In what has to be a new American (and perhaps world) record, Francis Pusok, the man who was beaten by a pack of 10 jackals wearing the uniforms of the San Bernardino, CA sheriff’s department, was awarded $650,000 by the county five days after the brutal incident was captured on video by a TV news helicopter.
The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors approved the settlement in a unanimous decision, reached in closed session. Chairman James Ramos said that it was not an admission of wrongdoing by the pack of rogue deputies.
“The sole purpose of this agreement for both parties is to avoid the costs involved in litigation,” Ramos said in a written statement. “This agreement is a fair outcome for everyone involved, including the taxpayers.”
Could this be the new trend in law enforcement in cases concerning brutality under color of authority? Paying off victims with the quickness to get the incident off of the front page and to limit libility, or was this case an anomaly, an outlier, based on the fact Pusok was paid so swiftly simply because he happens to be white?
Nonetheless, if these type of quick settlements becomes the new norm, some dudes might be lining up to get their asses kicked by cops just so they can get a big payday.
When Board of Supervisors Chairman Ramos stated the settlement was a “fair outcome for everyone” he might very well have meant that it was most “fair” for the deputies, since the case will now disappear from the headlines and national radar. And in the end, if county officials have their way, the whole pack of animals could suffer few — if any — consequences for their despicable actions now that quick hush money has been paid.
However, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is on top of the case and if it were not for that fact, the incident could easily disappear like so many others that have fallen though the cracks when accusations against members of a law enforcement agency are involved. Indeed, if it wasn’t for that fact the feds are on the scene all of the thugs (who were on placed on paid administrative leave immediately after the incident) might have been back on duty in short order.
“The settlement in no way affects the ongoing criminal and administrative investigations against 10 sheriff’s deputies involved or against Pusok,” said county spokesman David Wert … who probably had trouble keeping a straight face.
Pusok, a 30-year-old Apple Valley resident, was by no means a choirboy … the incident wasn’t his first rodeo. He’d had numerous run-ins with county deputies and alleges that he was one of their favorite punching bags. He said that he fled when he saw the deputies coming due to his treatment during his numerous prior encounters with them.
But even a local badass doesn’t deserve the treatment Pusok received at the hands of men sworn to uphold the law. The video graphically showed several deputies kicking and punching Pusok while he was lying on the ground in an apparent attempt to surrender in the desert after he was caught fleeing by car and horseback.
Few things are lower or more heinous than kicking a man while he’s down, unless it’s throwing a handcuffed and manacled man into a police van with such force that his spinal cord is severed, thus causing his death. This appears to be what happened with Freddie Gray in Baltimore last week as the hits just keep on coming.
San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon called the video of the Pusok beat down “disturbing” and ordered an immediate investigation, but then, in a statement that strains credulity, said, “It appears in the beginning that his hands were behind his back, then his hands moved, there is some information that he may be kicking at one point.” Who the hell wouldn’t be kicking (and probably screaming too) with 10 armed men beating and stomping the shit out of them?
This is yet another case that, absent video, would fly below the radar since law enforcement’s version of the event would be gospel … which is always the case where nothing exists to contradict cop’s self-serving lies.
But in the end I don’t know how comfortable I am with Pusok settling out so swiftly. To bring about the real, systemic change we need to see in policing in this country cases like this need to stay front and center in the media. That’s the only way the American public will eventually say “Enough!” and demand that law enforcement officers be held strictly accountable for their actions … even if that means going to prison, which is where these 10 cowards obviously belong.
[Photo Quinn Dombrowski]
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://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.