The Place Where Ludington Talks
The Beat Goes On: Robocop Strikes Again
Military ballads state that old soldiers never die, they just fade away. In police circles a similar phrase can be used for those police officers that have been regularly discredited and brought up regularly on ethical charges so much that they have had to leave a department. Old bad cops never die, they just move away and stay bad. That looks to happen in Inkster, whose police department hired William Melendez, aka Detroit PD's Robocop.
Certain cops like our own LPD Officer Aaron Sailor, seem unable to consider themselves effective policemen without beating up innocent folks at times and if you follow the internal links provided here you can see that Melendez had a colorful career of police brutality, sexual scandals, and planting evidence-- two out of three which seems to be here. It's too bad our full-time legislators in Lansing cannot do lifetime bans of police that do the opposite of protecting and serving.
Police in Inkster, Michigan, were caught on a police cruiser dash cam video punching and tasing Floyd Dent. The incident happened on January 28, but the video (below) has only now been released.
In the video, the officers pull over Dent, and walk up to his car. Dent opens his door, and the cops appear to pull him out onto the ground. Police reports and court testimony say that Officer Bill Melendez put Dent in a chokehold and punched him in the head 16 times, while a second officer tried to handcuff the 57 year old. A third officer arrived and tased Dent three times.
The officers claim that Dent threatened to kill them, but there is no audio in the beginning of the video to back up that claim. None of the police officers, all of whom wore audio recording devices, had their devices turned on.
Officers claim they found a bag of crack cocaine in Dent's car, but Dent did not test positive for drugs when he was taken to a local hospital after being bloodied by the cops. For his part, Dent believes the drugs were planted in his car.
Police claimed they feared for their lives when they pulled Dent out of his car because they could only see one of his arms.
Officer Melendez was indicted in 2003 by the U.S. Attorney's Office for allegedly planting drugs and making fake police reports while working as a cop in Detroit.
The Los Angeles Times reported that 17 officers, headed by Melendez, who was nicknamed "Robocop," were accused of "stealing guns, money and drugs from suspects, planting weapons and breaking into homes without search warrants, among other crimes."
Melendez was found not guilty by a jury in 2004 and left the Detroit Police Department in 2010 before getting a job in Inkster, which is a suburb of the Motor City.
Dent was charged with assault, fleeing and resisting arrest, along with the drug possession charge, but a judge dropped all the charges except the drug charge.
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/crime/michigan-police-caught...
Mr. Dent's family reacts to the released footage earlier today:
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