Six Fullerton cops, responding to a phone call alleging that someone in the downtown area might be breaking into cars, approached a 130-pound homeless man named Kelly Thomas, grabbed his backpack and, according to eyewitnesses, began Tasering him and beating him into a pulp. He died a few days later at a local hospital.
According to eyewitnesses, Thomas, although schizophrenic, did nothing to warrant arrest, let alone a savage beating. He was a local fixture around the bar scene, a gentle figure who bummed cigarettes and slept in the park. Videos made by bystanders showed pure aggression on the part of the cops, while locals expressed horror and Thomas cried out for his dad as he was being beaten.
One councilman, a former police chief who hired the Fullerton cops in question, said on national television that the police did not necessarily kill Thomas.
He said that the facial injuries – i.e., his face was beaten so severely it was not recognizable as Thomas – do not mean that the police caused serious harm to Thomas. He said the public shouldn’t jump to conclusions about what killed Thomas. Thomas was walking around and healthy, six cops beat and Tasered him and then he dies. But according to officials, that doesn’t mean that the cops had anything to do with the death. What would the police have said had a gang beaten up a cop who later died?
In my column about this apparent act of police thuggery, I quoted Jim Ewert, general counsel of the California Newspaper Publishers Association, who calls California a "secret police state." Some readers no doubt find this description to be too much for their tender sensibilities. So I want to recount some of the ways the authorities have behaved during and after the incident, and then ask this question: Does this typical behavior better reflect the policies of a free society or a police state?
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