Roosevelt Dorn, the mayor of Inglewood, seems straight from the
pages of The Bonfire of the Vanities. Sputtering in
Reverend Bacon-fashion, Dorn declared that Los Angeles officer
Jeremy Morse is guilty of four crimes involving police brutality,
and probably more if you gave Dorn enough time to look for
them.
“When this officer picked this young man up and slammed him
face-down into the hood of that car, in my opinion, (that was)
number one, felony assault,” Dorn said on Wednesday, warming to his
subject. “Number two, assault with a deadly weapon…. Number
three, battery. Four, child abuse. And I’m sure if I looked there
are other crimes.”
Is resisting arrest a crime? How about lunging at and bloodying
cops? No, these are not crimes, but civil rights, according to Dorn
and other beacons of Los Angeles civilization, such as Project for
Islamic Hope (it staged a ludicrous protest rally on Tuesday).
Sixteen-year-old Donovan Jackson is, we’re told,
“developmentally disabled” — a condition which apparently gives
him carte blanche to fight with police officers. A la Bonfire
of the Vanities, the Los Angeles Times found a
teacher to vouch for Jackson’s sweet disposition. “This is really a
good kid — no drugs, doesn’t cuss,” said Talibah Shakir, a sixth
grade teacher and a cousin to Jackson. “He doesn’t understand why
this was done to him.”
Yes, what a stumper. Might it have something to do with Jackson
throwing punches at Morse and the other cops? According to the
official report, Jackson “pulled, scratched and fought with the
deputies and the officers.”
This is what provoked Morse’s rough treatment of Jackson. Was it
unduly rough? Yes, judging by the selective videotape (shot by an
anti-police punk who crowed afterwards that the tape would lead to
the demise of the cop’s career).
But, good grief, can’t a little perspective be shown? Isn’t it
possible that this is simply the overreaction of a frightened or
stressed-out cop? Like clockwork, Rep. Maxine Waters raised the
specter of racism, never mind that a black cop participated in the
arrest.
The people who know the least about this case will, of course,
determine the most about its outcome. All the Rodney King factors
are in motion. Morse will almost certainly lose his job. Who knows,
he may even go to jail, if the mob demands it. “Handcuff them!
Handcuff them!” activists chanted about cops on Tuesday, reported
the Los Angeles Times.
Dorn described the arrest as “felony assault” and said, “I can’t
think of anything this teenager could have done that would justify
the conduct that I observed on the video.” A former judge, Dorn
isn’t in the mood to sift through the evidence carefully. Morse is
guilty until proven innocent, and that’s that. “This young man’s
civil rights without question were violated,” he said.
What civil right would that be? The right to be treated daintily
after freaking out on cops? No matter how violent the suspect, cops
must treat the suspect with kid gloves, says Dorn: “If this
teenager had spit in their face, called them all kinds of names,
kicked them, attacked, once he was handcuffed, he was picked up, he
should have been taken to the car, not slammed face-down on the
hood of a car.”
Here’s an idea: Don’t provoke cops in the first place. But, no,
that’s too obvious a lesson to be drawn. In a city where criminals
receive more slack than cops, Jackson will feel entitled to sue the
hell out of the LAPD. And he’ll probably get a key to Inglewood
before this is over.
