U. Miami cops pulled guns on an innocent UM student on his first day of class. Since they did it in the Communications School, there's lots of video:
The law school's overflow classroom, which I'm currently teaching tort in, is in the “Learning Center” which is the next building over from the communications school.
The Miami Hurricane reports,
“The incident is currently under investigation to determine if law enforcement officers acted appropriately,” said Karla Hernandez, the university’s director of media relations. “We are consulting the Dade County State Attorney’s Office as is the procedure on any case involving an allegation of officer misconduct.”
In the tape, Chusid appears to comply with the officers’ order to stop. He got down on his hands and knees. One of the officers kicked his arms out from under him so that Chusid was flat out on the ground. Then an officer kicked the cell phone out of his hand.
Chusid was handcuffed and taken over to a nearby seat for questioning. After several minutes the officers apparently determined they had the wrong person, uncuffed him and allowed him to use his phone.
…
UMPD said someone attempted to steal a motorcycle near the law school earlier that day. The suspect was a young, white male wearing a red t-shirt and shorts.
According to the witnesses and Chusid himself, the resemblance was uncannily close.
In the video he's being an awfully good sport about it all.
Jeez. I was once stopped by Boulder campus police because I looked/was dressed like someone seen trying to break into a parked car nearby. The cop stopped me, took my name, checked out my ID, gave me his apology and his _business card_ and sent me on my way. Why they hell would they need to draw guns on a routine stop?
I would rather have seen a video of the cops behavior after they figured out that this kid wasn’t the suspect. Did they just release him and send him on his way like some sort of catch and release sail fish, or did they apologize? It appears that the cops didn’t beat him and that they may have had cause for stopping him. But, sometimes its not what you do but how you do it that makes all the difference.
Anyone know a good lawyer ?
Seems a bit excessive from the video.
Looks a lot nicer than what I have seen in hispanic and african american and poor white communities.
They didn’t leave bruises or slam his head into the pavement or anything.