The Legal Arena

A Pennsylvania cop arrested for ripping a phone out of a woman’s hand because she was recording, then slamming it on a sidewalk and punching her in the face was acquitted of all charges Wednesday.
This despite video evidence proving Reading police officer Jesus Santiago-DeJesus violating the woman’s First Amendment right to record as well as proving he lied about why he had pulled her over in the first place.

Three California cops were caught on camera in a one-minute video (seen below) giving a 16-year old a devastating beating, cracking his legs with a baton and threatening the young man with a taser.
Three Pomona Police officers beat teenager Christian Aguilar into submission at the Los Angeles County Fair when he recorded them arresting his family.

A Texas cop raped his prisoner on video, while the entire department watched.
Now the victim is suing the town of 4,000 residents for $5,000,000.
The tiny border town of La Joya only has a total of 11 police officers, and seven active officers have been named in the lawsuit including the current chief. La Joya’s former chief is also a named defendant.

Baltimore Circuit Judge Barry Williams announced that Baltimore city police officer Caesar Goodson is not guilty for killing Freddie Gray.
Gray’s last moments were recorded in a dramatic video showing him alive and well by neighbor Kevin Moore at the Gilmour Homes in western Baltimore.
Officer Goodson was the driver of the van, accused of giving a rough ride to Gray leaving him paralyzed and on life support.

Two Colorado cops won’t be charged with a crime even after newly-released video shows the moments when they broke a handcuffed man’s neck, and left him a paraplegic.
You can see the whole incident below.
The body cam video shows a La Junta Police officer dropping the man on his head in the first two seconds as they pulled him from their police cruiser.
Those seconds ended the man’s promising MMA career.
Now Donovan Duran needs constant medical attention.
He’s unable to walk, paralyzed from the nipples on his chest down to his toes.

Louisiana’s top educator filed an unusual lawsuit against a citizen, for requesting public records sufficient to give oversight to one of the largest government agencies in his state.
James Finney, is a mathematician from Baton Rouge, and he likes to work with numbers.
He’s requesting the records he needs to review the statewide Louisiana Department of Education for compliance and performance.

A man who was on the phone with his mother when a Seattle police officer pepper sprayed him as he walked by will receive a $100,000 settlement.
Jesse Hagopian, a high school history teacher, had just given a speech during a Martin Luther King, Jr. event last year when Seattle police officer Sandra DeLaFuente pepper sprayed him, ordering him to get back, even though he was already walking away from her and was never that close to begin with.

It started off as a routine traffic stop on a high school student in a residential neighborhood in Missouri with the cop getting angry that the teen was asking questions, so he tasered him for 20 seconds, sending the 17-year-old into cardiac arrest.
Independence police officer Timothy Runnels then yanked the boy out of the car, handcuffing him before picking him up and slamming him face first into a sidewalk, leaving the boy in a coma.
Runnels later claimed he had smelled marijuana in the car.

Less than 24 hours after Palm Beach State Attorney David Aronberg announced that criminal charges would be filed against the cop who shot and killed Corey Jones, deputies raided the home of a man accused of making online threats against the prosecutor under the guise of the cyberhack group Anonymous.

When it came down to it, the pay-for-play cop wannabe was treated nothing like a cop when it came to sentencing.
Instead of the usual probation or slap-on-the-wrist sentencing, Oklahoma reserve deputy Robert Bates was sentenced to four years in prison for shooting a man in the back while trying to taser him – the maximum allowed by law for the charge of second-degree manslaughter, according to News 9.