04/19/24
October 10, 2015
Hawks Player Cleared Of All Charges in Police Nightclub Altercation: Thabo Sefolosha, the Atlanta Hawks player whose leg was broken in an incident involving New York City police outside a nightclub during the playoffs, has been acquitted of all charges. He had rejected a no-jail, no-criminal record deal because he wanted to show in the trial that police roughed him up and broke his leg for no reason. Sefolosha wept after the verdict and said, "This is just an incredible moment -- to be able to clear my name."
posted by rcade to basketball at 11:33 AM - 2 comments
@jjzucal I wonder if the aggressive behavior by a small fraction of the police is coming from the same place as other similar acts (e.g., the school shootings), given that the number of police officers in the US is large enough to be a relatively reasonable sample size of the overall population. Possibly even slightly more weighted towards people willing to use violence in a given situation or on a given day.
Note: I am not a sociologist or psychologist nor do I play one on TV. Just on the Internet.
posted by billsaysthis at 09:26 AM on October 11, 2015
This is just another of the long list of what could be considered police misconduct cases. It goes back before Eric Garner's death, back before "stop and frisk" under Giuliani, and has not been limited to blacks and Latinos. Police also went after whites in Occupy Wall Street marches and Republican National Convention in 2008.
I don't know if they're taught to be aggressive, are naturally aggressive, or it's "'roid rage." Someone has to lasso in these guys.