David Silva, of Bakersfield, California, was beaten to death earlier this month by eight police officers. Apparently, he was unconscious outside of an hospital, suspected of being intoxicated. Instead of taking him inside the hospital, it looks, on the footage taken by onlookers with cell phones, as if the police simply began to batter Silva with clubs, and did not stop until he was dead. Then, as a finale, they grabbed the cell phones and camaras upon which witnesses filmed the event, and even chased down a couple of witnesses at their homes to confiscate any footage and threaten anyone who might testify.
That action of grabbing the cell phones of witnesses reminds me of the cop in Marshall County, Kansas, who, with no concern for the law or with my physical safety, grabbed me in an attempt to stop me from calling the mother of someone he had just arrested to go pick up the children who had been left by themselves. The same police officer also assualted my daughter, and also by grabbing a phone out of her hand, when she tried to call her dad during an incident wherein he was bullying an innocent person. He would not allow a seventeen year old to call her dad.
It is not, and never has been, unlawful to film and record law enforcement in action. If a police officer is not doing anything wrong, he should not worry about public perception of his actions. And as for calling a child's grandmother because the Marshall County Kansas cop arrested a mom and insisted upon leaving a five year old and a seven year old alone, I will do the same thing again, if necessary. Below is commentary on the police brutality death of David Silva.
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