04-24-2015, 09:25 AM
(04-21-2015, 02:03 PM)username Wrote:(04-21-2015, 01:58 PM)HairOfTheDog Wrote: "Severed", in this case, likely refers to disconnected or detached.
The neck can be internally severed from the spinal cord as a result of car accident impact, forced trauma, etc...
Okay. *barfs* I'm kind of sorry I asked but "severed" in that definition...it doesn't explain what happened but I can wrap my head around that (pun intended) more easily than cut.
Doesn't sound like the guy had a very good head on his shoulders to begin with.
I didn't think the initial arrest of Freddie Gray was brutal. He was not happy and did not want to be taken in to custody. A few cops held him while he was cuffed. That, to me, is not a problem.
Why he was pursued and arrested in the first place bothers me though. Gray was at a housing complex when a patrolman made eye contact with him and he ran. He wasn't in the commission of a crime. He just ran. He was pursued and caught. The patrolman found a knife on Gray and arrested him. The Baltimore PD Union head says that there's an exception to the probable cause requirement in high-crime areas. In such areas, cops are allowed to pursue and arrest citizens without probable cause. That's what happened to Freddie Gray and probably what he was trying to avoid when he decided to split.
Anyway, the police union head announced yesterday that cops did not secure Gray in a seat belt when they tossed him into the back of the paddy-wagon with his hands cuffed behind his back and lying facing down. Another suspect who was in same van reportedly told police that Gray was writhing and kicking en-route to the police station and that cops didn't assault him in the van or anything. Instead, they pulled over and put leg cuffs on him. In the bystander video of that stop, it seems to me that Gray is not well. But, he was tossed back in the van - now cuffed at the hands and legs, face down, without a seat belt. And, off goes the van again.
It's a practice within some police forces to drive particularly fast and roughly when they have what they consider a combative person in the back of the van. Ten years ago, a man in Baltimore was cuffed and tossed in a van for public urination. He was given such a ride with no seat belt. The high impact bumping, bouncing and slamming against the van surfaces severed the man's spine. He died.
In Philly, eight years ago, two suspects were permanently paralyzed under the same circumstances.
Investigators are said to be looking into whether the cops gave Freddie Gray, who was already out of breath and asking for an inhaler, what's known as a "nickel ride" as well.
Ref: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/23...29308.html