85-Year-Old Veteran Says Police Beat Him

[Rose Siding]

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Police said they are investigating an incident in which an officer pepper-sprayed an 85-year-old man during a traffic stop.

Leon Nins said officer Michael Lee also beat him after he took too long to stop his car. Police deny that and say Nins attacked Lee.

Leaders of St. Paul's NAACP chapter and St. Paul African American Leadership Council alleged that race was a factor. Nins is black.

Nins said at a news conference Thursday that he was bringing sandwiches and cupcakes to his wife during his daily visit to her nursing home Dec. 27 when Lee tried to pull him over for having expired license tabs.

Nins, a World War II veteran who stands about 5-feet-7 and weighs 145 pounds, claims Lee was angry that he didn't stop his car right away.

"I told him, 'If I'd have seen you, I would have stopped,'" Nins said. "He got really mad about that. He told me to get in his car, and he started beating me on the leg and on the side of the arm. He pushed me down on the floor, and he was slamming the door on my legs."

Nins was arrested and jailed for two days........

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-beating-allegation,0,3383104.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

[NYC Liberal]

1. Welcome to Fascist America!

Enjoy your stay!

[d_b]

2. I'm so sick of reading shit like this

Eventually I'm going to join a liberal militia group (if they even exist)

[Downtown Hound]

3. I'll bet he's grateful he defeated fascism

Wait a minute...

[bpilgrim]

4. for a trafic violation

this is crazy.

what is wrong with that cop? what a THUG!

peace

[DS1]

5. 5' 7" and 145? Wow, that dude was tiny!

Goddamn cops are getting out of control

/insert the 'yes I know it's just one of thousands of traffic stops a day disclaimer here

[Algorem]

11. He could've been wirey though.You gotta watch out for the wirey ones.

even if they're almost 100

[DS1]

12. Yeah, there's something to be said about wiry

or wirey, or whatever, but the dude was in his 80s

[Algorem]

14. He was a GI,some GI Joe's have kung-fu grip,what if he has kung-fu grip?

The cop knew if that 100-year-old got him with kung-fu grip he'd be a pig-in-a-blanket.

[DS1]

15. Oh oh oh right!

Sorry! I forgot my Citizenship training, sir!

Article 14: Be especially wary of the weak, they have a way of disarming you with their feigned injuries and surgically enhanced "battle" scars. Treat with utmost caution, kill upon visible threat, incapacitate at whim.

[Bo]

29. lololololololol kungfu

[TahitiNut]

27. A BMI of 23 is not "wirey" ... especially at 85 years old.

That's on the high end of "normal."

[jdots]

6. The cop was on his way to pick on some kids at a pre school

you never know,there might be a terrorist cell of 4 year olds taking orders from vets in thier 80s.
The cop will probably get a job in bushkin's cabinet as minister of rascist bullys.

[Betty]

8. He'll probably get a medal

like the other fuck-ups

[TahitiNut]

7. Aid and comfort to the terrorists at the nursing home, too.

Nins is lucky he's not at Guantanamo. He probably didn't have the required Bush/Cheney sticker on his bumper.

[lakeguy]

9. the same officer also shot and killed a black man

in 2001 because he mistook him for a carjacker. the guy this officer shot actually subdued the carjacker the officer was looking for and was then killed for it. officer was cleared of all wrong doing.

no race problems here in amurika...just go about your business.

[mahina]

10. Ask a white person in this country if there is racism, they will say

not much if any. Ask a black or brown person if there is racism in this country and they will just laugh.

[Barkley]

16. Whites get better treatment from the police than blacks do

On Saturday, November 6, I participated in an anti-war demonstration in
Hollywood.

The demonstration attracted about 1,000 people who gathered at the
corner of Hollywood and Highland at 12:00 noon and marched to an Army
recruiting station on Sunset and La Brea. The crowd was racially diverse
but mostly white.

When we arrived at Sunset and La Brea about 75 demonstrators entered the
strip mall area where the recruiting station was located -- which is on
private property

I chose to stay out of strip malls parking lot knowing that marchers would
get arrested for trespassing etc.

Soon thereafter about 70 LAPD officers showed up in full riot gear. One of
the protesters evidently threw something at one of the officers and four
people got arrested.

The head LAPD officer addressed the remaining protestors with a megaphone
saying something to the effect:

‘You can stay here on the streets for another 2 hours but you cannot
break the law by entering the strip mall and throwing articles at the
police.’

‘…throwing articles at the police’!?!?!?!?!?!

If this incident had been in South Central L.A. and those offending
protestors had been Blacks or Latinos, they would have been shot dead--
Falluja style!

‘Stay two more hours ...’

Blacks and Latinos would have gotten two minuets to immediately disperse
or face arrest.

If this incident had been in South Central L.A. the LAPD would have showed
up on horseback and they would have done everything in their power to
incite a race riot.

At any rate, I dressed up as the infamous hooded Abu Ghraib prisoner that
was forced to stand on a carton for hours with electrical wires connected
to his body. U.S. prison guards erroneously told the Iraqi prisoner that
he would be electrocuted if he stepped off the box.

Instead of wires I had a plunger (signifying the NYC police brutality) in
one hand and a flashlight (signifying the LAPD police brutality) in the
other hand and a sign hanging around my neck that read:

"Stand against RACISM at home and abroad"

The Black and Latino spectators understood my message immediately, whites
required an explanation.


A few days later, ANSWER put on another demo in West L.A. and towards the end of the demo the Army showed up on Wilshire Blvd with 'tank'.

Although the military says the tank was on route to a Veterans Day parade it was our 'Fallujua' retribution/ warning for demonstrating at the on the weekend prior.

[LostinVA]

23. I'm White and I Am Aware

of the extent of racism in this country, as do all of my friends and most of my family. Not everyone is blind to this.

[teryang]

13. This is much more common than I thought

People apprehended for traffic offenses or non violent offenses, outstanding misdemeanor warrants, etc., are often kicked, body slammed, maced, tasered, ridiculed, and so on by abusive and unprofessional police officers. Some are apprehended at gunpoint without legal justification in crowded public places, needlessly endangering the lives of all concerned.

Then, the officers have to confabulate a story, to justify actions that should have never occured to protect themselves from disciplinary action, losing the case, or losing their jobs.

One unprofessional local police force I know of likes to taunt gay, women, other minority, and handicapped prisoners. They also have a repetoire of selected rock music they blare into the holding cell to ridicule and torment detainees. There is nothing more sickening than learning of "law enforcement officers" abusing their authority to persecuting the vulnerable. A quote heard from an officer in the lobby at the local state attorney's office, "Don't worry we'll make his life hell." I wasn't aware that it was the duty of the police to make the life of someone "presumed innocent until proven guilty," hell.

At a recent seminar I attended a top criminal lawyer in the state reported what he perceived to be a pattern of abuse by police officials and prosecutors, who have abandoned their professional ethics, to the detriment of all Americans. He related this directly to national developments such as the fraudulent war, the Patriot Act, Guantanamo bay, and abu ghraid. "There is a sickness spreading throughout the country," he said, "and it is our job to do something about it."

Under such conditions, it is difficult to understand how someone like Gonzales could deny the bad example and incentive he provided for service members and international human rights as an advocate of torture and disrespect for the Geneva Conventions.

[genieroze]

17. Real Good, Let's beat up old people so * can rob their SS. eom

[Fiona]

18. that's awful

[NickB79]

19. A friend got stopped in St. Paul the same day this happened

The same day this incident happened, someone I know was followed by a cop in St. Paul for several blocks. There were some small firewood logs in the middle of the road that probably fell out of someone's truck, and when she swerved around them, he pulled her over. He asked her why she swerved, and when she told him about the logs he acted like they didn't exist. He told her one of her headlights was out, and then proceeded to make her get out of her truck and into the back of the squad car. He searched her entire truck without her permission or any probable cause, pulling everything out of the cab and dumping it on the ground, for over an hour. He radioed for a female police officer to assist, and when she got there she frisked my friend on the hood of the police car and told her to shut up when asked what the charges were. They eventually let her go after almost 2 hours, only writing her a ticket for the burnt-out headlight!

My friend was furious, so she called the department when she got to work to file a complaint. The woman who answered the phone said, and I quote: "Yeah, we get a lot of complaints about our officers just trying to do their jobs." The woman was a complete bitch and actually refused to take my friend's complaint, despite her having both officer's badge numbers written down! An hour later, a squad car arrives at her place of work because that bitch receptionist at the police department claimed my friend had threatened her on the phone! My friend asked them if they tape those conversations, and the police there said they did. She then told them to listen to that tape and see if there was any threat on it. She then told them that if they did arrest her, she would sue their asses for every cent they had. They simply wrote down her complaint about the traffic stop earlier that day and left. I'd bet $50 that her complaint was never even filed.

Oh yeah, my friend is Latino and fairly dark-skinned. She has been pulled over 30, yes THIRTY, times in St. Paul in the past YEAR!!! She has been given a breathalizer test over one dozen times, despite the fact she hasn't drank for many, many years. In all those stops, she has only been given one speeding ticket and now this ticket about the burnt-out headlight. I'm sure there are a few good cops out there, but these racist assholes seem to rule the roost.

[Voltaire99]

20. Disgusting

Your friend needs to talk to the ACLU, now. This systematic racist abuse has to stop.

[Judi Lynn]

21. Surely this has to be a record of some kind!

The man didn't hit anything, anyone, wasn't driving dangerously. He was 85 years old. He went to jail for two days. I cannot live with this.

I have to wonder what his wife must have thought when he simply dropped out of sight when she had been seeing him every day. How can these bastards live with themselves?

The poster on this board who mentioned the attitude at the top of the governmental heap was surely right. When we have a gentleman or woman representing the country, making the right decisions, we will get a real "trickle down" effect. We'll operate more like a society again.

[DoYouEverWonder]

25. Good Morning Fascist America

Guess what, it's only going to get worse with Repugs like Gonzalez at the helm.

This is just the beginning of the horror stories that we are going to be hearing.

People don't realize that since the passage of the Patriot Act, we no longer live in democracy with certain unalienable rights. We flushed those down the toilet yesterday, when Congress certified the rigged 2004 election.

[Rose Siding]

26. The dept action in the case is very shortsighted

snip>
St. Paul police Chief John Harrington confirmed that Lee used pepper spray to subdue Nins, but only after Nins refused to produce identification and began flailing at the officer.

"I do not believe (Lee) was acting with excessive force and I don't have any intention of suspending him or moving him to any administrative assignment at this time," Harrington said.
.........

Regardless of any *facts* that might emerge making the officer's actions any more understandable (because on the face, they just aren't), you'd think he'd be relieved for the duration of an investigation. They don't even seem to have a policy to resolve cases like this.

[slor]

22. I think it was clear to the officer...

that this particular veteran of WWII hated freedom. Just like those children down in Florida.

[BiggJawn]

24. Where was Lee's TASER?

Hasn't St. Paul gotten on board the new technology yet?

Revolting.

[One_Life_To_Give]

28. Hidden Cam Cars

Can't we get some hidden cameras on cars and expose this crap?
They might be able to get away with it when the only peiople who have first hand knowledge have little power. But get a good quality video on the news, and these neanderthals might actually get put in their place.

[bin.dare]

30. what about his wife in the home ?

was she informed? did someone go to visit?
this is so fucking disgusting.

[ernstbass]

31. What - no tasering?

[Lady Effingbroke]

32. Has anyone else heard of Copwatch? Are they effective in situations such

as this? Perhaps if a chapter was established in St. Paul, it would help.

http://www.copwatch.com/

[KansDem]

33. See? SEE??? You let them steal an election...

...then they start beating elderly black men...

Or is it the other way around? I forget...:shrug:

(/sarcasm)