"I saw the taser had been deployed"

By what? Telepathy? And all actions stemming from a "sarcastic" remark by a teenager? This report is obviously bullshit and this cop needs to go.

Is the Prosecutor really pressing charges based upon this?

I'm pretty sure those things don't accidently deploy. The stranger should consider hiring officer bogg...that's pulitzer-worthy writing.

Even if they didn't press charges, the incident could affect his deferred sentence.

Never, ever, trust cop testimony.

you don't get tazed for being polite and following instructions. you don't get arrested for being a nice guy and doing what the cops tell you. sorry, but it appears DV One provoked the cops. i'm not buying his story at all. i'm sure the truth is somewhere in the middle.

The Nazis woulda loved you, Choice. "Don't defend your family, do as WE say."

Well, it's important to get both sides.

Remember the two Critical Mass cyclists that got arrested/beaten? Everyone was quick to condemn them until third party witnesses started coming out of the woodwork to back up their claims.

If there was a huge crowd there, as the officer states, then we should see some testimony from witnesses that will either back up the cops or vindicate DV One.

Time will tell.

I may have missed it in yesterday's post, but do we have any more info about DV-one's version of events? Some sort of narrative? I saw one of the commentors note that the cops were violating his daughter's rights to have a parent present while questioning, which makes me think that those commentors had seen a more detailed version than I did.

'choice'
'you don't get tazed for being polite and following instructions'
indeed ?
you would've made for one very confused and pissed individual during the wto demonstrations, had you been there !
what middle truth should result in being tazed and arrested ?
and how does it 'appear' to you that dv one provoked the cops ?

I don't write as well as I'd like too, but that police report reads like a teenager's blog entry.

as is often the case, what riz said.

i also have to wonder when a sarcastic answer from a teenager became license for the SPD to bruise a 14 year old girl.

I take back my last post (I wish there were a way to actually delete it). I found the earlier post with story (Sarah--could you link to that post as well?).

it does seem like the cop was anticipating DV-one's version of events, which makes one wonder...

The one thing that strikes me as truth in both accounts is that DV-one ran towards his daughter and the cop. Running towards a cop will always put cops at the ready (a personally safety issue. Most people do not like it when a stranger runs up to them, let alone a cop in the middle of an already tense situation). And DV-one pretty much implies that he moved with haste towards his daughter. Both counts mesh on that.

Physically struggling with a cop will always be a bad idea also. That is why, for example, most CD protesters go limp when cops physically remove them… it shows a necessary passiveness and not aggressiveness which is not warranted in a crowd/mob situation.

The bigger problem, beyond DV-one, is, those tasers which the Seattle PD seem very quick to use. I read the papers and have personally witnessed a known epileptic, shortly after an episode, be tased due to belligerent behavior residual to those sorts of attacks . I counted 8 bursts, one which caught a cop who had his foot on his back. And yes, the epileptic was black. The cops were white. It is not too often that stories of white people, in similar situation, say, running towards a cop, being tased are in the paper.

I blame the Police Guild and their hold over the city government for resisting any and all reforms.

"He plead guilty to misdemeanor assault in the fourth degree"

Sounds like he has a history of causing problems...

that past assault charge could be significant. or it might not be. assault 4 can include a WIDE range of acts (spitting is an assault). i think there are minor cases that get charged because the victim blows it out of proportion. on the other hand, it can include much more egregious acts (like domestic violence) that are only charged as misdemeanors because the actual injury is minor.

plus...there's a reason why past convictions aren't admissible. we're guaranteed the right to a fair trial, and just because you committed one crime doesn't mean you're always guilty.

A minor correction -- past convictions _can_ be admissible. It depends on the circumstances.

This must have been on the 15th, not the 14th, as you earlier reported, because there was no football game at Memorial Stadium on the 15th (according to the Seattle Times site)

The "rival schools" must have been Garfield and Franklin, who played on the 15th. I was at that game, and as I drove out of the lot, I nearly hit those bike cops, because they were riding the wrong damn way on a one way street.

Maybe they were looking for trouble.

FUCK THE NIGGERS!!!!

FUCK THE NIGGERS!!!!

FULL LEGAL NAME:

- TOBY RAFAEL CHRISTIAN CAMPBELL -

now lets see if we can get some of the other 1000's of questions answered.. like --umm, tazed while on the ground? kicked repeatedly in face, body and head? daughter roughed up?

Sachi, you're right. i should have said that they're generally inadmissible. i didn't want to get into the finer points of 404b evidence. i just meant that we shouldn't assume he's guilty just because he has a conviction. never mind that whole innocent until proven guilty thing.

though i fear DV will lose in this case with two strongly varying renditions of what occurred that night... i can't help but think that the spd needs to strongly evaluate this officer's ability to serve.
she appears to not only not have control of her weapons (i.e., "I saw the taser had been deployed") but also very little control of herself. she was not only (according to her report) struck numerous times by her "assailant" but he also managed to get her to the ground? this sound suspiciously like an incompetent officer. any middle-aged housewife who's taken self-defense courses at the local fire deptarment, what-not, would have the skills to learn how to not only evade such an erractic attack - but to also subdue her attacker. i would expect a police officer to be able to better handle the situation described.
additionally... where is the gun? didn't DV state she pulled her weapon immediately as he approached her?
hmmm... there's something fishy here.

The officer's account sounds almost verbatum what they claimed against me in 1998; almost like they have a script or a template for their official reports and they just make small modifications to adjust for time, place, and people involved.

By the way, we beat the charges and forced the city to $ettle, as was later reported in The Stranger. Let's keep it real: it was a small "v" victory.

Clearly, all they understand is multi-million dollar lawsuits, massive WTO-style protests, and the threat posed by people like the guy who runs justicefiles.org and posts their full names and addresses on his website. He used to post their social security numbers too, but a judge ordered him to take that info down.

Clearly, the Office for Professional Accountability (OPA) is a toothless tiger, and we can and MUST do better than that!

I believe that Seattle hip-hop and community activists can end this form of domestic terrorism, once folks begin to think "outside the box".

There seems like something fishy in her story because there is. I know from someone in the Police Department that the Police Report is different than the Officer's report in at least one area - in the report above the Officer doesn't grab DV's daughter and pull her away, while in the Police report she does.

To think that DV, a sane, mellow, 34 year old father would attack a Police officer unprovoked with several others nearby is nuts. I wasn't there so I can't attest for what exactly did happen, though knowing how the Police in Seattle treat non-whites, and knowing DV and having met his daughter, I would certainly lean towards DV's version of this story. We'll of course know lots more when we get the eyewitness testimony, though I would expect the police to have at least one 'eyewitness' that favors their version.

All props to the Stranger for following this story when no other alternative paper or mainstream daily has.

Oh, yeah, right on, righteous Greg. Home addresses and SSNs, that's right, so you can WHAT, exactly?

I'm not defending the cop in this case; I don't know a thing about it. But I do know that seconds after every charge of police brutality the nitwits come swaggering out with their "we gone ride on the pd" bullshit -- bullshit which DESERVES a cop beat-down. Get a fucking clue. People like you make it harder to get justice, not easier.

There seems to be a general misunderstanding about the taser issue. Apparently there were multiple officers present, and one of the other officers deployed a taser, not the female officer. She could have been aware of the taser either by hearing it (they make a loud clicking sound) or by seeing the wires that project from the taser when it is deployed.

Also, by my count the suspect has 4 prior assault charges, with at least 2 of those resulting in convictions. The assault 4 misdemeanor case was originally charged as a felony. Sane and mellow?

I'd be curious to see/know the dates of the alleged prior assault convictions. from what i heard at the court date, his history was all juvenile charges, with exception to the one last year.

His lawyer also said in court that the assault conviction from last year was a (guilty) alford plea subject and due for dismissal. So that will be erased from his record.

The timing of his assault history will play a major role. The timing will also contribute highly to his "sane and mellow" defense.

These things would rarely happen if the parents and community from these schools would try to help/discipline their children from having the reputation for "stabbings, beatings, jumpings." It shouldnt be the cities responsiblity to have numerous police officers at a high school football game. Change starts within...

These things would rarely happen if the parents and community from these schools would try to help/discipline their children from having the reputation for "stabbings, beatings, jumpings." It shouldnt be the cities responsiblity to have numerous police officers at a high school football game. Change starts within...