The window was broken.

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http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/06/dashcam-footage-of-cop-tasing-dragging-and-dropping-teen-is-unsealed/

 Law & Disorder / Civilization & Discontents
Dashcam footage of cop tasing, dragging, and dropping teen is unsealed
Officer drags tased 17-year-old like a sack of potatoes then drops him face first.

by David Kravets - Jun 7, 2016 1:47pm CDT

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Graphic footage of the 2014 abuse of a 17-year-old by a suburban Kansas City, Missouri, police officer. Officer Timothy Runnels received four years in prison after the incident was captured on the officer’s dashcam.

A federal judge on Monday unsealed disturbing dashcam footage of a suburban Kansas City, Missouri, police officer tasering a 17-year-old motorist who became brain damaged after what was billed as a routine traffic stop. That stop subsequently turned into an event of excessive force—resulting in a four-year prison sentence for Officer Timothy Runnels of the Independence Police Department.

The video shows Runnels tase and yank Bryce Masters out of the car and down on the street as Masters howls. The boy was filming the officer with his mobile phone, which the officer flings to the street. "Am I under arrest? Am I under arrest?" the teen is overheard saying before he is stunned and grabbed from the vehicle.

The officer drags the boy on the street like a sack of potatoes then drops him face first to the ground. During the brief 2014 incident, the boy, who was going to play Xbox with a friend, went into cardiac arrest and now suffers from brain damage. The traffic stop was based on a warrant from Kansas City, which turned out to be a mistake connected to the license plate on the vehicle the boy was driving. The officer claimed he also smelled marijuana and that the teen was being uncooperative.

The boy nearly died and was placed in a brief medically induced coma. The stun gun discharged and hit the boy near his heart for 20 seconds. He can be overheard weeping as the officer drags him following the Taser hit.

Local authorities did not prosecute Runnels. So the Justice Department, having dashcam and eyewitness evidence in hand, took the case to a federal grand jury which indicted the officer last year on two counts of excessive force and one count of falsifying the account. "Specifically, the defendant authorized and submitted a false and misleading official police report, which falsely described and omitted details concerning the force that he used against B.M. on September 14, 2014, and the circumstances that led to B.M.'s bodily injuries on that day, with intent to obstruct any investigation into the deprivations of constitutional rights described in Counts One and Two of this Indictment," according to the indictment (PDF). The officer agreed to plead guilty (PDF) to a single excessive force count in September and was sentenced June 1.

"This former police officer was trained and entrusted to enforce the law impartially," said US Attorney Tammy Dickinson. "His use of excessive force violated both the public’s trust and his oath to uphold the law. Police officers are not above the law and will be held accountable when they violate the civil rights of the citizens they are sworn to protect and serve."

Police originally said, "Officer Runnels instructed the driver to move to the curb. Officer Runnels stated that the driver did not comply with his command, at which time, he grabbed the driver from behind and carried him to the side of the roadway."

US District Judge Dean Whipple ordered (PDF) the release of the dashcam footage Monday after the officer's attorney decided not to challenge its release.

At a court hearing last month, the boy told the judge that "People tell me I'm different. I feel different." He said he is forgetful, withdrawn, and weak. Masters said he has nightmares and no longer plans to attend college.

"I get in the car to go somewhere and then I’ll forget where I was going," he said. "I’ve missed job interviews because I forgot them."

During that same May 26 sentencing hearing, the defendant said he was "deeply remorseful" and "at no point did I intend to hurt him, but I did."

The officer remains free on bond and must surrender to federal prison in August.

Listing image by PoliceActivity/YouTube

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Shit like this really pisses me off. We, as citizens MUST demand that police be held responsible. Yet the local departments almost never prosecute officers. At least the federal system did something, even if it wasn't enough. If I did this to a cop, I would get 10year, minimum, most likely. With little chance of parole.

However, i will also admit the kid was a disrespectful asshole to start with.

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I have followed this since it happened. The officer involved in the incident was an Independence MO police officer, and the boys father is a Kansas City MO police officer. The boy knew the law and was not being rude, the window on that side of the car was broken and would only go down a few inches. As long as there was the ability for clear communication there was no need or legal reason for the defective window to be rolled down any further. The officer had no reason to demand that the window be rolled down any further as communication was clear between them. It was the officers miss use of authority that led to this incident.
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Well, I'll tell ya, when I was a teen, police loved to give me a hard time. I complied with anything they asked and it never mattered, they did everything they could short of jail, just to be bastards. You can bet, I never got out of a ticket, or even had it reduced. And since I lived with a hard ass, think Red Forman from That 70s show, I knew how to at least act and talk respectful.

So, given my past experiences, yes, the kid was being an ass. IMO. Still, if he had gotten out, things MAY not have escalated as far.

However, the cop still did not have authority to order the kid out of his car. There was still abuse of power, which has no excuse. Now, the cop certainly is within the law to ask for license/reg, ect, and the kid was be required to hand it over.

So, while the kid was within his rights, and the cop grossly overstepped his bounds and committed blatant assault, it could have been avoided.

Keep in mind, I am going just off this vid.

Still, this is only part of the picture of police abuse running rampant in the US. And even if, imo, the kid wasn't very cooperative, there is still zero excuse for what the cop did and I hope he gets wrung through civil court.
People need to flood the mayors offices all across the US to get bad cops like this fired. Maybe if there were some real action to curb this abuse, police wouldn't be so quick to use hard force.