Feb. 20th, 2008 at 3:36 AM
There are very few things that make me want to go all Boondock Saints and fucking kill.
This is one of them.
As summarized at radgeek.com:
- In October 2006, in Salem, Ohio, Steffey,
While they were booking her, one of the guards asked her Have you thought about harming yourself? Bewildered and brutalized, Hope Steffey asked for clarification: Now or ever? The purpose of this question is in order to give the jailers an opportunity to label you as crazy for legal purposes, which, in their minds, is reason enough to inflict on you absolutely any kind of cruelty, violence, or invasion of your privacy, and then, to crown all, to turn around and call your torture and humiliation a precaution taken For Your Own Safety. In this case, apparently the jailers figured that Now or ever? was close enough for government work, so what they did was get a gang of male and female guards to surround Hope Steffey and drag her to a cell, then have least two male officers pin her down and hold her arms (she was still handcuffed throughout the ordeal) while female officers stripped her naked and searched her over her screams of protest. After this sadistic sexual assault, they left her locked in her cell, totally naked, without even a blanket to cover herself.
Oh, and one of their number went ahead and videotaped the entire thing. I doubt they expected the backlash that'd occur when the local news media got a hold of what parts of it are still available.
Warning: Do not watch the videos if you're easily triggered. Or not easily triggered. Or prone to violent rages and/or bouts of internet stalking.
Maybe Steffey was freaking out beforehand. Maybe not. But when the news brings us tales of police assault and prison rape and the story of that poor guy who was sodomized by cops with a toilet plunger, I dare you to find a person of any gender who would not flip the fuck out if they were handcuffed and pinned face-down by multiple people who proceeded to strip them, pants-first, without a single word of reassurance or explanation.
This is a sexual assault and human rights violation, sanctioned and condoned by the people who are supposed to be protecting us.
Some people don't get it, and try to justify the officers' actions because of what we don't see or because Steffey was freaking out. But the math is still simple. The second video shows eight cops altogether, some following along, one recording the entire process, and the rest leading Hope Steffey down the hallway. The majority are women. If Steffey was really out of control, you can't tell me that they wouldn't have enough people to just cuff her hand & foot to something solid and have someone sit with her, either until she calmed down or until they got proper mental health specialists on hand. There was absolutely no reason to hold her down and forcibly strip her, no reason whatsoever for the group to be mixed-gender, and even less of a reason to leave her alone for that long afterwards--especially if their intention was truly to keep her from self-harm.
Fucking Christ. And then people wonder why no one takes cops seriously. Between this and the drug enforcement people gunning down an innocent mother holding her child and the cops dumping the quadriplegic out of his wheelchair and that cock choking and throwing a fourteen year old kid onto the ground for skateboarding and saying "Dude," it's a wonder we aren't already neck-deep in riots.
The question remains: What's to stop people from taking matters into their own hands when calling for the authorities may result in something like this? I know I'm likely to think twice.
Comments
also: Ohio, Florida, Maryland and Ohio. I think the Maryland dude is a bit odd for being in a major city; that stands out.
A place north of me is actively hiring part-time policemen. Seriously. IIRC, they're paying (get this) between minimum wage & $10 an hour--without benefits--to be a cop for part of their day.
I've met two of the part-timers. They're nice guys. But I don't really want to think of the kind of person who'd be lured into putting their lives at risk/carrying a gun and being responsible for upholding the law for the same pay as the average food service or retail worker.
I don't remember seeing educational requirements, either. I know that training beyond college is necessary to become an actual officer and that you need a higher degree to become a Statie, so it's equally worrisome that the person making arrests may be a high school grad who's taken a few weeks of training courses but who has little to no concept of what constitutes civil rights violations.
It's no wonder this is being compared to Abu Ghraib.
I will not be watching the videos because I know they would make me sick. That poor, poor, girl my heart aches for her.
I know I'd be doing the exact same thing as that woman, probably even kicking and struggling as much as possible. Strip searches are scary, but when you're handcuffed and forced down with no explination? Terrifying. And being the husband watching a cop brutalizing her like that? Fuck man...
I hope those cops get what they deserve. There's NO excuse to have men in there when five woman would be enough to subdue a 120lb female... And leaving the poor woman alone for SIX hours! SIX. Drug consumers are treated better! Hell, that wheelchair guy I told you about got better treatment than this woman, and he's fuckin' insane!
But yeah. The entire situation is a study in excessiveness. And to think--if not for the woman following along with the camera, it would've been hard to believe this happened.
I'm not surprised at such abuse after the Shaquanda Cotton case. The police and judicial systems in the US have far too much power, and the fact that "felons" can't vote in many states has led to the fatal corruption of your last two elections. Am I right in thinking that if Hope Steffey had been found guilty of "resisting arrest", she'd have a permanent criminal record? Sounds to me like she and her husband HAD to show that tape to the world in pure self-defence.
Do you think a letter campaign to get those officers charged would do any good? If so, I'd definitely send one from my part of the world.
Also, I'd like that "self-harm" question thrown back at any fat cop who asks it to justify subsequent brutal behaviour. "Well, officer, judging by your waistline you have a problematic relationship with food. You know that by eating/drinking to excess, you're harming your longevity? SO WE'RE GOING TO TAKE IT AS EVIDENCE OF AN UNCONSCIOUS NEED TO SELF-HARM, STRIP YOU BUTT-NAKED AND LEAVE YOU IN A FREEZING CELL FOR SIX HOURS WHERE ANY PASSING PEOPLE CAN OGLE YOU. Have a nice day."
I don't know if a letter campaign is in effect. I know there's an online petition, but those don't really mean much.
This is one of them.
But it would at least make me feel good to know that there was at least one person still out there trying to do the right thing.
The cocksnots that blindly defend, though . . . :-\
I've had plenty of dealings with cops before. (My lead foot, let me tell you about it.) Most of them haven't been bad people. I've had more laugh at me than be mad at me. But the more bad apples that turn up, the more we (as part of the general public) have gotta worry about running into one ourselves.
And I hate to say it, but this kind of crap is exactly why we have crazy gun toting people that handle things themselves, which just leads to tragedies when the authorities get involved. Well, this stuff and protection in case of zombie and/or alien invasion.