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>Forgetting about the numerous examples before hand, but
>figure we've had one high profile case every few weeks from
>Micahel Brown on.
>
>Nothing's really changed.
>
>Its' interesting how people are mad at the riots but totally
>ignore that somehow a dude got his neck broke and NOBODY has
>given a reason why for two weeks and it seems like nobody is
>planning to. There's been continous peaceful protests for
>weeks, but as usual, nobody cared.
The police initially were vague but when the protests started forming, the police admitted he wasn't seatbelted and he wasn't given medical attention initially when he requested it. Final report is due by Friday.
In the context of the "rough rides" police have given suspects in the past, I think that's likely what happened here.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/the-rough-ride-and-police-culture/391538/
"Once Gray was in the van, he was handcuffed. Apparently because he was "irate" during the ride, officers stopped and shackled his legs, too. The one thing they didn't do was buckle his seat belt. Not only does that sound like common sense, it's also department policy—and BPD admits it was violated. A lawyer for one of the six officers involved in the Gray case, all of whom have been put on desk duty with pay, implied that the policy was frequently ignored. "Policy is policy, practice is something else,” Michael Davey told the Associated Press. “It is not always possible or safe for officers to enter the rear of those transport vans that are very small, and this one was very small."
Critics argue that the reason a prisoner would be left unbuckled is not to protect officers but to dole out extrajudicial treatment. Baltimore juries have on occasion agreed. In 2004, a man named Jeffrey Alston won $39 million from Baltimore after he was paralyzed from the neck down during a police-van ride. The following year, Dondi Johnson Sr. won $7.4 million after a ride left him a paraplegic. In 2013, Johns Hopkins librarian Christine Abbott filed a suit against the department for a "rough ride" after a 2012 arrest that resulted from a noise complaint. Her lawyer alleges she was not buckled and an officer drove "maniacally" as she was taken in, throwing her around the unpadded van. (Abbott is white; Alston and Johnson, like Gray, are black.) Arrestees and advocates say drivers will jam to abrupt stops and take corners hard to toss riders around.
"
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