Justice, Police

Cops Fired For Beating A Man, Which Seems The Very Least They Could Do

If you are counting at home, that's around 40 strikes with the baton.

By  
on

Protestors Chain Themselves To Oakland PD HeadquartersTwo Alameda County police officers have been fired after they were caught on tape beating the hell out of a suspect.

Deputies Paul Wieber and Luis Santamaria were caught on the video below. They had been chasing Stanislav Petrov in a car and on foot. When they finally caught up with him in the alley, they went full C.O.P.S. on him:

If you are counting at home, that’s around 40 strikes with the baton.

If they were LAPD, they’d probably get a medal. But this happened in Oakland. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Deputies Paul Wieber and Luis Santamaria were no longer with the Alameda County sheriff’s office as of 5 p.m., said Sgt. Ray Kelly, a spokesman for the sheriff.

Though Kelly could not provide details of the circumstances surrounding their departure, Michael Rains, an attorney for Santamaria, said the deputies had been fired for their role in the Nov. 12, 2015, beating.

A third officer is under investigation for (get this) taking Petrov’s gold chain, and allegedly giving it to a homeless eyewitness to the beating to keep him quiet.

Sponsored

Criminal charges have been filed against Wieber and Santamaria. But let’s hold off on lauding Northern California’s commitment to officer accountability. The beating took place on November 12, 2015. The officers have been on paid leave since then. San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi released the video the day after the beating. It took police until this past Friday to officially fire these officers. Police unions are better than your unions.

Michael Rains, the lawyer for one of the officers, defends their actions. That’s his job. Rains is not part of the problem, but the people who agree with Rains’s logic certainly are:

“This was a use of force that was admittedly very strong, but we’re dealing with a guy who had assaulted other law enforcement officers in the East Bay and who was believed to be armed,” Rains said. “I think use of force under the law is appropriate, and we’re second-guessing the instantaneous decision-making of a deputy who had no time to reflect on the limited options available to him.”

Yes. We live in a world where our police need “time to reflect” on whether clubbing a man 40 times is right or wrong. We live in a world where beating a man, or handcuffing him, constitute “limited options” for the police. You can’t COUNT to 40 instantaneously, but we live in a world where the law can’t hold cops accountable for their “instantaneous decision-making.”

And let’s remember, these cops were caught on video. If they hadn’t been on video, they’d probably still be out there patrolling the streets. You think Stanislav Petrov’s claims of police brutality would be anything more than a footnote in the files if there wasn’t video evidence of his beating? Please.

Sponsored

Despite the video, it’s likely that these cops will escape criminal punishment in this world. Firing them is the very least society can do.

2 Alameda County deputies fired over Mission District beating [San Francisco Chronicle]

Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

Topics

, , , , , , ,