Houston Police Caught on Tape Beating People Condemn The Practice of Videotaping Police

I Wrote last week on Anarch.Me about Police Beatings in Houston. In Response the Police Chief issued statements condemning the videotaping of police. It seems that today Reason has picked up on the story. The Police Chief came out claiming that recording the violent abuse Police are committing may lead to violence against the Police. It seems his concern for the safety of the citizen is sadly lacking and most of his anger is directed towards his thugs getting caught assaulting human beings. It seems that another victim has stepped forward with video of their abuse at the hands of Huston Police.

I am attaching both videos here. The first is the one the initial article was about, the second is the newly surfaced video showing the abuse. The police involved have been arrested and the Mayor is calling for the arrest of whoever leaked the video in question. Why is the city so angry these police were caught in their crimes? Why do they go after the whistle blowers as the villains and see the people who beat assault and abuse others as the victim? What is wrong with this Mayor and police chief?

Houston Police Chief Charles McClelland has spoken out against videotaping of his Police Officers. This happens to be a stance he is taking after one of his Police Officers was caught beating a man by a video surveillance camera as five other officers watched the assault. McClelland has voiced opposition to activists and what he sees as a rising problem asking people to “lower the rhetoric.” According to McClelland HPD has many videos that “show the violent nature of police work,” but that he is prohibited by law from releasing them to the public as others have done with footage that shows police behaving badly. - via Anarch.Me

It’s a bit rich for McClelland to blame citizens with cameras and critics of police here. All of this “rhetoric” he’s worried about is a reaction to two high-profile incidents in which McClelland’s officers were captured on video beating the living hell out of someone. Here’s the first video, in which seven officers beat 15-year-old burglary suspect Chad Holley. Seven officers were initially fired, but two are now back on the force. Four have been charged with a misdemeanor. Houston public officials actually went to federal court to prevent the video from being released to the public (and won). When a leaked copy of the video got out anyway, Houston Mayor Annise Parker called for the leaker to be arrested. Because that’s what she should be concerned about.

The second video shows a police officer take 27-year-old Henry Madge to the ground and strike him after Madge had been handcuffed in a hospital waiting room. Madge at the hospital for his son’s appendectomy, and apparently got into an altercation over the volume on waiting room television.

I’ve reported here on how rarely police officers face significant discipline from their own departments. But as a local news station reported in the wake of the Holley incident, even on the rare occasions that they do, they’re often overturned or the punishments are watered down by arbitration agreements negotiated by police unions. -via Reason