ACLU: Miami Beach Cops Arrest People For Recording Police Misconduct

[Purveyor]

By Daniel Tencer
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 -- 8:21 pm

'We're sick of all the f***ing fags in the neighborhood,' cops allegedly told gay man

Miami Beach has long had a reputation for being a refuge for gay Americans, but if the ACLU's allegations against the city prove true, people who live alternative lifestyles may want to think twice about retiring to the vibrant little community just off the coast of southern Florida.

The ACLU's Florida chapter says it plans to sue the Miami Beach Police Department after a gay visitor to the city was beaten and arrested by police when he tried to call 911 to report the police beating of another gay man.

According to the NBC affiliate in Miami, Harold Strickland says he was harassed, verbally assaulted and wrongfully arrested in March, 2009, when he called 911 after witnessing two police officers kicking a handcuffed gay man in Miami Beach's Flamingo Park.

Strickland says the officers, identified as Frankly Forte and Elliot Hazzi, were kicking the suspect "like his head was a football." When the officers saw Strickland making a call on a nearby pay phone, Strickland says one officer came up to him and said, "We know what you're doing here. We're sick of all the fucking fags in the neighborhood."

MORE...

http://rawstory.com/2010/02/aclu-sues-miami-beach-police/

[TexasObserver]

1. Recommend. It's the Bush Cheney Police State. Still here.

Bush changed the way law enforcement behaved. To put it bluntly, he made it acceptable, even laudatory, for police to become goons who oppress the public, and do so with little or no fear of repercussions.

[KittyWampus]

3. what a ridiculous assertion. The police where I live are pretty darned helpful. Miami & Florida

need to answer for their local police force.

As would any state or locality who has out of control police abusing citizens like this.

As if this sick behavior never happened before Bush/Cheney.

[tkmorris]

4. Yeah, OK

"On Dec. 30, 2009, while most families were enjoying the holidays and preparing for the new year, others prepared candles and placards in an expression of mourning and outrage. The family of Kenny Lazo held a vigil in front of the Suffolk County police precinct where on April 12, 2008, he was beaten and left to die in a jail cell. Over 30 family members, friends and activists braved the 24-degree weather to remember Lazo on what would have been his 26th birthday.

In April 2008, Kenny was beaten with flashlights by five police officers while in their custody. He
suffered severe blows to the skull and the face. An independent autopsy concluded that he was choked with a flashlight while handcuffed and face down. Although the coroner ruled his death a homicide, the district attorney did not vigorously pursue indictment. For nearly two years, Lazo’s family has been fighting tooth and nail for the disclosure of all the facts related to his death and for the prosecution of the cops who killed him."

http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=13493&news_iv_ctrl=1030

You were saying?

[KittyWampus]

7. What I said was pretty freaking clear. #1. Trying to drag in Bush/Cheney is ridiculous

In fact, I see it as changing the subject away from brutal and sadistic cops.

#2. Hating all police officers and lumping them into one amorphous group of sadists is counter productive.

#3. I'd give you a long list of stories of how local police around here stepped up and did the right thing but your prejudice means it'd be a waste of time.

[TexasObserver]

10. What a gullible assertion. Your biases don't equal truth.

If you're blind to the direction of law enforcement the past ten years, spend some time curing that ignorance. If you didn't see it, that's on you.

And take your rousing defense of Bush Cheney to someone who supports them.

[Echo In Light]

2. More public servants who wanted positions of authority to couch their sadism

[LiberalFighter]

5. They should do more than just discipline the officers involved.

They should be thrown in prison and throw the key away.

[KittyWampus]

8. Agreed, I'm sure these sadists are picking on more than just gay people. Hope the locals

manage to find a way to protect themselves and fight back.

[FiveGoodMen]

11. And make sure to tell the other prisoners what they did for a living.

[ddeclue]

6. they act like thugs towards straight people too...

we got tear gassed by MBPD the night before the Gore Bush election when Al Gore showed up to do an event on Ocean Drive with Stevie Wonder. Of course the Gore campaign handed out more tickets than would actually fit into the roped off area and didn't think they would all show up but they did and when the crowd became restless MBPD's response was rather less than civil.. they fired off tear gas to disperse the excess crowd.

I'm shocked the Secret Service didn't kick their police ass for that one.

:argh:

[leftstreet]

9. K&R

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. Didja notice the article calls being gay "an alternative lifestyle"?

Looks like all the efforts over the years to counter the stereotype of "lifestyle" have failed.