But For Video: Real Black Man of New Jersey Edition

Via Gideon at A Public Defender:

Gid explains, so no need for me to repeat it here, but this video has it all, with special note of the cop screaming at Marcus Jeter, hands raised in his car, for him to stop reaching for the cop’s gun.  Where have we heard this before?

19 thoughts on “But For Video: Real Black Man of New Jersey Edition

  1. Roger

    One of the officers, who has been charged, explains it all: “‘I was completely scared. I didn’t know if I was going to go home that night,’ said Orlando Trinidad, a Bloomfield Police Officer.”

    Why can’t you understand that my fear justifies anything I do to make me feel better?

    1. SHG Post author

      Well, it is the First Rule of Policing, after all. And he could have sustained serious, perhaps even permanent, damage to his fist from Jeter’s vicious face.

  2. John Thacker

    “Where have we heard this before?”

    From South Park, “They’re coming right for us!” A satire, but an effective one of how too many police officers think and actually behave. If you yell that the other person is being dangerous, that magically defends your actions no matter what you do.

  3. Richard G. Kopf

    SHG,

    This makes me puke. Given my previous explanation of why I trust cops, you can understand why I feel both really stupid and sick to my belly. Thank the God(s) for cameras.

    All the best.

    RGK

      1. Thomas R. Griffith

        Sir, while it shows that evil comes in various colors, it also shows that the Guilty as hell public servants are being advised to plead Not Guilty and fight it in Retirement. In contrast, the Not Guilty probationer is being advised to change his / her plea to Nolo Contendere and avoid fighting it, simply for being on probation at time of arrest on new unrelated charges.

        In addition to – “Kinda shakes up a lifetime of pre-Video beliefs” – I’m hoping that it shakes up free consultations beliefs & something about allowing Law Enforcement to investigate themselves is wrong and needs a good shaking as well. Maybe a judge will save us from this lopsided-legal- loophole. Thanks.

  4. lawrence kaplan

    I’m waiting for the New York Post to editorialize that the beatings were justified. And need one point out that Jeter was black?

  5. John Barleycorn

    Unequivocal statement of the day.

    “I am sure if this could happen to me… it could happen to a bunch of other people…you know.”

  6. Michael McNutt

    Does anyone including the judge believe that the district attorney hadn’t looked at the tape? Really he (they) should be arrested and stand trail with the police officers here.

    1. SHG Post author

      I do. The outsider assumption that this is all a grand conspiracy, rather than a series of common screw ups, is just misguided. Neglect is commonplace.

      1. Dave

        So the saying goes: never attribute to malice what is more likely explained by incompetence. Of course, there comes a point where neglect of duty is so severe one can call that neglect a form of malice.

        1. SHG Post author

          Yup. That’s Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

          1. bill

            I’m not arguing there’s any grand conspiracy by any means, but that second cop car shows up pretty clearly in the first video. Unless the evidence thus far was so overwhelming from the prosecutor’s POV that anything more would be overkill, it’s hard to believe he never asked if there was any other video. There’s enough malice and perverse incentives floating around that I think everyone on Team Law loses in a tie breaker. “Didn’t see the tape” – yah, that’s probably the case, “had no idea it existed and never thought to ask? seems a bit of a stretch.

    2. Rick Horowitz

      I completely believe that part. It’s a rare DDA i meet who, until prelim, knows what’s in their own files. I’ve received non-playable video from prosecutors weeks after requesting them, only to find when I bring up the non-playability, the DDA version is ALSO non-playable.

      But until I told them, they didn’t know.

  7. lawrence kaplan

    What troubles me about all this–aside from the lying, beatings, brutality, corruption, abuse of power, etc.– is that all the charges had to do with the police stopping him: Eluding the police, resisting arrest, assault, etc., But why did the police seek to stop him in the first place? There was no initial crime or suspected crime. We have here the, alas, standard police operating procedure of unwarranted stops and starting from there confabulating crimes arising out of the stop to justify it after the fact.

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