Jaywalker Gets Wood Shampoo

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 The big crimes – the real crimes – go largely unpunished. Defraud thousands of people, steal their life savings – and get a golden parachute. Jaywalk – and get a wood shampoo.  

SACRAMENTO (CN) – A black Sacramento man who was beaten by police after being stopped for jaywalking said Monday that he was also needlessly placed on suicide watch and assaulted again by jailers.

In a federal lawsuit filed Sunday, two weeks after the incident, Nandi Cain claims the arresting officer who was captured on cellphone video punching him in the middle of a residential street continued to beat and humiliate him later that night in an isolation cell.

“Apparently not satisfied by just stripping, abusing and humiliating Mr. Cain, the men began to call him a ‘bitch’ and said that he was ‘crying like a bitch,’ in addition to telling Mr. Cain that his naked body ‘stank,’” the lawsuit against the city and Sacramento County states.

Cain, 24, says he was targeted and assaulted by Sacramento police while walking home from work on April 10 for “the crime of walking while black.” He was unarmed, and spent nine hours in jail before being released without charges.

The incident quickly went viral after a bystander captured it on cellphone video. The video shows the officer rushing and tackling Cain and continuing to punch him in the face before placing him in a police cruiser.

The police dashcam video was released the next day and Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg called the officer’s conduct disturbing.

With scrutiny spiking following the video releases, the Sacramento Police Department condemned the incident and said it would criminally investigate the officer’s actions.

Police have since released information about jaywalking citations in 2016, revealing that blacks were ticketed more times than whites, Hispanics and East Indians combined, despite making up only 14 percent of Sacramento’s population.

“The Sacramento Police Department holds itself to the highest professional standard and the actions that were observed are not indicative of the dedicated women and men who work for the department,” the department said in a statement.

While the department has not released the name of the arresting officer, the lawsuit says Sacramento police Officer Anthony Figueroa abused Cain and refused to call an ambulance. Figueroa and Doe officers are also named as defendants.

Police did not immediately respond to an email request for comment Monday evening.

The lawsuit accuses Figueroa of following the “longstanding” Sacramento Police Department tradition of using racial profiling to disproportionately search and harass black men. Cain seeks punitive damages for constitutional violations.

The department claims that Cain challenged the officer to fight and disobeyed commands, and that he was arrested for resisting and on an outstanding misdemeanor warrant from Fresno County.

Cain acknowledges in the lawsuit that he took off his jacket before making a “rhetorical” comment about fighting the officer. He says he told the officer that if he wanted to pick a fight he should “at least be a man and remove his duty belt and fight fairly,” but says he never actually resisted arrest.

Cain is represented by Oakland-based civil rights attorney John Burris, who settled another highly publicized wrongful death lawsuit against the city in February for $719,000.

That 2016 incident involved Sacramento Police officers killing a homeless black man who was running from police on a busy boulevard. Dashcam video showed a Sacramento police officer saying “fuck this guy” moments before officers shot and killed Joseph Mann. The Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office declined to press charges against the officers.

 

10 COMMENTS

    • The bigger question, of course, is why is it anyone’s business but my own where I cross a street? And if you want one of those “Hard cases makes bad laws” things, just look at all the traffic he was dodging as he did it. He could have caused a wreck! Oops, doesn’t fit, does it? The primary traffic was LEOs showing up to assure officer safety. Fortunately, for him, the light traffic did carry a lady with a cell phone.

      I suppose it is like motorcycle helmet laws: “But ‘we’ will have to pay for his hospitalization!”. Also makes for easy, low-risk (to LEOs) revenue for local governments.

      • Broken
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory

        The broken windows theory is a criminological theory of the norm-setting and signaling effect of urban disorder and vandalism on additional crime and anti-social behavior.

        The theory states that maintaining and monitoring urban environments to prevent small crimes helps to create an atmosphere of order and lawfulness, thereby preventing more serious crimes from happening.

        Bastiat’s broken windows. The seen and unseen in the eyes of the statist.

  1. You have to wonder at what point the people in these cities will flat out revolt. I suppose for the vast majority of them life is still easy so no point rocking the boat, just like all the rest of us. Sure there is a remote chance you will get hurt, but then typically a huge pay day. Even when you see these big violent riots, they never flat out attack the cops. There is almost never guns or bombs, they just burn stuff.

    • I wonder, too . . .

      For my own part, I have arrived at a place of utter contempt for “law enforcement” – as distinct from keeping the peace.

      In my opinion, one has to be a cognitively dissonant douchbag to be a “law enforcement” officer. The nature of the work is fundamentally despicable. A given “law enforcer” may try to be decent, but to do so, he must not enforce the law. To the extent that he does (and he must) he is a douche to a greater or lesser degree.

      • but…but….they hold themselves to the “highest professional standard”. What more could you ask for?

        As we in this country have sought to lessen physical and otherwise punishment the call of the payoff is just too great……said the warden as he rushed a load of prisoners off to chain gang work very few might see.

        Last year I saw a gang of 3 or 4 prisoners doing some work with a TDCJ pickup and backhoe with trailer. They had no supervision, just dirty white clothes. If these guys are capable of doing construction or repair why are they still in prison? Oh yeah, somebody’s making some money off them……and the taxpayer both. It’s a sweet deal if you can get it.

    • The cops select for enforcement and abuse primarily those people who will not have the support of the community. People who can’t revolt because most everyone around them will not revolt and probably stand against them.

      Revolt happens when this treatment, even just enforcement, is for all not just those “bad” people over there.

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