“If you’ve done nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about”
by digby
As I thought about the James Blake incident, I couldn’t help but be reminded of this awful story:
Madison police last week roughed up a 57-year-old Indian citizen who was walking on the sidewalk outside his son’s home, leaving the older man temporarily paralyzed and hospitalized with fused vertebrae.
“He was just walking on the sidewalk as he does all the time,” said his son, Chirag Patel, this morning. “They put him to the ground.”
No crime had been committed. Madison Police on Monday issued a statement saying the department had suspended the officer and were investigating the use of force in this case. The police statement wished the man a “speedy recovery.”
Chirag Patel, an engineer for one of the many government contractors in Huntsville, said he had just bought a one-way ticket for his father, bringing him from the small Indian town of Pij to his new home in fast-growing suburbs of Madison.
He said his father, Sureshbhai Patel, was to help his wife care for their new baby, a 17-month-old son, so he could pursue his masters degree in electrical engineering at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
“This is a good neighborhood. I didn’t expect anything to happen,” said Chirag Patel, who recently bought the new house on Hardiman Place Lane.
Madison police issued a statement on Monday saying they received a call early Friday about a man looking in garages among the brick homes just south of the city’s new high school.
“The caller, who lives in the neighborhood did not recognize the subject and thought him to be suspicious,” reads the statement released by police.
Hank Sherrod, attorney for the family, this morning said the man was not walking on other people’s property nor looking in garages.
“This is broad daylight, walking down the street. There is nothing suspicious about Mr. Patel other than he has brown skin,” said Sherrod.
But Sureshbhai Patel does not speak English, this being only his second trip to the United States. He had arrived less than two weeks ago.
The statement by Madison police refers to a “communication barrier.” Chirag Patel said his father speaks only Gujarati, and some Hindi.
Sherrod says the Sureshbhai Patel told the police officers “no English” and repeated his son’s house number.
The police statement says the officer attempted to frisk the man.
“The subject began putting his hands in his pockets,” reads the police statement. “Officers attempted to pat the subject down and he attempted to pull away. The subject was forced to the ground, which resulted in injury.”
Sherrod said he spoke with Sureshbhai Patel at Huntsville Hospital this morning. He said there were two officers present and that Patel was patted down and did not pull away. Sherrod said one officer then pulled Patel’s arm up behind him and slung him face first into the ground. He said Patel could not say what happened after that.
“This is just one of those things that doesn’t need to happen,” said Sherrod, saying the police escalated to violence without cause and left Patel lying bleeding from his face, paralyzed and in need of paramedics.
Yesterday, a judge declared a mistrial in the excessive force trial of the police officer.
Alabama or New York. It doesn’t matter. And people still insist that if you aren’t doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about.
*And yes, I’m going to assume that the mistrial happened because some members of jury felt that the victim shouldn’t be here in the first place and if he was he should have been able to speak english. So he deserved what he got.
Here’s the video of the incident:
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