Wife Witnessed A Crime

Off Topic
101

[quote]DJHT wrote:
Well my wife yesterday morning was leaving the gym, one of the guys and friend of ours was driving in front of her. A small 4 door Toyota pulls in front of him and she is of course stopped behind him. She watches as the guy gets out talks to our friend and suddenly starts punching him in the face.

Come to find out it is a police officer is in an unmarked car who ordered our friend out of his car, our friend refused until a marked car showed up. He was then attacked. My wife of course is sitting there watching the whole thing, I just got her the new Evo so she didnt know how to get the camera going that fast.

Now our friend is a father of two little girls ages 2 and 3 married and is upper middle class. He was pulled over because he was told he was swerving, he had just left the crossfit workout. He went to jail of course, car towed and did not receive medical care. His wife said his car was covered in blood on the inside door panel and dash.

We live in Houston by the way. Now my wife of course will be pulled in as a witness, she is worried about repercussions to our family for testifying against the police. Scary times we live in. [/quote]

Sadly unsurprising.

She has a legal and ethical duty to testify, so do it.

She probably should call the internal affairs number herself and report the event, as that will bring her up on their radar and make the cop afraid of targeting her.

You also have the advantage of Houston being a very big city and easy to get lost in, with cops working very specific neighborhoods.

Doing something like going to a different gym, getting a different car, or even using your car would make it hard for the cop to figure out who she is because, with an internal affairs report on it, he and his buddies would be chicken to use their databases, as that stuff is logged and IA would look for searches targeting her (which is why you call IA to get her named flagged by them).

102

[quote]on edge wrote:
Did the cop show him a badge and ID?[/quote]

Who cares? You can buy those on the interwebs. Standard police operating procedure is to wait for a marked car.

103

[quote]Jewbacca wrote:

[quote]on edge wrote:
Did the cop show him a badge and ID?[/quote]

Who cares? You can buy those on the interwebs. Standard police operating procedure is to wait for a marked car.[/quote]

Funny coincidence, I just did a little research. It’ll cost you 48 bucks to look like a real cop.

104

[quote]Jewbacca wrote:

[quote]on edge wrote:
Did the cop show him a badge and ID?[/quote]

Who cares? You can buy those on the interwebs. Standard police operating procedure is to wait for a marked car.[/quote]

Like these?

I am also glad that all you need to do is to change your gym and car, maybe move out of this cops district and file a complaint with IA and presto, you are safe from a cop who jumps out of a car and beats up people.

105

[quote]orion wrote:

I am also glad that all you need to do is to change your gym and car, maybe move out of this cops district and file a complaint with IA and presto, you are safe from a cop who jumps out of a car and beats up people.

[/quote]

Well, you shouldn’t, since you are a coward with no valid moral compass.

If this happened to you, you should continue to hide in your parents’ basement and jack off to your Eva Braun posters.

106

[quote]Jewbacca wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

I am also glad that all you need to do is to change your gym and car, maybe move out of this cops district and file a complaint with IA and presto, you are safe from a cop who jumps out of a car and beats up people.

[/quote]

Well, you shouldn’t, since you are a coward with no valid moral compass.

If this happened to you, you should continue to hide in your parents’ basement and jack off to your Eva Braun posters.[/quote]

You are just not good at losing debates, are you?

Or at losing in general and I can only hope that this comes from a habit of winning, because being a loser with your attitude, charms and brains would probably be more of a challenge than you could bear.

107

[quote]Jewbacca wrote:

[quote]DJHT wrote:
Well my wife yesterday morning was leaving the gym, one of the guys and friend of ours was driving in front of her. A small 4 door Toyota pulls in front of him and she is of course stopped behind him. She watches as the guy gets out talks to our friend and suddenly starts punching him in the face.

Come to find out it is a police officer is in an unmarked car who ordered our friend out of his car, our friend refused until a marked car showed up. He was then attacked. My wife of course is sitting there watching the whole thing, I just got her the new Evo so she didnt know how to get the camera going that fast.

Now our friend is a father of two little girls ages 2 and 3 married and is upper middle class. He was pulled over because he was told he was swerving, he had just left the crossfit workout. He went to jail of course, car towed and did not receive medical care. His wife said his car was covered in blood on the inside door panel and dash.

We live in Houston by the way. Now my wife of course will be pulled in as a witness, she is worried about repercussions to our family for testifying against the police. Scary times we live in. [/quote]

Sadly unsurprising.

She has a legal and ethical duty to testify, so do it.

She probably should call the internal affairs number herself and report the event, as that will bring her up on their radar and make the cop afraid of targeting her.

You also have the advantage of Houston being a very big city and easy to get lost in, with cops working very specific neighborhoods.

Doing something like going to a different gym, getting a different car, or even using your car would make it hard for the cop to figure out who she is because, with an internal affairs report on it, he and his buddies would be chicken to use their databases, as that stuff is logged and IA would look for searches targeting her (which is why you call IA to get her named flagged by them).[/quote]

I had not thought about the IA angle, I will talk to the wife tonight. Bad thing about all this for my wife is it has actually brought back a lot of memories from her childhood. She grew up in a bad home life of abuse etc.

Funny thing was our friend was back at the gym yesterday morning, face all beat up and everything.

108

Good call on the Internal Affairs, Bacca.

Crowdsourcing on T-Nation > corrupt fucking pigs!

109

[quote]apbt55 wrote:

[quote]DJHT wrote:

[quote]CJE3200 wrote:
You stated it was an “unmarked no lights on the car”… Can you tell me why your friend pulled over then? And how the cop managed to tightly fit in between your friends car and your wifes car? Did the cop just yell out the window for your friend to pull over and he did? If this is the case, your friend shouldn’t have stopped in the first place.

-CJE[/quote]

He pulled out in front of him on the road out of a store parking lot. If my friend had not stopped he would have T-boned him. My wife was driving behind our friend. [/quote]

Was he in uniform, if not there are technicalities that could get him off in this situation. get a lawyer, find one that is slimy.

If it was a personal car and he was in plain clothes, your friend should have backed out and went around right off the bat,
[/quote]

Except that the OP stated that the wife was RIGHT BEHIND the friend. The friend was blocked in.

110

Not from TX but a complaint appears warranted if she is comfortable with doing it. HPD seems to have had several recent incidents with excessive force or worse I seem to remember many headlines about it. This could work on your friends behalf. Your friend needs a good lawyer and to probably remain silent until he gets one. As some have already said the complaint could send attention your way so make sure your vehicles are in good working order for example, all lights work and tags are up to date. When cop runs a plate or person it is tracked, by a number assigned to a specific officer. Information that might be helpful if you find yourself being harassed.

Once your friend gets his lawyer he may want to check into a federal law suit. That is where most violations of civil rights suits end up. For the criminal side the cops history of issues is also tracked and is discoverable if what your wife saw is what happened then the cop may have a history of such behavior. That can be benificial to the suspect in a criminal trial. If the cop did what it sounds like he did then he would be in a world of trouble where I am. We discourage law enforcement action off duty unless somebody is in serious danger. We would never do it in our own car. In your own car you usuually do not have a radio a badge or handcuffs, all things you should have if trying to take a law enforcment action. The off duty cop could call in a traffic complaint and be a good witness instead of a bad example. For me when I am of duty I am off duty no police actions. As VTballa mentioned earlier no entrapment if the car is unmarked. The law has to encourage you to break the law in a way you were not likely to do with out their encouragement. Best of luck to you, your wife, and your friend

111

I may be misunderstanding the situation but… An unmarked car, police officer out of uniform… If a car suddenly swerved to block my way and then some random guy comes out telling me to get out of the car… How do I even know this guy is a police officer and not, say, someone trying to hijack my car or rob me or whatever?

Expecting the OP’s friend to get out of the car under those circumstances seems unreasonable to me. I sure wouldn’t do it, at least not in the U.S. I guess. Unless I missed something which I may well have.

And unless he was resisting forcefully or something or being aggressive… Why punch him so hard that he starts bleeding all over the place? Was the cop in danger or did he feel like he was or something?

I usually give the law enforcement guys the benefit of the doubt (I have no experience with U.S. police though… Just one rather strange experience with the German police, but that took a really unexpected turn and all was fine)… But this situation here makes no sense to me.

Based on what info we have, I’d side with the OP’s friends.

And the whole situation now sure sucks. Hope your wife will be okay man.

112

If I were the guy who got arrested, I would be charged with murder, because that bitch of a policeman would get his. If I ever meet a cop as crooked as that one he will be killed.

113

I’m sorry about the violent comments, I just hate american policemen. You’d never have a problem like that in Canada.

114

[quote]TooHuman wrote:

[quote]Mick28 wrote:
sad day when you have to fear the police[/quote]
Then we’ve had a few decades of bad days.[/quote]

People have ALWAYS feared the police. The only reason some don’t is because TV has brainwashed them.

Police have always been a problem.

115

[quote]CJE3200 wrote:
Original poster, I’ve read your original post a manifold of times but I am still unable to detect what “crime” your wife witnessed. So you’re friend was escorted out of the vehicle and taken into custody by the police. There is a difference between an assault (any unwanted touching) and a police officer using necessary force to take control of the situation. I guarantee if he would have listened to the officer and obey his verbal commands no one would have gotten hurt.

Now none of us were there except for your wife to actually see what had happened so I can’t say whether or not the officer’s force was necessary, but just going by what you stated originally, I don’t see what the problem is.

Obey the laws and respect law enforcement and you will have nothing to worry about.

-CJE

[/quote]

What a load of horseshit.

116

Have you considered getting the media involved? The media have nearly as much power as does the legal system.

117

^ Not our call. Its up to our friends. I will talk to him tomorrow at the gym, very curious to hear it first hand what went down.

118

In any case, I would take pictures of the injuries.

That s what the media want if you get them involved. Together with the medical records it shows the level of violence.

119

His mug shot he was all beat to hell with blood still on his face.

120

I live in the same city and I really think the cops are just becoming way more cocky all around. The over abundance of unmarked police cars is something I do not understand. Half of the cars I see now pulling people over have NO marking on them. Who the hell made the decision to do this and how is this lawful?

Half of the white Chevy Tahoes I see on the street now are undercovers.

As far as the OP, what obligation do we have to stop for some guy in civilian clothes in a civilian car just because he shows a badge? What is stopping some stalker or serial killer from doing the same?