Outcomes like these in liberal California make me want to defund the police, too

Cop knocks teen's teeth out for no good reason and gets away with it

Perceived Threat

You should take 48 minutes today and listen to the “Perceived Threat” episode of the “On Our Watch” podcast, which is based on a deep-journalistic dive into internal affairs cases in California.

But if you don’t, let me explain why these are the kinds of cases that drive the “defund the police” movement even more than times police shoot and kill people - because they are a lot more numerous.

In this case, a 16-year-old black dude was trying to buy candy with a torn one dollar bill. The person working at the convenience store didn’t want to take the torn bill. They argued a bit. A plainclothes police officer showed up. That cop decided to intervene, telling the kid to move on. The kid and cop got into a short passionate back-and-forth. Each side has a different version of what was said, but the kid essentially told the cop to leave him alone, something that angered the cop. From there, we have video of what happened - and it backed up the kid’s version of what happened. That’s why he eventually won a more than $710,000 settlement because of police brutality.

But here’s the issue: The cop not only walked away without being punished, he was eventually promoted and is still on the beat. That’s after the cop attacked a kid for no good reason and beat him so badly he knocked out a couple of his teeth. Not only that, the cop repeatedly lied about what happened - we know because of video from the convenience store. His initial punishment was five-days without pay - but that was overturned during arbitration by an arbitrator chosen by the police union.

To recap: A plainclothes officer violently attacked a teenager for something that began over a torn one dollar bill, grabbing him by the hair, throwing him to the floor, kneeling on the back of his neck and repeatedly punching him in the face. And the cop charged the kid! After all of that, the cop goes on to shoot a couple of people and get promoted, and doesn’t have to pay the settlement in the civil lawsuit because of qualified immunity. And he is still a cop in that community.

These are the types of cases that usually don’t get national attention but cause much more harm in communities like these. Because residents know about these incidents. They know cops violently attack people for no good reason. They know cops lie about violently attacking residents. They know these cops rarely get punished. They know these cops keep patrolling the streets.

In an environment like that, wouldn’t you also want the police defunded? Wouldn’t you also believe they are more of a threat than helpful? Would you open up to them to try and help solve crimes in your area? Or would you view them as the real criminals?

And let’s not forget that this is happening in liberal California. And this is just one case of many. I have a few out of Myrtle Beach, S.C., I’ll share later. But it’s things like this that make the “defund the police” chants sound like common sense, not a deranged overreaction.

The question from the episode I have that wasn’t fully explored: What did the cop’s partner do? He was there as well. Seems he did not intervene on behalf of the kid being attacked. Seems he did nothing to prevent that crime from happening. Why?