Sheriff's Deputy Frank Phillips,47,who was recorded choking a college student into unconsciousness, and then hitting him around his head, while several other officers were cuffing him, has been fired...Police had stated the student was resisting arrest, but the video, taken be a local freelance photographer/journalist shows he was not resisting at all and that the Deputy had a grin on his face as he deliberately applied a choke that cut off blood to the student's brain, a potentially VERY dangerous and sometimes fatal means of assault...
http://issuehawk.com/...
There seems to have been no reason for this assault at all, as the student seemed to have been singled out of a crowd of over 800 students engaging in a huge drunken street party after final exams. When I worked in a state mental hospital, we were repeatedly instructed to NEVER use any type of hold or restraint that even came near the neck arteries...in my experience, 2 patients died from INADVERTENT choke, one in our hospital and another who had just been transferred to a different hospital. This was completely different - this is obviously a deliberately applied choke designed to block the arteries...this is likely to cause permanent brain damage and possibly death, and I have no doubt the Deputy was well aware of this.
I have no idea what is happening to American police departments now, but incidents like this are so commonplace, many are not even reported and in some places to actually record a police assault like this is illegal in itself. This in the face of increased threat of armed terrorism on the right, which seems to be immune from any police response at all.
I am glad this man is no longer a police officer, but I am waiting for criminal charges...which do not seem forthcoming.