But For Video: The End Of The Chase (On Live TV)

Is this the usual ending? Hardly. No shots were fired and the person who contemptuously fled didn’t end up dead. Maybe that’s something he should be thankful for, but somehow appreciation for fine law enforcement doesn’t seem quite appropriate, even if it didn’t end in a hail of bullets.

As one would expect, the reports begin with why the guy beaten isn’t the sort of person anyone should lose sleep over.

The chase began just after 4 p.m. when a suspect, identified as Richard Simone, 50, of Worcester, wanted on multiple warrants including assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and larceny, refused to stop for police in Holden.

So he was a bad dude? With warrants? For doing bad things? Maybe? And the relevance of that background to gratuitously beating a guy would be what?

From there, the chase wound through Concord, Littleton, Chelmsford, Billerica, Nashua, Hudson and several towns in between.

Speeds reached up to 90 mph.

It’s understandable that local news would be far more concerned with covering the names of each town through which the chase proceeded, and certainly everyone wants to know what the top speed of the chase is, because who doesn’t get a thrill out of a high speed chase? Actually, the innocent people harmed during high speed chases tend not to like them so much, but if no one was harmed by a particular chase, then everyone seems to forget that they’re terribly dangerous and wants this critical information to get a vicarious thrill.

But what happened at the end?

“The pursuit, like all pursuits that involve Massachusetts State Police, will be reviewed by the department’s pursuit committee,” State police said in a statement. “Additionally, MSP will also review the apprehension of the suspect, to determine whether the level of force deployed during the arrest was appropriate.”

Well, that’s pretty sanitary, but given that this was all captured by live-feed TV video, this statement avoids the primary question: why was any force “deployed” at all?

After the chase, Simone opened his door, got on his knees with his hands up and then got on the ground, appearing to surrender. Officers could then be seen swarming Simone and throwing punches while he was on the ground.

At Fault Lines, Jeff Gamso sought to make a point about innocence being a distraction. It’s an elusive concept, as our natural tendency is to want examples of people for whom we can feel sympathetic. Innocent people. Good people. Nice people, who did nothing to deserve a good beating.

Perhaps Simone is innocent of all charges, as he has yet to be convicted as far as the reports state. Perhaps he fled to avoid the fear of injustice of false accusations. But even assuming, arguendo, that he’s totally guilty of every accusation leveled against him, so what?  At the end of the chase, he surrendered. He posed no further threat. Yet, there he was, captured on live copter cam, as police swarmed and beat him.

Had this not been captured on video, there would likely be the standard resisting narrative, but that won’t work here. Indeed, even the “official statement” fails to offer any rationalization for the immediate resort to violence.

It doesn’t mention the names of the cops who beat him, as if an unjustified beating by a gang of police is somehow less a crime.  It uses typical jargon, “deployed,” rather than accurate words such as “police beat the crap out of him” for no apparent reason.  And it seeks to subsume a crime within the “use of force” spectrum, ignoring that no force could possibly be lawfully justified when a guy, no matter how bad a dude he might be, had surrendered.

There will be, no doubt, the usual dismissals. He got what he deserved. If he didn’t want to get beaten, he shouldn’t have fled. If he obeyed the law, this wouldn’t have happened. These are the lies we tell ourselves to allow us to ignore the obvious, that at the conclusion of the chase, the police officers involved committed a crime of their own in beating Simone.

Putting aside that by the time the chase is reviewed by the “department’s pursuit committee,” our attention will be focused elsewhere, and this beating will fade from memory as just another in a long list of police misconduct incidents.  We’ll never know the names of the officers who took it upon themselves to impose punishment for Simone’s audacity in disobeying their authority.

In the scheme of bad stuff cops do, this barely registers. They didn’t kill him, for crying out loud. We can barely remember the people they did kill. Anybody still losing sleep over Laquan McDonald in Chicago?  And Mayor Rahm Emanuel thanks you for forgetting.

Maybe the police officers who beat Richard Simone, who committed a crime by beating Simone, will end up on the wrong end of the pursuit committee’s conclusions, even though the issue isn’t whether the pursuit was done according to departmental policy, but whether the beating at the end of the pursuit was an act of criminal violence. Do they have a departmental police beat the crap out of a guy for no reason review committee?  Maybe they will be fired. Maybe they will lose a couple days’ pay, or have a stern notation written in ink in their permanent record.

But what happened here was a crime, committed upon a person who may also have committed crimes. And not only are the names unmentioned, but the official statement on whether the use of force was excessive tells us that they aren’t terribly concerned about it.  Even if we don’t forget about it, which we will, it’s not like they beat someone who was innocent.

H/T Copblock

33 thoughts on “But For Video: The End Of The Chase (On Live TV)

  1. Tim Cushing

    What I’d really like to know is why the camera operator for Fox25 decided to zoom out once they realized they were recording police misconduct. Could have been inadvertent, but the operator for WHDH Boston (at the Copblock link) didn’t seem to have any problem staying zoomed in.

    1. SHG Post author

      Excellent question. Had the WHDH video not gone through Facebook, I would have used that instead, not that it answers the question.

  2. Victor Medina

    Far outside the scope of the point of the post, but I was struck by how the camera operator zoomed out once the beating began.

    It’s too facile to use this to suggest a tacit societal acceptance of this kind of “deployment of force”, but the camera was focused well on the events – no need to change it all.

    I can hear it now: “the committee finds no wrongdoing as the video shows clearly only a minimum number of blows to ensure compliance with the arrest.”

    1. SHG Post author

      As Tim notes, there fortunately was another video taken by WHDH which kept tight focus, so that excuse won’t fly. By the way, you’re pretty good at coming up with police excuse jargon. You may have a future as a police spokesperson.

      1. REvers

        “Police excuse jargon” just doesn’t have the right ring to it. We need a better, more descriptive term. I propose “oinking.”

        Captain Spinner oinked the officers were all shouting “Stop resisting!” so it’s clearly a righteous beatdown. Captain Spinner has been the official Department Oinker since May of 2015.

        It has possibilities.

      2. John Barleycorn

        It’s almost as though the news anchor and the helicopter camera man were following script.

        “And now the officers are incorporating the arrest” -zoom out-.

        All very “civilized” actually. There should really be a “hot pursuit” app so a guy would have the time to walk a few block and toss handfuls of rice, wave americian flags, or something at the pursuit as it passes by.

  3. Richard G. Kopf

    SHG,

    As you know my psyche sometimes dwells in the heart of darkness. After reading this post, I got to thinking.

    Wouldn’t it have been nice if, at the end of O.J. Simpson’s travels in the white Ford, the California cops would have whupped up on him real good? Sometimes excessive force is merely a matter of karma.

    All the best.

    RGK

    1. SHG Post author

      Oh, Judge, you didn’t just go there. On the one hand, it might have put the issue on the national agenda a long time ago. On the other hand, no, karma is what nature dishes out, not police. Judges get to punish after a conviction. Police do not. When they do, it’s no less a crime than when anyone else does it. And they should be arrested, tried and convicted for it, and then sentenced by a judge. That would be karma.

      1. Richard G. Kopf

        SHG, sorry. Of course, any rational person knows you’re correct.

        I forgot that you aren’t my therapist. Well, then again . . . . Oh, never mind.

        All the best.

        RGK

            1. Richard G. Kopf

              SHG & John Barleycorn

              Bastards, both of you. I differently abled, not bald.

              All the best.

              RGK

  4. Dale Savage

    I’ve always wondered why these beatings happen to let’s say low level felonies but whenever there’s a massive manhunt for a person accused of a heinous crime (e.g. Charleston church murder of 9 people) the apprehension is so polite and minima (I mean zero force at all)l. Police know that when it’s a high profile case, go by the book and do not give defense lawyers a reason to take the focus off the crime but cases like this where they probably weren’t expecting a TV crew in the air (this wasn’t Los Angeles – the home of TV covered car chases) they go full gang mode, despite having a K-9 chomping at the bit to go to work. Nope these boys couldn’t wait to get their licks in and they weren’t going to let a dog deprive them of that satisfaction.

  5. Neil Faiman

    So he was beaten by Mass State Police, and the pursuit will be reviewed by the Mass State Police pursuit committee. But they did the beating in Hudson, NH, so if there are going to be any criminal charges, they’ll come in NH. It will be interesting to see how the NH police feel about Mass police coming to NH to deliver a beat-down.

    1. SHG Post author

      Did you happen to notice any Nashua, NH, cops arresting any Mass State Police officers (who were acting extra-territorially, hot pursuit notwithstanding) ?

    2. Keith

      Typo: You wrote “for no reason” when I believe you meant “because he disrespected me”.

    3. Mike P.

      Joined in the fun. One NH trooper and one Mass trooper suspended without pay. According to WMUR TV (Manchester, NH) news. Still no names. But NH state police also promised a full investigation. Stay tuned.

  6. Raccoon Strait

    You write, at times, about the ‘snowflake-ality’ of college age persons who have had their feelz hurt. Could it be that police officers are snowflakes in uniform who use various degrees of brutality instead of speechifying their hurtz? Could contempt of cop actually exacerbate snowflake-iness, with running be the most contemptuous behavior? Maybe they are contractually prevented from speechifying their hurtz and so use physicality instead.

    Makes one wonder how a constitutional amendment preventing the various executives from hiring snowflake-able persons in law enforcement would read…

    Could there be quantifiable degrees of snowflake-iness?

    1. SHG Post author

      The law once specifically addressed the anti-snowflake by the reasonable man requirement, that specifically rejected the lowest possible feelz denominator as constituting the bar by which words and deeds were judged. But then, that was before the lowest possible feelz denominator became the reasonable person.

  7. Jake DiMare

    My favorite quote from the WCVB piece:

    “Simone exited his pickup, appeared to be kneeling on the ground when officers ran up and a physical confrontation began. Video from Sky5 showed a struggle between the police and Simone which lasted for at least 15 seconds. ”

    Struggle between the police and Simone? The only struggle I saw was cops shoving each other out of the way so as not to get hind teat on the unwarranted free-for-all that ensued.

    But yeah, no editorial bias there.

  8. Lawrence J Kaplan

    I was also struck by the reporter’s phrase ” incorporating the arrest.” What the hell does that mean? Note that the reporter just refers to the suspect as “moving out of the vehicle.” Not” gets on the ground and surrenders.” Now he has a great future as a police spokesman.

  9. Lawrence J Kaplan

    Th young girl on WCVB, so naive, just told it as it is. He was out of the car and then he went on the floor, and the police just ran over and started hitting him.” Bingo.

      1. wilbur

        When I read your reply, the voice in my mind was Paul Lynde, with a finishing snicker.

  10. John Barleycorn

    Relax esteemed one.

    There is nothing like the six o’clock news deadline to encourage the state police to incorporate some discipline.

    ****New Hampshire State Police Director Robert Quinn told reporters one of his troopers was “immediately relieved from duty without pay” for his alleged involvement in the “disturbing” incident. His agency will conduct an internal investigation and cooperate with a criminal probe by the state attorney general.

    “I want the public and law enforcement personnel to know that the division of state police does not condone the unjustified use of force, and it will not be tolerated,” Quinn said.

    A Massachusetts state trooper has been relieved of duty pending an internal hearing Friday, State Police Col. Richard McKeon said in a statement. The officer could be placed on modified assignment or suspended pending the investigation. The agency will review its vehicle pursuit policy.

    “The Massachusetts State Police expect and demand all department members to act at all times with integrity, honor, and adherence to the law,” the statement said.

    The troopers were not identified. ****

    P.S. You know, if you got yourself one of them there helicopters you could drop SJ leaflets and probably have the state police convince the DA to hand down some indictments by the close of business tomorrow.

    Just think of all the cool names you could come up with for your very own SJ leaflet dropping helicopter.

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