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POLICE BRUTALITY STORY OF THE DAY

Hat tip Boston Bob

Elderly man calls for ambulance, violent cops beat him instead

Robby Soave, Reporter

An elderly Missouri man dialed 911 and asked for an ambulance to come and help his ailing wife. Instead, the police showed up, threw him to the ground, sat on his head and handcuffed him.

He later received stitches for his injuries.

“I never had anybody jump on me for doing nothing,” said the man, Elbert Breshears of Humansville, Missouri, in a statement to KSPR 33.

The trouble began after Breshears called to get help for his wife, who suffers from dementia. He asked for paramedics to come provide assistance to her after she knocked out one of their home’s windows.

The Humansville police arrived first, however.

According to Breshears, an officer tackled him right away, and then barked at him to stand up.

“He told me to get up,” recalled Breshears. “I told him I couldn’t.”

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Officers then threw him into a pile of gravel and sat on his back and head as they attempted to handcuff him. Breshears pleaded with the officers to get off him.

“I told them I can’t get my hands up to wear you can handcuff me, if you let me up you can handcuff me,” he said. “I got no objection to being handcuffed.”

A doctor had to sew up his head and remove gravel from his wounds.

Breshears said that he has had trouble with police in the past. A spokesperson for the police declined an interview with local reporters, but did say that the man is facing charges for abusing his wife, resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer.

Breshears said the charges were ridiculous.

“I don’t hit my wife,” he said. “I’ve lived with the woman for 47 years. I love the woman.”

“I can’t help what she does,” he added, referring to her dementia.

The wife was taken away from her home and is now under professional care. Breshears plans to sue the police.

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WOMAN TACKLED, CUFFED & ARRESTED FOR WALKING ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD

Your daily dose of copfuk brutality. Do you sense a trend?

Woman says Whitehouse police unfairly arrested her for not stopping to talk to officer

By Nina Harrelson

KYTX CBS 19 Tyler Longview News Weather Sports
A Whitehouse woman claims she was unfairly arrested for failing to stop for a police officer. She says the cop was acting suspicious and she felt threatened, but police officials say she handled it the wrong way.

Melissa Bonnette says she was on her usual morning walk around 9:45 a.m. Friday when a man in uniform on a motorcycle pulled up next to her, asking if she lived in the area and if he could speak to her.

“I thought that maybe he was flirting,” she said. “I just thought it was odd, I thought it was odd. I wasn’t really sure but I felt uncomfortable because there wasn’t anyone around.”

She says she was worried he might not even a real cop, so she refused to stop and began jogging away from him.

“He just crept along beside me on his motorcycle and he started saying, ‘Hey ma’am! I want to talk to you. Hey stop, ma’am! I want to talk to you.’ Then my anxiety rose even higher,” she said.

“The motorcycle has a patch on both sides of the gas tank. It’s black and white and says ‘Whitehouse Police,’ and has red and blue lights on it,” Whitehouse Police Chief Craig Shelton said. “So you have to take it for what it is. Do you think he’s a Whitehouse police officer? Why would you think he’s someone impersonating a police officer?”

That’s when Bonnette says he got off his bike, chased her down, tackled her and threw her in handcuffs.

“I just was crying and I was saying ‘Please sir, please sir. Why are you doing this?’ It was like I was in a nightmare. I hadn’t done anything wrong,” she said.

“Normally if a police officer pulls up, in my opinion, it’s awful odd for somebody just to take off and not want to speak to the police officer,” Shelton said. “And he had a lawful reason to be there and to stop her.”

That reason, Shelton says, is that Bonnette was walking on the wrong side of the road.

“By law, you have to be to the far left facing oncoming traffic,” he said.

So why was Bonnette handcuffed and put under arrest? Shelton says she was evading police.

“He told her I believe twice to quit resisting and she wouldn’t — she continued to resist,” he said. “So, he put her on the ground.”

But Bonnette argues she was unfairly treated like a criminal, and wants the officer in question –Shawn Johnson — to be fired.

“I really don’t want to live in a town where something like this could happen to a law-abiding citizen,” she said. “I’m not going to be able to walk anymore, and that’s sad because I enjoy walking every day. But I’m terrified. It was just so traumatic.”

Shelton says by law you’re not required to stop and talk to an officer if there’s not a lawful reason for them to be stopping you. But in this case, he says the fact that Bonnette was walking on the wrong side of the road was reason enough for Johnson to stop her.

Bonnette hasn’t been charged with anything, but the entire incident was caught on dashcam video and Shelton says it will be investigated further. He also says Johnson acted appropriately and won’t be reprimanded.