Police beating: Driving without a license and registration

This is pretty shocking.
Those cops in the LA area just can't get themselves under
control.

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Officer suspended after videotaped beating
Teen says he did not provoke police
(Father charged with driving on suspended license)

http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/07/08/police.video/index.html

July 9, 2002

INGLEWOOD, California (CNN) -- A teen-ager whose beating by
Inglewood police was videotaped said Monday he had done
nothing to provoke the attack, which his father said was
racially motivated.

Sixteen-year-old Donovan Chavis, who is African American, told
CNN's Connie Chung that his father had driven them to a gas
station Saturday.

After Donovan paid for the gas and bought a package of potato
chips, he said, he returned to the car and found police
questioning his father, Koby Chavis, whose license plate had
expired.

In addition, Koby Chavis said he told police his license had
been suspended.

The teen said a police officer then turned his attention to
him. "He said, 'Put those chips on the car and step back from
the car.' " Donovan said he did just that.

"What they told him to do, he did it," concurred his father.
CNN NewsPass VIDEO

But police say Donovan lunged at an officer, a claim his
father disputes.

Donovan was handcuffed, beaten and dragged on the ground by an
18-inch chain around his neck, which snapped, family lawyer
Joe Hopkins told CNN.

A guest at a hotel across the street said he saw a crowd
gathering around the melee, grabbed his video camera and began
taping. "I saw them pick up the guy like he was a crash test
dummy or something," Mitchell Crooks told CNN.

"The officer carried him over to the car and then slammed him,
it looked like with all of his force, everything he had, and
just slammed him down on the car.

"Then, the guy started looking up, the kid started looking up.
He had a complete dazed look on his face, like -- 'What's
going on? What's happening?'

"I think he had been beaten pretty bad before that. And then,
just out of the blue, the cop just punched him right in the
face. It was quite awful. I was just really disturbed by it."

Afterward, the police put the teen-ager into the police car
and took him to a hospital. [Donovan Chavis, left, and father
Koby Chavis.] Donovan Chavis, left, and father Koby Chavis.

At that point, "I noticed that they had noticed me filming
it," Crooks said. Afraid the police would attempt to seize the
tapes, he transferred them to others, he said.

Soon after, seven officers knocked on his door and asked him
questions but apparently did not know it was he who had taped
the incident, he said.

"I went into my room, changed clothes, grabbed a beer and went
to the pool and acted like I didn't know what was going on at
all," he said.

Asked if he thought the attack was racially motivated,
Donovan's father said, "Yes, I do."

Said Hopkins: "One of the officers said to him, 'You're going
to jail, nigger. We've already beat your son's ass and now
we're sending you to jail. I'm going home and if I see you on
the street, I'm going to send you to jail.' "

One of the officers appears to be black; the others white.
Hopkins added, "There was no reason to approach them, other
than their being in that location and being black."

Donovan is charged with resisting arrest and battery, and his
father is charged with driving with a suspended license.

(snip!)

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<http://www.cnn.com/video/us/2002/07/08/vo.police.beating.vs.a
ma.jpg> Inglewood Police beating of a suspect in handcuffs
that was caught by amateur video (July 8)