{"id":182958,"date":"2015-04-27T18:26:00","date_gmt":"2015-04-27T23:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/04\/27\/the-technical-term-is-lying-sack-of-sh\/"},"modified":"2015-04-27T18:26:00","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T23:26:00","slug":"the-technical-term-is-lying-sack-of-sh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/04\/27\/the-technical-term-is-lying-sack-of-sh\/","title":{"rendered":"The Technical Term is Lying Sack of Sh%$\u2026\u2026\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"
In this case, the term can be applied to the President of the Maryland Police Union<\/a>:<\/div>\n

Protests escalated in Baltimore on Saturday over the death<\/a> of Freddie Gray, who suffered a serious spinal cord injury while in police custody. The mysterious injury raised suspicions that he was taken on a \u201crough ride,\u201d in which officers deliberately drive erratically to injure unbuckled and handcuffed passengers. But the president of Maryland\u2019s police union told ThinkProgress he is unaware of the unsanctioned police practice<\/span><\/b>.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In a word, bullsh%$.<\/p>\n

“Rough rides”, a procedure where a person is placed in a paddy wagon, handcuffed but not buckled in, and then subjected to a ride that consists of sudden starts, stops, and abrupt maneuvers, and so tossing them around the inside of the vehicle.<\/p>\n

I understand that Mr. Canales has a responsibility to represent his union members, but this sort of bald faced lie, much like the boneheaded statement by Gene Ryan, president of the Baltimore FOP<\/a> that the earlier peaceful protests were akin to a lynching<\/a>, are transparently false.<\/p>\n

What’s more these statements are clearly inflammatory, and so both of these folks served to put their own members at risk<\/span><\/b>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve ever heard that term before,\u201d Maryland Fraternal Order of Police President Vince Canales said when asked about the event that may have caused Gray\u2019s death. <\/p>\n

Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts acknowledged<\/a> on Friday that Gray\u2019s injuries could have been caused by a \u201crough ride,\u201d but said the investigation into the circumstances of his death will continue even after the police findings are given to prosecutors on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

A Baltimore Sun investigation<\/a> found that Gray is not the only person to emerge from a Baltimore police van with serious injuries \u2014 others have won multi-million judgments after suing the police department for their injuries. But despite the repeated brutal incidents, Canales and others closely entwined with the city police are still unaware of the practice. <\/p>\n

Baltimore deputy public defender Natalie Finegar told the Baltimore Sun<\/a> she has no personal knowledge of \u201crough rides,\u201d but others in her office are aware of the practice. \u201cIt is common knowledge among public defenders that [the Baltimore Police Department] has paid out significant judgments in \u2018rough ride\u2019 and other cases,\u201d James Johnston, a Baltimore public defender, told the Sun<\/a>. \u201cIn my experience, it is not uncommon for clients to suffer injuries during an arrest.\u201d <\/p>\n

When asked about a series of cases<\/a> of police brutality in Baltimore, Canales presented a very different view from advocates who say the recent incidents in Ferguson<\/a>, New York City<\/a>, Cleveland<\/a> and elsewhere were part of a larger systematic problem with police. <\/p>\n

Instead of banning any particular police practices, Canales said each incident should be treated on a \u201ccase-by-case\u201d basis because \u201ceveryone responds differently to different situations.\u201d But reports from across<\/a> the<\/a> country<\/a> have proved otherwise. In Baltimore, an investigation from 2014<\/a> found that the police department has paid around $5.7 million to more than 100 people since 2011 in lawsuits claiming officers beat up mostly African American suspects.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Maybe police officers should turf out Vince Canales and Gene Ryan at the next union election, because they sure as hell aren’t serving their members or the general public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this case, the term can be applied to the President of the Maryland Police Union: Protests escalated in Baltimore on Saturday over the death of Freddie Gray, who suffered a serious spinal cord injury while in police custody. The mysterious injury raised suspicions that he was taken on a \u201crough ride,\u201d in which officers …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1041,1071,1146,982,1022,979],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law-enforcement-misconduct","category-maryland","category-riots","category-stupid","category-union","category-wanker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182958"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182958\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}