THE KILLING OF KELLY THOMAS: VIDEO OF BEATING BY FULLERTON COPS
By Greater Long Beach
A hearing to determine whether Fullerton Police Department officer Manuel Anthony Ramos and Cpl. Jay Patrick Cicinelli should stand trial in last July’s death of 37-year-old Kelly Thomas has entered its third day in a Santa Ana courtroom.
But the most compelling testimony to this point remains Monday’s showing of the previously unreleased surveillance video, a 33-minute exhibit in which a handful of Fullerton police are seen beating the unarmed, shirtless and homeless man as he apologizes, pleads for his life and ultimately screams for the help of his father, a retired law-enforcement officer.
The beating took place on July 5, 2011. Thomas died five days later.
Ramos, 38, a 10-year Fullerton police veteran, is charged with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. He faces a potential sentence of 15 years to life if convicted of second-degree murder, and four years if convicted of involuntary manslaughter. He is free on $1-million bail.
Cicinelli, 42, is charged with involuntary
manslaughter and excessive force in connection with Thomas’ death. He faces a maximum sentence of four years in prison. He is free on $25,000 bail.
WARNING: The actions recorded in the video are potentially very disturbing.
20 Comments
I believe both former officers will be held to answer to the charges against them. If they are ultimately convicted, I think they should pay the stiffest criminal penalties the law allows.
the part where he screams for his dad broke me down.
And how come there were no charges brought against the other officers who participated in or witnessed the beating murder of Kelly?
In my opinion, ALL of the cops who CHOSE to not protect Kelly Thomas from the murderous actions of fellow police officers, that occurred in their presence, should be fired from the Fullerton Police Department and charged with murder.
And why haven’t ANY OTHER Fullerton cops stepped forward to speak out against the murderous actions of their brethren? Are they all cowards? Why do they ALL silently support thier fellow officers no matter how disgusting their misconduct?
That thin gray line separating the cops and the crooks grows fainter every day.
Citizen Journalist Quotes of the Week — Giving Up On Love
“Compassion is not religious business, it is human business, it is not luxury, it is essential for our own peace and mental stability, it is essential for human survival.” — Dalai Lama
“The dew of compassion is a tear.” — Lord Byron
“Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else’s skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.” — Frederick Buechner
“Compassion is not weakness, and concern for the unfortunate is not socialism.” — Hubert H. Humphrey
“I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, human liberty as the source of national action, the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas.” — John Fitzgerald Kennedy
“Compassion is a two way street.” — Frank Capra
“If you can’t find it in your own heart to be compassionate look in someone else’s before giving up on love altogether.” — Unknown
(Source: thinkexist.com)
I don’t know if I can watch this.
RIP, Kelly.
and outstanding quotes, Dwight.
hey US i would skip it if you havent already seen it, you cant unsee it.
Thanks howardx, that’s what I figured.
I think everyone should watch the composite video. Everyone should be willing to see what police officer misconduct looks like (clearly depicted there) and also what it does not look like (also clearly depicted there.)
No one should have the luxury of refusing to see the sort of work cops are sometimes expected to do as well as how well and how poorly they sometimes do that work.
I’m all for seeing clear illustrations of criminal officer misconduct, as well as examples of good policing. I’m not sure this video is self-explanatory, however.
John, if you’d like to be our guide through this, spelling out clearly where the officers crossed the line, it would be a valuable public service and I would gladly assign you to be my guide.
Lacking that, however, I’m not sure watching blood splattering a lens, or hearing the cries of a delusional schizophrenic call pathetically for his Dad as he senses his life leaving his body is going to help.
There is no blood spattering the lense, US. This part of why folks should watch the video, because there is considerable misinformation out there about it. The video is bad enough without false impressions being tossed about. The video is striking both for the things it shows and for the things it doesnt show. A good deal of the actions are hidden behand a tree. But I think enough can still be seen to make it clear that the two officer who were charged should have been, and that the others were truly just trying to control a violent EDP (emotionally disturbed person.)
Thanks, John. But still:
1) is there any element of the video showing good police work? any indication in their actions that they might be encountering an EDP? (And thanks for the term, John, it tells me the officers should have had a category for thinking about this encounter–Thomas as basic street schizophrenic–other than just checking out some middle-aged, non-mentally-ill car burglar with a supposed attitude.)
2) if so, is there any illustration of when the good policework turned into criminal police work?
Knowing that turning point, and trying to understand why that turning point occurred, would go a long way toward aiding public understanding of this incident. You seem to be indicating that this is the proper interpretation (‘the things it shows and the things it doesn’t show.”).
It’s hard to understand what was legal policework about this incident and what was not, whether or not the officers could be seen clearly in the video through an unbloodied lens.
Looking for clarity and not getting much yet.
There are many terms law enforcement uses for those they often must deal with on the street who are either mentally impaired or emotionally disturbed. EDP is one. Simply referencing the applicable CA Welfare and Institutions Code (“5150″) is another.
Cops in larger cities (like Long Beach) deal with these folks routinely. The more experience the officer gains with them, the more effective the officer tends to become at handling such contacts in ways that do not require violence.
It’s important to remember, though, that many 5150′s can be entirely unpredictable in their behavior….passive and compliant nine times out 10 but extremely violent on that one occasion. There is just no way to reliably determine whether the 5150 one is dealing with is on his or her first nine days, or on his or her 10th.
Regardless, and bringing this back to my perceptions concerning Thomas, there is no reason to threaten a 5150 with violence, as Ramos did. In my view, all that was, was a blatant abuse of authority and I think it very well may have escalated an encounter toward violence that may very well have gone another way.
I have personally seen many, MANY, encounters with 5150′s wherein the suspect starts out belligerent, sometimes even violent, but can be calmed and re-directed toward compliance with little more than a quieter volume and a respectful, if stern, tone. I have never seen a situation where threatening a 5150 with violence had any positive result. This does not mean that it hasn’t happened, only that it is beyond my personal experience.
As a former cop, I can literally see on the video Ramos getting amped up and initially for no better reason than Thomas wouldn’t sit in just the way Ramos was telling him to. As I have said, there can be very good reasons for placing the suspect at that sort of physical disadvantage but I mainly only used it to make it more difficult for the suspect to jump up and run away. To me, Thomas didn’t seem interested in running.
Thomas’ not sitting with his feet out and his hands on his knees *could* have been a red flag, for Ramos, signalling a refusal to cooperate or it could have just meant that Thomas was having real difficulty both understanding what Ramos wanted and then doing it. Some people physically cannot sit in the fashion at all, let alone for very long. Perhaps Thomas, in his mental condition, couldn’t sit that way, but didn’t know how to verbalize that to Ramos.
All Ramos seems to have seen is a guy who *wouldn’t* do what he was told. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to him that, perhaps, he simply *couldn’t* do it. Whenever I came across folks who were having great difficulty sitting that way, I would try to modify it a bit so as to achieve the same result but make it a bit easier, physically, on the suspect. That usually solved the issue. If it didn’t, and the person just didn’t want to or couldn’t cooperate, I didn’t waste any more time trying to control them in that way, I simply got them up, patted them down, handcuffed them, and sat them in the back of the closest patrol car that had a cage.
In that way they were properly contained and a bit more comfortable, and I could go about my investigation without further distraction or concern on that score.
I see a lot of good police work on the video, even from Ramos, right up until he chose to threaten Thomas. Other officers who assisted were really doing just that….helping to immobilize Thomas so that he could be properly handcuffed and, perhaps, have leg restraints applied if he had been kicking.
More later.
For me, the turning point between legitimate police work and physical abuse was the use of the taser as an impact weapon. That is not how a taser is designed to be deployed and Ramos does not appear to have struck Thomas in areas where police trainers generally teach officers to strike suspects (whether using an authorized weapon, bare hands, or otherwise.)
Make no mistake, when a cop believes he or she is fighting for his or her life, virtually any tactic can be deemed reasonable so long as the officer can demonstrate the exigency. I cannot, however, believe that either Ramos or Cicinelli legitimately believed they were fighting for their lives.
Based upon the obviously obstructed view in the video, it is difficult to see much of anything of substance or clearly, once Ramos has Thomas on the ground. We can infer quite a bit from the sounds, and from the forensic evidence, but all of that, along with all of the other direct evidence, must now rightly be evaluated by a jury.
I’ll repeat: I think the charges brought against both Ramos and Cicinelli are appropriate. If they are convicted I hope the pay the heaviest penalty allowed by law.
It is reported that Kelly Thomas’s mother reached as settlement5 with the City of Fullerton for $1.0 million. The law suit brought by Kelly Thomas’s father is on-going.
I think it’d be great if Thomas’ heirs agreed to no settlements that did not include punitive damage assessments against both Ramos and Cicinelli.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/16/kelly-thomas-death-settlement_n_1519995.html
John, your two May 15 posts are splendid. You’ve placed an enormous amount of valuable information about this troubling incident in a very accessible form.
Thank you very much.
I’ll be viewing the video in the next few days, using your explanations to help me better understand the interaction.
@US: You’re welcome and thank you for agreeing to view the video. I think anyone who seeks to discuss this incident, knowledgeably, should certainly do so. Please be reminded that my opinions are my own and no one else’s. They are not intended to represent anyone other than me.