How the merciless beating of a young girl in a police jail cell was heard across the nation by Larry Warrick
(libertarian)
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
According to Heidi (first name only), the kind of corruption we're witnessing at the National level is becoming popular with the local law enforcers in Seattle, WA:
"The people of Seattle have no defense against the police whom are regularly abusing and raping members of public and system is protecting them - they are criminals... This system is unbearable and this is why the police here are being ambushed and killed! Can anyone suggest the way to help with this problem so citizens can have equal chance to these government workers here to defend themselves and have there rights when the government violates it?" [Verbatim].
Her outrage is directed at the news, as reported in the SeattlePI, of the 4th degree misdemeanor charges being defended by a local ex- Sheriff's deputy in the beating of a young lady in his custody. Levi Pulkkinen's direct commentary:
"If opening statements are any indication, the fate of Paul Schene will hinge on whether a jury believes his attorney's claim that the former King County deputy sheriff was following his training when he kicked and beat a 15-year-old girl in a SeaTac holding cell."
Fortunately for his 15-year old victim, the whole incident was caught on video and was retrieved by a detective who just happened to be investigating Schene on allegations that he had assaulted a fellow officer. After committing "numerous policy violations that included using excessive force and making false statements" [that's beating someone up then lying about it, to you and me], he was eventually fired by Sheriff Sue Rahr.
According to the victim, Schene had been taunting her about photos on her personal cell phone, commenting that she was ugly and asking if she was a prostitute. After being ordered to remove her shoes, the young girl kicked one of her sneakers at Schene, hitting him in the leg. Schene immediately proceeds to administer a brutal beating during which the thoroughly terrified girl wet herself.
Watching the video, I had to wonder if I would even think of retaliating under such weak provocation.... Shene's defense? His Union-paid legal representative asserts that "Everything he did during that evening was exactly as he'd been trained. The amount of force he used, in his view at the time, was lawful." His 70 pound victim begs to differ, and King County Deputy Prosecutor, Gary Ernsdorff, agrees with the teenager.
To say that this is a single bad apple in a large barrel might be very well, except the corruption goes much higher. To fire a deputy for crimes of violence, as in both these cases, is to be lauded. To then re-hire an offender within the year is worse than incompetence or stupidity, it is corruption. Period. Follow the money, here's your cut, do as we say, grease the wheels , you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours kind of corruption.
County Sheriffs are elected by popular vote, and for good reason. If the people, subject to a given system of law enforcement are dissatisfied, they have the ability to make it more to their liking at the next polling day. Voting for any candidate who is serious about cleaning up the department and getting rid of all the bad apples, not just the ones that are caught, would seem a no-brainer in King County, WA. Not so fast. There's the unions to consider. Even slam dunk cases such as Schene's are provided with the best legal defense available, and the prosecution is on the taxpayer's dime. Imagine a newly elected sheriff walking in and firing half of the workforce. The entire city/county budget would be tied up in litigation for years. The result? Heidi lives it every day: "This system is unbearable and this is why the police here are being ambushed and killed." [Link added]
Heidi is right to blame the system. On the one hand we have a democratic selection of the local head of law enforcement. On the other we have a peer review and legal system that is almost always biased in favor of the uniformed character in question. More often the victim is frustrated by the system, paid off, or relents subject to good old-fashioned intimidation. Rarely does a uniformed offender face a jury of his victim's peers, and even then, his union has plenty of our money to pay his defense fees and bargain the charge down to what amounts to a slap on the wrist. In the middle are young ladies like Heidi and her neighbors, who live in fear of both the law and its breakers. No wonder she's casting around looking for any glimmer of hope that someday it will all be just a bad memory.
The heart of the problem is in the union that persists in perpetuating violence, fraud and corruption amongst its members, even to the point of defending what is, truly, indefensible. The power of the unions stem from favorable legislation at the local and Federal level going back generations. Our own Barak Hussein Obama (AKA Barry Soetoro) has freely admitted that he 'owes these unions', and "What big labor wants, big labor gets!" The problem of friction between police and citizens is not simply a matter for the county Sheriff's electors to deal with at the next polling cycle, it is a question of government intervention, especially at the Federal level, where special favors are legislated for especially helpful organizations. The unions bought the Presidency of the United States for a Billion Dollars. Next November, don't let them get away with it.
Hat tip goes to Heidi for the heads up.
Did you like this article? If you did, Thumb It! 8
thumbs so far
The views expressed
in this article are those of Larry Warrick only and
do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates.
Larry Warrick is solely responsible for the contents
of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated
with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
Interesting choice of words Larry, I don’t agree with you that it was a merciless beating or that the case is a slam-dunk, they never are as it pertains to law enforcement when a criminal's history has to be taken into account. If this trial was based solely on the video and the statements of the "victim" of the crime, or "the 15 year old felon" (who already at 15 had a long rap sheet including 2 documented felony charges not related to this case and has had several stays in the juvenile detention center according to the testimony) which is the only angle your summary includes you might be right about that. The fact is if she was a one-time offender and she didn’t have the reputation of a liar as her friend has testified it might just be a "slam dunk" case.
Also, having some knowledge of the law is helpful in determining weather or not he's truly "just getting a slap on the wrist" as you phrase it. As bad as the video may appear to you during the twenty-something second take down, 4th degree assault was the best that the prosecution could come up with as any higher degree of assault requires physical harm to occur to the victim. She was evaluated by EMT's shortly after the incident while still at the jail and it was determined that she was "fine" which tells me that it wasn't truly a merciless beating as you chose to phrase it ever-so-dramatically. Photos were submitted by the prosecution, that support my statement and the girl has confirmed that they were her pictures from the same night. No damage. A merciless beating would have caused physical harm to the "victim" or am I wrong?
Lastly, I doubt seriously that there would be anyone willing to be in law enforcement if legal assistance and due process were not part of the package. Would you? LEO’s deserve to have their employment and legal rights protected too, or do rights only pertain to people that don’t risk their lives on a daily basis?
Yours is a human rights article so I can respect your angle, but I believe that you should present it more factually and less subjectively taking into account that you don’t know all there is to know about this case and clearly didn’t do your homework. Also, I’d like you to provide a link to the information you used to support stating that Schene had assaulted a fellow officer, because it didn’t happen. It is just another piece of libelous information that got lost or mixed up in the lynch mob mentality. Actual Fact: The video was found when shewas being investigated for assault (eg intentionally kicking a shoe at a police officer which hit the police officer therefore according to state law she assaulted the officer) and you misread that information. Try Again.
I have been following this case closely and even attended several days of the trial in courtroom 815–E at KC Superior Court. Were you also present? I suspect not and that your information was all based solely on the reliability of the one-sided media coverage by Levi Pulkkinenthe most slanted of all the writers I’ve read yet. I challenge you to read the court transcripts and then write an article that gives both sides of the story but then again you’d get less reaction if you weren’t appealing to people’s righteous indignation.
Wishing you the best in your human rights endeavors and taking exception only to this case being used as your example when there are much better, though less recent examples to pick from.This one is just the freshest meat available for the blood hungry media and everybody wants a piece, did you savor your morsel of indignation? Must be delicious, seconds anyone?
Want to comment on
this article? Leave your comment
here. Your email address is required to track your
comment. However, we will neither publish your email
address nor distribute it to other organizations or
persons. The only reason we might use it would be if
we needed to contact you regarding your comment. All
comments are subject to our
terms of use policy.
