MANSFIELD: The Plot “Sickens” – Part Two of a Continuing Series

Defense lawyers for the four officers accused of beating Edward Henderson — a mentally ill man — on New Year’s Day have a duty to zealously defend their clients; their code of ethical conduct demands no less. Therefore it was of little surprise when one of them tried to use the “dog ate my homework” excuse.

When the question of why none of the officers made out a “use of force” form as all officers are required to do in every instance where force is used, one of the attorneys came up with the novel excuse that his client thought that surely another officer had filled out the form for his client. Uh, sorry counselor, but that dog just won’t hunt.

Maybe he can try this one: “My client saw this poor man lying handcuffed on the ground and as he was rushing to help him, his foot slipped on the grass, and that’s why it appears on the video that he’s using the man’s head for a football.” Excuse my attempt at levity, but sometimes when the truth is too brutal to face we humans sometimes make jokes to preserve our sanity.

Unfortunately for these lawyers (and their clients) there’s going to be many more questions — many of them much more pointed and harder — once the video of the beating is released. They (and we) might as well get braced for the storm of national negative media attention that’s surely going to descend on Cleveland once the public views them… I’ve heard the images really are that bad.

What’s a lawyer to do? Well, we can expect them to take a page from the Steve Loomis playbook and attempt to demonize the victim by turning him into the dangerous aggressor. You know, a mentally ill man who takes his own head and, while handcuffed on the ground, violently slams it into the boot of a police officer… hey, that’s a felony one, isn’t it?

For those of you not old enough to recall, Willie Horton (a mythical, made up character, by the way) was, according to one website, “a convicted felon who, while serving a life sentence for murder, without the possibility of parole, was the beneficiary of a Massachusetts weekend furlough program. He did not return from his furlough, and ultimately he committed assault, armed robbery and rape. A political advertisement in support of the candidacy of George H.W. Bush during the 1988 U.S. Presidential race was critical of the Democratic nominee, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, for his support of the program.” Willie Horton thus became part of American political history… but the fact is, Willie Horton never existed. William Horton was the man who committed the heinous deeds, but Bush’s political advisors felt that “William” wasn’t scary enough, so they renamed him “Willie,” giving the man a name he never used. But it worked.

Fast forward to Cleveland, 2011. Lacking any viable defense for the alleged actions of the four police officers, the strategy just might be to “Willie Hortonize” the alleged victim, Edward Henderson. Turn him into a crazed black monster that police had no choice, and every right, to brutalize to keep the good, decent and honest citizens of Cleveland safe.

Left with no logical defense for the alleged brutal actions of four officers captured on the thermal imaging video (their faces cannot be seen), the lawyers are going to first ask, “How can you prove it was my client that was administering the beating?” Then, when that doesn’t get them off, they’re going to attempt to poison the jury pool by strongly suggesting (as the defense did in the Rodney King case) that good, upstanding white jurors should be pinning medals on these “brave” men, rather than convicting them of a crime. Yeah, we’ve seen this movie before, and the ending was real ugly.

The sad thing about America is that some people in this country love the police more than they love justice — they are fools; others fear the police more than they love justice — they are weaklings; still others are stuck in a racist past that blots out any notions of fair play when the victim is of another race — and they are simpletons, cowards, and un-American to boot.

From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://www.neighborhoodsolutionsinc.com.