Texas cop, 23, uses Taser to subdue 76-year-old man during routine traffic stop
Elliot Hannon, Slate |
December 16, 2014 |
Last Updated: Dec 16 11:43 AM ET

American cops made headlines yet again recently when a police officer in Victoria, Tex. pulled over a 76-year-old man for driving with an expired inspection sticker. The routine traffic stop would have been just that—routine—except for the fact that the stop ended with the 23-year-old police officer, Nathaniel Robinson, throwing the 76-year-old driver Pete Vasquez to the ground and then Tasing him—twice. The altercation was caught on the police car’s dashboard cam.

Here’s how the local Victoria Advocate newspaper described the scene:


The incident happened Thursday after Robinson saw an expired inspection sticker on the car Vasquez was driving back to Adam’s Auto Mart, 2801 N. Laurent St., where he helps with mechanical work. Vasquez got out of the car, which is owned by the car lot, attempting to get the manager. He pointed out to the officer the dealer tags on the back of the car, which would make it exempt from having an inspection… When the officer first grabbed Vasquez’s arm, the older man pulled it away. Robinson then pushed Vasquez down on the hood of the police cruiser. The two fell out of the camera’s video frame, but police said the officer used the Taser on Vasquez twice while he was on the ground.
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Vasquez was handcuffed, placed in the back of the police cruiser and taken to Citizens Medical Center, where he remained in police custody for two hours… Vasquez was released from the hospital without being cited.

The police officer was placed on administrative leave while an internal investigation and a criminal investigation take place.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/12/16 ... ffic-stop/

Watch shocking video of eight white police shooting black homeless man 46 TIMES in ' assassination'
Oct 29, 2014 08:10
By Sam Rkaina


WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGES/VIDEO at link.

The footage has been released two years after the fatal shooting of Milton Hall, but no-one has ever been charged.

This shocking video shows the moment eight policemen open fire 46 TIMES, killing a homeless man carrying a PENKNIFE.

Milton Hall, who suffered from mental illness, was killed in the US in 2012 but the officers involved in the incident were all cleared of any wrong doing.

The clip, finally released two years later, appears to show Mr Hall killed in a hail of bullets as he edged away from police.

It begins with a tense confrontation between Mr Hall, in a parking lot, surrounded by uniformed police with their weapons drawn and a police dog barking.

After a few minutes he appears to start edging away and then they open fire, hitting him 14 times.

In the background you can hear alarmed members of the public react in horror to the shooting, one asking 'why did they have to shoot him so many times?'

His mother Jewel Hall described the killing of her 49-year-old son as 'an assassination', by a 'firing squad dressed in uniforms'.

In a new interview with the American Civil Liberties Union, she said: "For him to be shot at 46 times and hit 14 times by all white policemen, it really raised questions in my mind. How they circled him and assassinated him.

"One policeman, after he was on the ground, turned him over, handcuffed him, and put his foot on his back.

"His blood running down the street like water. And he wasn't a threat, I mean, he had a little pen knife. He had no idea that those policemen would do that to him."

The incident took place on July 1, 2012, in the city if Saginaw, Michigan, north west of Detroit. Police had been called to the scene when Mr Hall himself called 911 following an alleged confrontation with a convenience store clerk.

At the time Saginaw Police Chief Gerald Cliff told CNN Mr Hall was 'known to be an assaultive person' with 'a long history' of contacts with law enforcement, 'not only with police from our department but with the county'.

His mother says Mr Hall fought for equal rights, and worked with Rosa Parks, the famed civil rights activist who was arrested after refusing to give her seat up for a white passenger on a bus in 1955.

After an investigation that lasted months, the US Department of Justice reportedly concluded the police shooting was not intentional.

The ACLU presented the newly released footage to the Organization of American States on Monday in an attempt to pressure the government to reopen the case.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news ... te-4527217