cranky businessman, etc.
Suspension for such behavior is a slap on the wrist.

[yankeeinlouisiana]

2. That must be one tough looking 76 year old Woman!

All of that for 4 miles over the speed limit? The cop is lucky she didn't have a heart attack or something. I hope she sues the county and the cop!

[Fovea]

3. How about

shoving a tear gas cannister up his ass and pulling the pin?

Un-F**king Believable!!!

[polmaven]

4. Do you know the woman's race?

Dollars to doughnuts she is NOT white. Racial profiling is on the rise in this country, and AG Ashcroft is encouraging it!

[Ilsa]

5. Actually, more than likely,

she is Caucasian. This area has many German, Czech, and Polish immigrant descendants. It is possible she might be Hispanic, and a less likely chance she is Black, but the author of the letter doesn't not have a hispanic maiden name, so it is unlikely that the Mother is Hispanic. The author's maiden name and married name look Central/East European to me.

But i hink you are right that the AG, etc have established an atmosphere that police bullying is going to be accepted in the new 'Murica.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. While I know that the police have a difficult job

there are some scary assholes out there.

Years ago, I was traffic stopped in a rural area of upstate New York for going 70 in a 55 mph zone, and when my passengers and I protested that we definitely had not been, the cop drew his gun on us.

I also got stopped in the middle of my rural Oregon town during what passed for rush hour there because the cop wanted to get through the traffic and he thought I was driving too slowly (35 mph in the right lane of a road going through a town). He was in an utterly foul mood, and it took all I had not to laugh at him for wasting time stopping me when he would have been where he wanted to go much sooner just following me at 35 mph.

A few years ago, an off-duty cop jogging in a suburban residential area outside Portland shot and killed a Labrador retriever that had run out to chase him. (If you know Labs, you know that they're both playful and harmless.)

[Longhorn79]

7. Insecure cops who abuse their power are pathetic

The good ones are good, the bad ones are horrible. When that immature power tripping makes it to the bench is when we're all screwed.