Beaten to Death By Cops Over a Marijuana Cigarette?

[SmarterthanYou]

http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/04/19/45785.htm

In the suffocation death of Kenneth Howe by 'pig pile', a judge hearing the motions for summary dismissal because of qualified immunity denied that claim saying that "a reasonable jury could find that the actions of the restraining officers and the witnessing officers were so objectively unreasonable and plainly misguided that qualified immunity should not be interposed to shield them from liability."
"Mr. Howe, who stood five-feet eight-inches tall and weighed approximately 165 pounds, was forcibly restrained in the prone position by approximately eight larger officers for more than ten minutes," he wrote. "They allegedly continued to pile on him after he complained that he could not breathe."
"Defendants may be correct that this was precisely the kind of dangerous and rapidly evolving situation which qualified immunity was designed to cover but, in light of the many unsettled issues of material fact, that decision is properly reserved for the jury," he added.
Gorton dismissed the claims against officers who did not touch Howe or were too far from the commotion to discern what was happening.

 

[Rune]

Good news so far.

 

[Don Quixote]

Beaten to Death By Cops Over a Marijuana Cigarette?
by Mike Meno

On November 25, 45-year-old Kenneth R. Howe was riding in the passenger seat of a truck that was stopped by police at a sobriety checkpoint in North Andover, Massachusetts. Hours later, he was dead. The cause has been ruled a homicide, from injuries suffered while Howe “struggled with police.”

What exactly happened that night is a matter of dispute, and the subject of a federal lawsuit filed last week against state, city and county police, claiming that police officers beat Howe to death.

Family members and a fellow passenger say Howe, a father and husband, had lit a marijuana cigarette a few moments earlier and was trying to put it out as police pulled over the truck. When police saw the marijuana cigarette, the fellow passenger says, officers pulled Howe out of the vehicle.

Police claim Howe dove out of the truck’s window and assaulted a female officer.

One way or another, a struggle ensued, Howe was arrested, placed into the back of a police cruiser, and taken to the state police barracks. While waiting in a booking room, Howe slumped over, became unresponsive, and was taken to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

After an autopsy, the state’s chief medical examiner concluded that Howe’s death resulted from “blunt impact of head and torso with compression of chest” suffered when he “struggled with police.”

If the claims made in the federal lawsuit are to be believed, why would police lay their hands on someone for putting out a marijuana cigarette—something that Massachusetts voters have decided should carry a penalty of no more than a $100 fine! Howe was a passenger in the vehicle, so there wasn’t even a question about him driving under the influence. And if the police are to be believed, and Howe was truly trying to flee the scene, then he most likely did so only out of fear of punishment from having the marijuana.

Either way, there is no reason—none whatsoever—why Mr. Howe should be dead, and his family deprived of a husband and father.

How many more tragedies like this need to occur before politicians realize that our marijuana laws do far more harm than good?

as if i had not said so before, our drug laws suck, this is just one more example of over zealous enforcement

 

[Don Quixote]

another example of death by cops

 

[Airstrip One]

Yep, qualified immunity can be a slippery slope. I'd also like to see an end to diplomatic immunity.

Apples and oranges, really. Even though Lethal Weapon 2 was a great movie, it was an unrealistic use of the tradition. Diplomatic immunity protects foreign officials from minor offenses such as parking tickets and loitering. It would not be applied to capital offenses. The tradition exists to help ensure the integrity of foreign relations programs such as embassies, so that participants can be protected from harrassment and coersion.

 

[Freddy Figbottom]

I thought that liberals liked to believe that 'slippery slope' was a logical fallacy?

That's what they SAY, but then they also write books like NUDGE, a book about implementing totalitarian policies incrementally. So funny.