Police Beat Homeless Man to Death (graphic images)

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Police in Fullerton, California have beaten a schizophrenic homeless man to death.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVR4wTPsHYk&feature=channel_video_title[/youtube]

I'd like to hear the cops' story and see their video before I make a judgment. Having to beat someone that badly is unusual since mace and tazers help prevent the situation from coming to that most of the time now. I do give the cops credit for trying to avoid shooting him.

I think shooting him in the head would have been more mericiful.
The homeless are the american untouchables. They are treated like walking waste.
I used to hang out with the homeles when I was in college. Some of the stories I heard of how one becomes homeless are amazingly simple and can happen to many people.
The homeless deserve protection just like anyone else. A situation like this is more common than you think.
schizophrenics easily become homeless when it sudden onsets and they dont understand how their family and friends dont experince what they do, then feel suspicious of them. They just leave cozy homes to wander the streets to try to escape the "persicution".

I have a friend whose brother is schizophrenic. He was her best pal growing up. He was such a sweet boy, then at 22, his personality changed...he became agressive and overly suspicious, then he started talking about hearing people in the walls talking to him and grew angry and distrustful when no one believed him. Before they realized what was going on, his mind was gone. after a year, he was on the streets for 4-5 years. Luckily a friend found him, she knew both him and his mother, and called her to tell her where he was. He was home soon. Treatment started, but it was a rocky road to recovery.

When I think about stories like that, I think of my friend's brother...how that could have easily been him.
Many homeless schizophrenics have someone, somewhere worried about them, broken because they already feel they are gone for good.
But if cops would see that many of these people are loved by someone somewhere, they should try to help them find their loved ones so they can get help, not beat them to death.
I grieve for his loved ones who have to all hope of recovery for him killed by the same force that was under oath to protect him.

my heart goes out to his loved ones.

Jojo

I would have to know why they would beat a schizophrenic to death before I make any judgments.

Why?

They're a bunch of sadistic, trigger-happy, bloodthirsty, cowboy cops, that's why!

-Fnord
(Anaheim, CA)

the perpetrators of that brutality will just have to answer to an ultimate authority that no police chief or mayor can protect them from.

They kept beating, tasing, and kicking him long after he was unconscious.

Forgive me for the stream of conciousness which follows--I have many thoughts on the changing place of peace officers in our society, and I am not sure whether it will make for a coherent narrative.

There was a time when police officers occupied a position of significant respect in our communities. Has that time passed? In Canada, various police forces have come under significant scrutiny due to deaths occurring in police custody (Robert Dziekanski, Ian Bush, Darren Varlay), inappropriate use of tasers (Frank Lasser), corruption and unbecoming conduct (Const. Brandon Fraser, Const. Justin Harris, Steve Izzet), political interference (use of public money to pay individuals to write negative commentary regarding Insite, media release during the 2005/6 election campaign) and failure to exercise the fundamental imperative of preserving peace and order (the 2011 Stanley Cup riot).

This raises several important questions. How are we selecting recruits for police forces? Doubtless the vast majority of young women and men joining the police services are well suited to the work, but are we identifying those who are not, and diverting them to other areas of public service? Are we training recruits properly, and establishing a career-long focus on continuous learning? Are we providing police officers with appropriate resources to do their jobs properly.

Do we fund our police agencies properly?

The purpose of a taser or baton is to subdue a threat, NOT to be used as a torture device after the threat has been subdued.
If I witnessed something like this in person I can't guarantee I won't intervene because this kind of abuse really gets my blood boiling.
I'm not against law enforcement but they need to remember what their role is and more importantly what it is not.