Six police officers in California were placed on leave Wednesday after surveillance video surfaced showing witnesses describe how cops fatally beat a mentally ill homeless man. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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Kelly Thomas, 37, died July 10, five days after a confrontation with Fullerton police investigating reports of an attempted car burglary.
Surveillance video taken on an Orange County Transportation Authority bus showed passengers describing the alleged assault.
“They beat him up, and then all the cops came and they hogtied him, and he was like, ‘Please God, Please Dad!'” said one witness.
Another video, taken by a bystander on his cell phone, shows the altercation from a distance. A man’s voice is heard over a clicking noise that witnesses said was from a stun gun.
Thomas had schizophrenia and was not taking his medication, according to his father, Ron Thomas. He suffered severe head and neck injuries and was eventually taken off life support.
Autopsy results have not been released.
An attorney representing Fullerton police, Michael D. Schwartz, said in a statement that “public perception of officers’ trying to control a combative, resistive suspect rarely conform to those officers’ training, experiences, and what those officers were experiencing at the time or reality.”
The officers’ names have not been released, and the Orange County District Attorney has taken control of the case.
Ron Thomas said his son was diagnosed with mental illness after he was arrested for a minor violation. He went to a live in facility that monitored his medication.
He did well when he was on his medication and briefly held jobs at a gas station and a printing facility, his father said.
But when he was feeling well, Thomas would stop taking his drugs and soon was back on the streets and in and out of jail for violations that ranged from public urination to assault with a deadly weapon.
Hundreds of angry residents appeared at a Fullerton City Council meeting demanding answers. One councilwoman even called for the police chief’s ouster. “I just wonder where my son’s rights went as a citizen,” Ron Thomas told the council, according to CNN.
“Where were his rights? Listen to my son beg those officers, ‘Please, please, God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ And the last words of his life, ‘Dad! Dad!’ I want you to hear that for the rest of your life like I will.”
