The call to the police was from Larry Faulkenberry’s teen-aged son. When did kids decide that the best response to a parent being a parent was the cops?  Likely after they figured out that there will always be adults who don’t share other parents’ choices. And children, realizing that they have a card to play, play it. That’s what Faulkenberry’s son did.

He conceded that the whole ordeal could have been avoided had his teen-aged son not called the police.

“He got in trouble at school. I explained to him he was grounded. He got upset. He told me he was going to call the police and tell them I was waving a gun at him and drunk. I sat down to cool off and 20 minutes later, I see flashlights coming up the driveway,” he said.

Of course, calling the police doesn’t mean that a child’s poor decision should be compounded by the cops.  Unfortunately,  Sgt. Dustin Yost, Deputy Michael Taylor and another officer identified only as Deputy Houseston, of the Caldwell County, Texas, Sheriff’s Department, decided to make Faulkenberry’s son’s childish foolishness look absolutely brilliant in comparison to their choices.

The cops could have approached Faulkenberry, spoken to him, ascertained anything resembling a fact, to determine whether there was any merit to his son’s complaint. But the teen, having included gun along with drunk, kicked the cops into First Rule of Policing mode, so they went in hard and protective.  According to the complaint against Faulkenberry:

I observed Lawrence Faulkenberry push Sergeant Yost with the left side of his body and elbow into a tree causing him to fall and injure his left shin and right knee cap. I observed Lawrence Faulkenberry to forcefully resist Deputies while attempting to lawfully detain him for officer safety. Deputies detained Lawrence Faulkenberry using the least amount of force necessary to gain compliance from Lawrence Faulkenberry.

Pushing a sergeant? Not good. Causing him to suffer a bruised knee? Hell, that could keep him out of work on disability for years. Really not good. And at court, Faulkenberry paid for his insolence.

He was tossed in jail for 10 days and held on $807,000 bail, and was staring down years in prison for assaulting a cop, resisting arrest, and other charges.

You can’t have cop knee-bruisers walking around. What sort of a message does that send other cop knee-bruisers?  Though the last $7000 of bail, over and above the first $800,000, seems a bit odd. Was the judge worried that he might make the eight, so he needed to throw in an additional seven?  To protect cops’ knees?

But as “not good” as it may be for a guy who, despite the call from his teen-aged son, had no gun on hand, no gun to be found anywhere, which should have been a dead give-away for professional law enforcement officers, highly trained in investigative techniques to ascertain the commission of a crime and its perpetrator, it’s even worse when it turns out that the cops, just like the boy, are liars.

There is an obvious question raised by the contradiction between the lies propounded in the perjurious affidavit and the video.  Why?  Faulkenberry wasn’t wanted for being a bad dude.  Why the needless force?  Ah, that’s because the audioless video fails to tell the full story.

Faulkenberry, who says he has arrest priors of driving under the influence and for speeding, agrees with the police report that he used profane language, and admits that he didn’t follow their orders to walk backwards toward them.

“They yelled ‘sheriff’s department.’ What do you need? I put my hands up. ‘Turn around and walk backwards.’ I’ll stand here, you come here and put handcuffs on me,” Faulkenberry said.

“Why the fuck y’all here?” Faulkenberry recounted himself saying. “Before I could finish the sentence, I got slammed to the ground.”

Not only did Faulkenberry fail to do as he was commanded, but he used language reserved only for highly trained professionals.  Did he expect to get away with that without suffering consequences?

He said one of the officers rubbed his forehead on the gravel driveway, causing major forehead abrasions. A punch burst blood vessels in his left eye. “My whole face was cut up and lacerated from rocks in the parking area. My knee hurt for about a couple of months from where he planted me on the ground,” Faulkenberry said.

He said he suffered a herniated back disc and another is “bone on bone.”

“They left me laying on the ground for about 15 minutes, face down,” he said.

While Caldwell County District Attorney Fred Weber declined to pursue prosecution after seeing the video, the cops involved have not only avoided any discipline, but have enjoyed the complete support of their sheriff in opposition to his suit for violation of his civil rights.

Defendants specifically deny that they violated Plaintiff’s Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights or any other rights under the United States Constitution or the laws of the State of Texas. Specifically, Defendants deny that they used excessive force and unreasonable seizure, fabricated criminal charges, unreasonable search—warrantless search of property as alleged in paragraphs 29 through 32.

After all, this couldn’t possibly have happened since there is no reason in the world for the three cops to have engaged in needless violence, as would most assuredly have been the reaction had there been no video proving the cops were lying through their teeth.

As for Faulkenberry’s teen-aged son, whose future employment aspirations go unmentioned, there is a possibility that his brilliant plan to teach dad a lesson may not have gone as well as anticipated.  On the other hand, there’s a good chance that he may well have the ability to attend college without need for student loans as a result of the cops’ actions, which wouldn’t be the case if his father ended up in prison for his vicious assault on the sergeant’s knee.