local police lost my respect last weekend

[Cotillion]

I live in medford Oregon which is a small mostly white town. Last weekend my wife had invited some work friends to go to a bar and sing some karaoke. One of them happened to have a black stepfather who was a really fun, really down to earth older gentlemen who's worked hard his whole life. Well around 1am the stepfather, the mother and her son all left in separate cars to go home ( all of them live in the same house but work caused them to being separate cars ) after they got home and started to relax the police knocked on the door about 15 minutes later demanding a field sobriety test from the black man only! He said he wanted a lawyer so they then pulled him out of the house and beat the crap out of him. His stepson was using his phone to record it and called the cops to help with these cops!

So the new set of cops show up after the old ones dragged the black male off in their cruiser and reviewed their video. He claimed it was too dark and deleted it! The original police brought the man somewhere secluded and beat him up some more before finally arriving at the jail almost 2 hours later. The next morning they showed up at the house and arrested the wife for attempting to pull her husband back in the house after the police started hitting him with their flashlights.

I'm only 28 and I'm not the model "anti racist" as I can't stand hood rats but stuff like this just makes me sick. I really hope he can get ahold of a black power group to help with court costs and sue those bastards

[tattedupboy]

And people wonder why Blacks in urban areas hate the police. That's why.

[GTH]

Another shining example to us all that no matter how far we think we’ve come there is still a ways to go. My best to the Step Dad!

[BC1]

This past weekend there was a similar instance in my home town. A middle-aged housewife was stopped at a grocery store and was issued a field sobriety test. LEO didn't like the outcome and really pressed the issue. The woman is recovering from an auto accident where she sustained a broken neck with nerve damage, broken vert in lower back, separated shoulder, torn rotator cuff and broken ribs. The stop came four weeks after the last surgery.

She is crippled and unable to walk the drunk line without arm braces. Facial and cranial nerve damage caused some loss of speech funtion... she studders. She does not drink or take drugs, ever.

She requested an attorney three times during the stop but the LEO continued to question her.

She called her husband who arrived on-scene with an attorney. The LEO listened carefully to the attorney and then understood his mistakes based on the medical condition. The officer claimed he approached the car because it was parked crooked, although it was fully/legally contained within a single parking space.

So shat could have been the results of his actions had he effected an arrest? Blood testing woukd have shown no drugs or alcohol in the woman's system. So, no charges by the DA. She would have been released.

The ramifications for the department, town and officer could have been tremendous.

[mamagrizzly21]

How awful! I'm really sorry. I hope the step dad sues the crap out of them and the dept for what they did to that poor man. To be ripped from your own home :(

[Unfettered Might]

A perfect example of you dont have to open the front door for LEOs. If theyve really got probable cause, they dont need you to open the door.

[Cotillion]

My wife thought I was going a little overboard when telling her about the "never talk to the police" YouTube video the night before this happened, now we are on the same page when it comes to law enforcement. I told her no matter what happens and no matter how long I sit locked up we never say a word other than I want a lawyer. Don't get me wrong thank god for the police but just like our government there is a billion flaws.

It makes me so sick to my stomach and I'm sorry to hear about that lady also. I don't give a frickin crap who you hate or whatever racist garbage you use to justify your actions, IT'S WRONG!

[Ed Hurtley]

In Medford??? Wow. And Medford returns to its place as the "white trash" city of Oregon. (And here I thought outer SE Portland / inner Clackamas County had kept that title.)

[dgarber12771]

Something about this doesn't sound right. I'm not suggesting that the original poster is lying, but consider:

1) They're all in separate cars. Did they form a convoy on the way home, or did they separate?
2) The police don't show up for 15 minutes? Why so long? If they were 'stalking' him with the intent on being a-hole racists, why the wait?
3) They just up and beat on the guy for asking for a lawyer? No other reason - just open up the whoop-ass?

Now I know that there are still pockets of blatant racism out there, but by and large there aren't too many cops who would be this blatantly racist in this day and age. It's suicide.

There HAS to be more to this story. Did the step dad have an accident on the way home? Did he hit a parked car? Did he hit a pedestrian? Did someone phone in a complaint about him (which would explain the 15 minute delay)?

I say we wait to hear more about this before unilaterally passing judgement on these cops (which is the very thing everyone here is condemning these cops for doing).

[Firefighterchen]

Oregon has a horrible reputation on racism across the state. A University of Oregon professor, who was black, drove a nice Mercedes, was arrested because the officer didn't think black people drove such nice cars. Oregon is beautiful, but their laws and police are horrific. I'm really glad I moved to WA.