This is sick.
Some cops have no value for human life. They killed a man who was frantically telling them he couldn’t breathe and then they fist bump while he is dead on the concrete.
This is who is supposed to protect and serve us?
The family of a man detained by law enforcement at a Bernalillo Wal-Mart in 2015 believes police tools and tactics contributed to his death. Town of Bernalillo and Pueblo of Santa Ana police officers placed a spit sock on the man’s face and laid him on his belly with his hands and feet restrained behind him.
Police reports reveal Ben Anthony C de Baca, who had a history of mental illness, got into an argument with a family member on Sept. 6, 2015. He drove to the Bernalillo Wal-Mart, hit a parked car and once inside the store began to destroy merchandise. Wal-Mart patrons helped subdue him before Bernalillo and Santa Ana Pueblo police arrived.
Once inside, police on-body cameras show the officers putting leg and wrist restraints on C de Baca. He is shouting and appears to be hysterical. During some points in the video, one officer applies additional force by keeping his knee on his back.
The officers dragged him out of the store and laid him on the parking lot on his belly with his hands and legs restrained behind him. At some point during the struggle, C de Baca bit an officer on the thigh. The officers decided to also place a spit sock over his face.
“A f****g bite mark, dude. This c**t f**k bit the f**k out of me, dude. I had to punch his ass off of me,” the other officer replied.
A few moments later, the video reveals that C de Baca begins to cry out repeatedly that he can’t breathe and even shouts to the officers that he is dying. The video shows the officers ignored his cries and continued to leave him on his belly with a spit sock over his face.
Less than three minutes later, C de Baca was dead. The officers quickly scramble to revive him, but it’s too late.
“I will tell you that spit sock is not to be used for the purpose of trying to stop someone from biting,” said Ahmad Assed, the attorney representing C de Baca’s family. “What we are saying is they misused and misapplied the spit sock on Mr. C de Baca. In doing so, they were very negligent. He is clearly crying out for help. He was clearly indicating to them that he couldn’t breathe.”
About 12 minutes after C de Baca took his last breath, the video shows two police officers giving each other a fist bump.
“That is the most troubling for me,” Assed said. “It shows a sign for me that says, ‘We are not human. We know someone 10 feet away from us is dead as a result of what we may have done and we have the ability to fist bump one another of top of a dead body.’”
People who commit crimes should be arrested, they shouldn’t die.
We are seeing far too many cases where either petty crimes or no crimes at all are leading to deaths and the police get away with it almost every single time.