Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup metatuning Man who taped beating arrested, hospitalized

Well, it happened.

The guy who videotapped the police beating has been arrested
and will now spend some serious time in prison. They won't
even let his lawyer talk to him.

So what do we do?

Wait around for these lawless punk cops to round us up too?

Overthrow the government?

Wring our hands while watching Oprah and popping Prozac?

Are we living in a Stalinist nightmare?

I had to get from San Diego to Sacramento the week of the LA
riots when my grandfather died and had to go to his funeral.
Drove completely around the LA basin by taking 15 then
crossing the desert.

People were complaining about the LA riots and I agree that it
is unfortunate that innocent people got their shops burned
down or were beaten up. But I understand why those riots
happened. When the government/police/authorities are so
outrageously out of control, eventually the people break and
wilding occurs.

--
Man who taped beating arrested, hospitalized
Screams 'Help! Help!' as he is driven away

http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/07/12/police.beating.crooks/index.h
tml

July 12, 2002 Posted: 7:47 AM EDT (1147 GMT)

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- The man who videotaped
Inglewood police roughing up African-American teen-ager
Donovan Jackson was hospitalized Thursday after being taken
into custody.

Mitchell Crooks was arrested on an outstanding warrant for
petty theft with a prior conviction, driving under the
influence and hit-and-run in Placer County, in northern
California.

On Thursday night, he was taken to the Los Angeles County USC
Medical Center after complaining of injuries, a spokeswoman
for the Los Angeles district attorney's office said.

Crooks was picked up in Hollywood, just outside a building
housing CNN offices, and taken to the grand jury looking into
the beating case. Crooks had spent much of his time over the
past two days with a producer for a television studio housed
in the same building.

He did not appear to be roughed up as the district attorney's
officers made the arrest and put him in the black Ford
Explorer, but CNN photographer David Lake heard him say to the
officers that they were probably going to beat him like the
police in the Inglewood incident he had captured on tape.

From inside the car, Crooks yelled at the top of his lungs,
"Help! Help! Help! Help me!" as the SUV drove away.

The arrest was captured on crisp surveillance video as well as
by a CNN photographer.

Dean Masserman, an attorney for Crooks, told CNN he was given
permission to see but not speak to Crooks as he was being
transferred on a gurney from an examination room to have
X-rays taken.

"He doesn't look good," Masserman said. "He was strapped
down," but did not have any visible injuries.

Crooks had failed to appear before the grand jury Thursday
morning as scheduled, authorities said. Late Thursday, a
source with the district attorney's office said they were
"through with him for the time being," leaving Crooks to face
the charges from Placer County.

The Placer County sheriff's office said Crooks was arrested in
February 1999 for stealing two VCRs from his mother's home. On
his way to steal them, he was in a traffic accident and fled
the scene; he was later charged with hit and run and driving
under the influence for that wreck.

Crooks was convicted of the three crimes in March 1999 and
sentenced to seven months in jail but failed to report for the
sentence, leading to the warrant for his address, the Placer
County sheriff's office said.

Crooks had not been booked yet on the Placer County charges,
according to Masserman, who also said he did not know if his
client had appeared before a grand jury or not.

Dan Hanna, who has been traveling with Crooks for the last two
months, said his friend was terrified of the police after he
shot the video and realized its value to the beating case.

"He felt that if the police found the video then they would be
able to brush the whole thing under the table," Hanna told
CNN's "Connie Chung Tonight."

Masserman said he did not know the source of his client's
fear, but he assumed it was a result of "people in favor of
law enforcement, people against the rights of
African-Americans, white supremacists. ... He apparently has
gotten threats and he takes them seriously."

Crooks, who is white, has had prior run-ins with police that
left him frightened, said Tom Martinez, a producer for T.A.M.,
a local television production studio.

Crooks used the TV studio for television interviews this week
with various outlets and confided to Martinez, "All I have
here is you and the makeup artist." Martinez offered to let
Crooks sleep on his couch, which he did Wednesday night.

"He really wanted to get his face on television, doing as many
types of shows that he could, so people would recognize him,"
Martinez told CNN. "He was afraid that if the police caught
him, what they might do to him. That's what he told me."

The officers arrested Crooks when he and Martinez drove to the
studio Thursday.

Hanna said Crooks spoke with the District Attorney's office
Wednesday about testifying for the grand jury, but he was not
served with a subpoena. He said his friend did not believe
there were any warrants out for his arrest.

On Wednesday, Crooks and a prosecutor had a terse exchange on
a Los Angeles radio show, with the prosecutor telling Crooks
that a subpoena was waiting for him.

Danny Bakewell, president of the Brotherhood Crusade, a
minority assistance group in Los Angeles, said the group plans
to raise money for Crooks' bail.

"We believe that this man, in spite of the fact that we
understand that he has problems in his past, he has done a
powerful bit of justice for our community," said Bakewell. "We
are going to stand with him through his trials and
tribulations."

Crooks' mother, Pat, told Connie Chung that her son "tried to
do good" by showing the video but it backfired.

"The sad part about this is that the light is being directed
on him," she said. "Instead, it should be directed on the
young man who was mistreated in the video."

Meanwhile, the attorney for the police officer suspended in
the case said the teen-ager deserved to be punched because he
grabbed the officer's midsection.

-- CNN Correspondent Charles Feldman contributed to this
report.

Man who taped beating arrested, hospitalized

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