Police Acquitted; Charges Dropped
Back in Feb 2006, police officers from my township pulled over a car for going through a stop sign. They struggled and the suspect charged police brutality. Of course, the video in the patrol car captured the whole thing (it’s about 14 minutes long). After the scuffle (about midway through) it’s kind of comical - like the Sopranos with the Jersey and Philly accents. The suspect is telling some construction workers that he hopes they witnessed what happened… and the cops say “Yeah, we hope you saw it too”.
Interesting Side Note: The incident happened down the street from our house. The bike path on the left side of the video is where I run in the morning. Young people (God, I can’t believe I just wrote that!) speed up and down that road all the time. We had been pushing for more patrols back here and this stop was a result of that….
3 of the officers involved were suspended without pay with intent to dismiss. One of the officers, Brian Green, is a childhood friend of mine and a family friend. He’s been on the force for about 18 years. He was accused of lying to investigators.
The 1st trial was completed last week and the officer on trial was acquitted of all charges. Today the prosecutors dropped all charges against the other officers.
Charges against officers dismissed
They may lose their jobs still (it’s very political in our police department - just like the rest of New Jersey), but hopefully the citizens put some pressure on the township. Of course the suspect is suing the township and the officers too. As he said in the video, he had the best lawyer around.
