Home»US»Missouri: Undercover Cop Says Fellow Cops Beat Him ‘Like Rodney King’ & Smashed His Camera

Missouri: Undercover Cop Says Fellow Cops Beat Him ‘Like Rodney King’ & Smashed His Camera

0
Shares
Pinterest WhatsApp

St. Louis, MO — In December 2011, St. Louis Police Officer Jason Stockley violated department policy when he grabbed his personal AK-47, premeditated, and then murdered Anthony Lamar Smith. The planning of the murder and the actual murder were captured on the officer’s dashcam. In spite of the overwhelming amount of evidence against him, a St. Louis judge in 2017 found Stockley not guilty of first-degree murder in the 2011 shooting death of Smith. Months of protests ensued immediately.

During the protests, undercover police officers were placed throughout the crowd in order to catch people who were attempting to instigate violence or destroy property. Police violence was so over the top, that four officers allegedly grabbed one of their own, a 22-year veteran of the department who was working undercover. Now, for the first time, that officer’s account of what happened and evidence of his fellow officers’ crimes is coming out.

Officers Dustin Boone, Bailey Colletta, Randy Hays and Christopher Myers now face federal charges of civil rights violation, obstruction of justice and lying to federal investigators.

These four cops are accused of savagely beating their fellow officer, Detective Luther Hall during the protests and then covering it up.

The officers are accused of attacking their fellow officer without reason, throwing him to the ground, savagely beating him—causing serious bodily injury—and then destroying his camera.

Hall described his beating by these for cops as a “free for all” and told other cops at the department that he was beaten “like Rodney King,” according to court documents that have just been released.

As TFTP reported at the time, during the protests, angry citizens took to the streets en masse. They were met by hundreds of police officers in riot gear, who were armed with military grade weaponry and technology.

During the protests, story after story surfaced of officers using unnecessary force, beating protesters and making false arrests. This was in spite of the fact that the protests ran relatively smoothly and were far less violent than the ones in 2014 in Ferguson after the killing of Mike Brown.

Despite the peaceful nature of the protests, police officers were seen on video carrying out extremely disturbing acts. One such act involved trampling an elderly woman. Another act involved police chanting“whose streets? Our streets!” as they surrounded protesters—otherwise known as ‘kettling’— and began a brutal assault with pepper spray and police batons.

Hall was also one of these stories, however, his story was suppressed because the officers who beat him covered up what happened and lied to investigators.

Hall was not violent during the protests and merely carrying a Nikon camera attempting to photograph the protests when police approached.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

At an intersection, police SUVs pulled up and a female officer ordered Hall to get to the ground.

As he was getting to his knees, Hall was picked up twice and slammed to the ground, face first, Boehlje wrote. His nose and lip were already bleeding when he was repeatedly kicked and hit with closed fists and sticks, Boehlje wrote.

Hall’s hands were in front of him on the ground, and although officers were telling him to put his hands behind his back, they were also standing on his arms, Boehlje wrote.

“Hall described it as a ‘free for all,’” the affidavit says.

Hall’s cellphone screen had been shattered from what Hall thought was a baton. After he was handcuffed, he watched as an officer took out his Nikon battery and threw the camera to the ground, breaking it, Boehlje wrote.

The affidavit suggests there may be video of at least part of the incident, as Hall’s cellphone was “actively recording” as he surrendered.

During the arrest, Hall did not want to blow his cover so he did not inform police he was undercover until he got back to headquarters. He told someone at headquarters that officers “beat the (expletive) out of him like Rodney King.”

When investigators seized the cellphones of the officers, they found texts of them discussing the beating, essentially admitting to all of it.

Before the officers were dispatched to the protest, they stated their “disdain” for the protesters and expressed “excitement about using unjustified force against them and going undetected while doing so.”

After the beating, Hays told Boone in regards to one of the officers smashing Hall’s camera and beating him that “the ass whooping can be explained. The camera thing can’t and we weren’t a part of that.”

Boone then replies to Hays saying that Hall “could’ve announced himself any time. And he wasn’t complying. The camera thing is just ignorant, nothing we all haven’t done and if it was a protester it wouldn’t be a problem at all.”

Reread that above text and let that sink in. These officers are describing a situation in which they can walk up to an innocent person, beat the hell out of them, smash their camera, and then get away with it. But, because their victim was a cop and not a protester, they won’t “get away with it.”

Below is a screenshot of just some of the texts exchanged by these cops who were quite literally begging to “f**k people up.”

 

For now, these violent criminals stand charged.

As the St. Louis Business Journal reports:

Count one of the indictment specifically alleges that Boone, Hays and Myers violated the undercover officer’s constitutional rights when they used unreasonable force on him. Their actions resulted in bodily injury and included the use of a dangerous weapon. The indictment also alleges they threw the undercover officer to the ground and kicked him while he was compliant and not posing a physical threat to anyone.

Count two charges Boone, Hays and Myers with conspiracy to obstruct justice for conspiring and agreeing to engage in misleading conduct toward witnesses to prevent information about their criminal conduct from reaching federal authorities.

Count three of the indictment also charges Myers with destruction of evidence for knowingly destroying and mutilating the undercover officer’s cell phone with the intent to impede, obstruct, and influence the investigation into his arrest and assault.

Count four charges Colletta with corruptly attempting to obstruct, influence, and impede federal grand jury proceedings by engaging in a series of misleading assertions and false statements when she testified before the grand jury.

Count one carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. Counts two, three, and four each carry maximum penalties of 20 years in prison. All four counts carry a maximum fine of $250,000.

Due to the egregious nature of these officers’ actions and their subsequent indictments, the St. Louis Circuit Attorney has dropped 91 cases with which these officers were involved.

Last month, all four of the officers pleaded not guilty to the charges.

All of the officers are currently on administrative leave without pay and are awaiting their future court date which has not yet been released. Hopefully, their case plays out different than the one of Jason Stockley and justice is actually served. Because their victim was a police officer, there is a higher chance that will happen.

Article posted with permission from The Free Thought Project. Article by Matt Agorist.


The Washington Standard

Previous post

Joe Biden Accuses America Of Racism At Racist Event

Next post

Reza Aslan Calls For Violence Against Falsely Accused High School Student, Wants To "Punch" Dinesh D'Souza's Face