Brandon Johnson

[Frank_N_Stein]

Nope. Just going by his police chief who fired him saying that it was the worst case of excessive force he'd seen in 24 years.

Coming from the same chief who hasn't had a position out in the field for at least 15 of those 24 years if I'm not mistaken.

 

[dross]

No, I don't think he was "beaten." I think he resisted arrest and sustained injuries as a result.

I don't know if he was or if he wasn't beaten. I was more interested in how his subsequent arrests had ANYTHING to do with anything. YOU brought up the merit board, so I brought up the police chief and the officer who testified against him.

I don't have a problem with an officer hitting someone who is resisting. Even one punch for punishment after a guy is subdued should be firing and jail time. Did that happen here? I don't know, and you don't know. The merit board said one thing, the chief and another officer said another.

Either way, being a scumbag shouldn't get you beaten after you've quit resisting. Whether or not that happened in this situation.

 

[Denny347]

I arrested his brother 2 weeks before the "beating" last year for burglary. Caught him at their house with a car full of stolen stuff taken from a neighbor's house with a witness to the entire incident. He pled guilty. Then they were arresting the brother for the SAME thing again when Brandon decided to get stupid. Brandon is about 6'2" and 240lbs. He has about 6" and 80lbs on the arresting officer. The officer took him to the ground when the fight started, causing most of what you see. He hit the pavement face first. The office fought him until he got help from other officers and was cuffed...then the fight was over. There were no charges against the officer and a merit board cleared him overwhelmingly. The Chief was playing up to the concerned clergy and will continue to do so in the future. He places his relationship with them above the one with us. The city has yet to pay...it is probably a long way off still. This kid is so stupid that he can't stay out of trouble KNOWING that they will be getting a check. He has been named in shots fired and gangs fights up near 42nd Post Rd and deserves NO respect nor sympathy. He fought the law and the lost...

 

[Blackhawk2001]

I've not been in that particular situation, but it seems to me that once the fight starts and punches are getting thrown and adrenaline gets running, it can be sometimes difficult to realize that the fight's over. Or so I've read other places. I know that's happened to me in other types of situations.

 

[dross]

Coming from the same chief who hasn't had a position out in the field for at least 15 of those 24 years if I'm not mistaken.

Coming from a merit board who...what? I don't know who makes up the merit board. Are they more credible than the chief? I honestly don't know.

I do know that every time someone posts a video about some person scumbag or otherwise being beaten up by a cop or cops, the blue wagons get circled and it's always something we don't know, or a chief that doesn't know, or if the investigation finds against the cop, they're the ones wrong.

Just for once please tell me that you think it's wrong to hit a guy that has quit resisting and that the guys who do so should be fired and maybe jailed. Or if you don't, just say that you think cops should be able to do that stuff. It's always fight every fact or counter argument until the video shows without a doubt and then the argument shifts to something else.

Just go on the record that a cop who beats a subdued person because the cop is worked up is a thug.

 

[vitamink]

Did anyone here other than me sit through the entire merit board hearing? All members of the merit board voted that Piland did Nothing wrong sans one member who's statement was in effect, "Jerry Piland did nothing wrong however the police department sucks so therefore he should be fired". The police weren't able to use his extensive criminal record, pictures of him holding an AK with his mom throwing gang signs behind him, his mom's "cha-ching" post after she went to pick up brandon at juvenile, or the various gang affiliation web pages, pictures and what not to discredit him and the people he used as witnesses... they did it all by themselves. Not one witness gave a cohesive account of what happened and all were proven to have lied. One witness who said he was there was proven to be in greenwood at the time (cell records). The doctor who spoke on behalf of brandon even said the damage was not done due to repeated punching of his face (as brandon said it was) it was from his face hitting the pavement after he fought Dave Carney which was consistent with the police report.

I hope he and his family continue to be awesome members of society. I certainly don't mind paying his rent for his section 8 aparment, paying for his food on his hoosier works card, paying for his health care on his hoosier health card, and just giving him spending money on his electronic benefits transfer card so he can continue to be awesome. He's a 16 year old gang memeber, drug dealer with a gun. He is a virus and so is the rest of his family. He's not a 40 year old tax paying, family man, with a LTCH, and a mortgage.

 

[Blackhawk2001]

Coming from a merit board who...what? I don't know who makes up the merit board. Are they more credible than the chief? I honestly don't know.

I do know that every time someone posts a video about some person scumbag or otherwise being beaten up by a cop or cops, the blue wagons get circled and it's always something we don't know, or a chief that doesn't know, or if the investigation finds against the cop, they're the ones wrong.

Just for once please tell me that you think it's wrong to hit a guy that has quit resisting and that the guys who do so should be fired and maybe jailed. Or if you don't, just say that you think cops should be able to do that stuff. It's always fight every fact or counter argument until the video shows without a doubt and then the argument shifts to something else.

Just go on the record that a cop who beats a subdued person because the cop is worked up is a thug.

Nope. Depends upon the circumstances. I understand what you're saying and I agree to the extent a particular situation exactly matches what you're positing. But that leaves all sorts of room for differences of opinion on what constitutes "subdued".

 

[Denny347]

Just for once please tell me that you think it's wrong to hit a guy that has quit resisting and that the guys who do so should be fired and maybe jailed.
Fired and possible jail. No problem with that.

Just go on the record that a cop who beats a subdued person because the cop is worked up is a thug.
Yup...thug.

These were not the case with this incident however.

 

[dross]

These were not the case with this incident however.

Thank you, thank you. And I appreciate what you're saying about this particular case. Again, I didn't have an opinion one way or another, just calling out those who seeme to be saying that the fact the guy got arrested later was relevant to the previous incident.

 

[Frank_N_Stein]

Coming from a merit board who...what? I don't know who makes up the merit board. Are they more credible than the chief? I honestly don't know.

I do know that every time someone posts a video about some person scumbag or otherwise being beaten up by a cop or cops, the blue wagons get circled and it's always something we don't know, or a chief that doesn't know, or if the investigation finds against the cop, they're the ones wrong.

Just for once please tell me that you think it's wrong to hit a guy that has quit resisting and that the guys who do so should be fired and maybe jailed. Or if you don't, just say that you think cops should be able to do that stuff. It's always fight every fact or counter argument until the video shows without a doubt and then the argument shifts to something else.

Just go on the record that a cop who beats a subdued person because the cop is worked up is a thug.

You're right, I wasn't there and neither were the members of the Merit Board. They listened to two days worth of testimony though and found that there was no reason for Piland to be terminated for excessive force. They listened to all the witnesses and made a judgement after careful consideration instead of jumping to conclusions like most everyone else did.

I'm not circling any blue wagons. A cop violates policy/general order or breaks the law, they deserve to be punished the same as Joe Citizen. Cop takes a cheap shot and gets caught, they pay the piper.

I'm not going to go on record saying any officer who "beat" Brandon Johnson after he was subdued is a thug because he resisted arrest until he was subdued, and once he was the use of force by officers stopped.

 

[vitamink]

yes hitting people after they are subdued is wrong...however that isn't what happened. The merit board is made up of memebers of society. Just regular people.

 

[dross]

Nope. Depends upon the circumstances. I understand what you're saying and I agree to the extent a particular situation exactly matches what you're positing. But that leaves all sorts of room for differences of opinion on what constitutes "subdued".

I'm talking about those videos, many which have been posted here, where a guy is surrounded by cops, he's handcuffed, and they are still kicking him, or stepping on his legs, or his face and he's not moving, except in pain.

 

[Frank_N_Stein]

I'm talking about those videos, many which have been posted here, where a guy is surrounded by cops, he's handcuffed, and they are still kicking him, or stepping on his legs, or his face and he's not moving, except in pain.

But we're not talking about those videos, we're talking about the incident involving Brandon Johnson.

 

[88GT]

Coming from a merit board who...what? I don't know who makes up the merit board. Are they more credible than the chief? I honestly don't know.

More credible?

But IIRC, it is a group comprised solely of non-LEO individuals with purportedly no agenda one way or the other.

They, at least, seemed to have weighed the evidence before coming to a conclusion. Which incidentally was entirely contradictory to the good chief's knee-jerk, ass-kisssin' recommendation to dump them.

 

[jsharmon7]

I think it's especially wrong when cops stomp on people's heads, tie them to the roof of the squad car and drive around town with them sitting on the lightbar. Oh that didn't happen in this case either? Oh ok...

 

[vitamink]

Thank you, thank you. And I appreciate what you're saying about this particular case. Again, I didn't have an opinion one way or another, just calling out those who seeme to be saying that the fact the guy got arrested later was relevant to the previous incident.

Where it is relevant is the cops all along were saying this kid is a **** head gang memeber, burglar, drug dealer. THe news portrayed him as a church boy on his way home from seminary when a cop decided to kick his ass. The news (as usual) chose a one sided approach to reporting. Once the trial happened it was shown that brandon and all of his witnesses, one being a guy he was just locked up with, were full of ****. This is done in front of a merit board who has shown that it has no problem firing cops...

Brandon continues to engage in his criminal gang activity despite the concerned clergy advising him to calm down so they can all get paid. The relevancy is, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it's a ****ing duck! You can have the concerned clergy say, "please stop being a duck so we can get $$$" but he's still a duck. You can twist the information on the news and portray this duck as something else, put him in a collard shirt, and have him cry on camera but eventually he'll fly south for the winter. I feel sorry for the concerned clergy that their cash cow is just another duck.

 

[Brick House]

The bottom line is, Brandon put himself in that situation, he had no business getting involved in his brothers arrest. Had he stayed out of it it never would have happened. It's like jumping into a fire and then blaming someone else because you got burned.

 

[seamus]

I think it's especially wrong when cops stomp on people's heads, tie them to the roof of the squad car and drive around town with them sitting on the lightbar. Oh that didn't happen in this case either? Oh ok...

Just curious, are you Josie Wales on the Indystar board? If you are I would like to buy you a beer sometime because Josie's posts are hilarious.

 

[dross]

But we're not talking about those videos, we're talking about the incident involving Brandon Johnson.

Yes, you're right. I'm lumping one reaction with another. I don't know enough to have an opinion on this situation. I do know, however, that being a scumbag has nothing to do with whether or not EXCESSIVE force is acceptable, which again, is what several posts at the beginning of this thread seemed to be implying.

 

[dross]

I feel like I'm in the middle of a virtual internet beatdown.