The manager of rapper Mike Jones has reportedly filed a police complaint in Texas claiming he was assaulted by two cops last month (May07). Terrance 'T' Flowers, who filed the complaint on 25 May (07), says he was confronted by authorities when he got into an argument with his ex-girlfriend in a Jersey Village car park. He co-operated with the two officers, identified as Virgil Thomas and Mark Zatzkin, and alleges that even though his ex explained there was no problem with the situation, he was still physically assaulted.Hmmmm ... abusive behavior was reported by a citizen complainant but the officers didn't file incident reports which, if Flowers' account is accurate, would inevitably have described inappropriate conduct.
Flowers claims the cops taunted him saying, "You think you can get away with certain types of behaviour because of who you are", before they handcuffed him and forced him to the ground. He adds, "They jumped out their car, pulled their pistols out, told me to get down, yelling and screaming, so I automatically did what they told me to do. I get down to my knees. They shove me down. A black cop put a foot on my head. They still had their pistols on me, telling me to get down, get down, but I'm already down, though."
Sergeant Stephan Ruff of the Jersey Village Police Department admitted he had only heard about the allegations when Flowers filed the complaint, because the officers had not written an incident report. Ruff has now launched an internal investigation into the claims.
Who really has a "no snitching" code in Houston - rappers or the police?
My bet is that there was no media coverage of this incident either. We have a full page of people charged with crimes in our newspaper every single day [in a county of less than a quarter million]. Yet, I never see allegations of police abuse in that page. The few allegations that do make the paper are the result of blatant and frequent abuse by police usually involving coercive sexual advances. I know of several local people who have successfully sued the police for misconduct - yet none of these incidents made the newspaper. As long as the police can keep their pants zipped, they apparently can do no wrong here in Benton County Oregon.
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