A woman in Florida says her 55-year-old “medically fragile” father was falsely accused of theft at a Florida grocery store last week and then seriously injured in a violent encounter with police. Now, she says, he is hospitalized and has lost the ability to speak.
This is Polk County, Florida, home of the cowboy sheriff Grady Judd who has never seen a camera and microphone he didn’t want to use to engrandize himself. Except for the body worn ones. Polk County residents are not the most enlightened of people. But, never discount there being two sides to every story.
What side of this story could justify beating up an old man until he can’t speak?
OP, answer this…curious what the other side might be 🙄
Cops only knew that there was a shoplifter threatening the employee, and they saw the daughter with the bat. So they rolled up and took care of it.
I really put almost all of this on the employee. Even in her own words, how do you follow someone out of the store screaming at them and threatening them, then say you’re afraid because the woman had a bat?
So the cops… See the woman with a bat and beat the shit out of the old man? Is this supposed to paint the cops in a better light or make them look less incompetent and stupid?
No, I don’t see how anyone could absolve the cops in this scenario. Incompetent, stupid, prone to violence, ready to violate human rights at the drop of a hat, are all fair descriptions here. Many of these police violence stories have in common that one officer crosses the line out of fear, but the others join in with some sort of mob mentality.
But cops were new arrivals who most likely didn’t know the context. Fault them for excessive violence, having to control the situation with fear, need to be obeyed, etc, but this is sort of like a “swatting”. The person calling with a presumably incomplete story is most at fault. That person should be in prison, but it doesn’t change that those officers shouldn’t be trusted with authority and there needs to be a fundamental change in policing
No answer to their question huh? I’d love to know what you think this old man could have done to justify putting him in the hospital like this. Go on. Tell us what other side to the story makes the end result ok.
She said he told her that he picked up four bananas, one of which he ate on the way to the register, and that he told the cashier that he needed to pay for four bananas even though she scanned only three. Anjelica Lee said her father told her he was followed closely while he was shopping by a white female employee, who, she said, accused him of stealing the banana he ate.
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“At first, I was trying to ask her what happened, and she was like, ‘People like you and him shouldn’t come into the store if you don’t have money to pay for things,’” Anjelica Lee said. “My mom is white, and my dad is Black. So I’m mixed. So I think she meant Black people. And it just escalated from that, and she went to cussing me out.”
JFC. Racist piece of shit.
Fuck the cops. Fuck this piece of garbage cashier.
Fuck all this.
Wow. Non American here. My kid regularly eats while I shop. I just bring empty packets to register for them to scan and they normally throw them out for me. No problem. Like zero problem.
I don’t even think our police would show up if they were called. They take 3hrs to turn up to a home invasion, so I doubt they’d show up for a banana. This is a crazy level of policing.
A lot of retail stores will have a police officer sit in their car close by so they can have a quick response to e for shoplifters. I see it a lot in areas that have several larger retail stores grouped together.
I see they opted for the Israeli definition of “measured and equitable response”.
