The Lagunajournal website has a great deal of information on Orange County Sheriff, now ex sheriff Mike Carona. Looking through it, I found this story that I have never heard of before today.

This really angers me, as it should all of us. How is this a justifiable shooting?

The Orange County Sheriffs yesterday, were testing a new type of gun. The gun has a camera built into it so there is a record of the shooting from the officers perspective. The crying from the cops over this technology is a post in itself, seems they believe a camera to be unfair and biased… yes, the camera has a point of view that can not be twisted, the suspect either had a gun or did not… that seems to scare them. Why?

The writer of this Commentary is a minor. Name is withheld.

Off Duty U.S. Customs officer shoots unarmed 19-year old Arab-American in head and face according to eye witness’s. Orange County Sheriff Michael Carona ’s spokesmen stated that officer committed no wrong-doing and did not even take him in for questioning.

This incident happened about 15 minutes from my house in the Madrid apartment complex in Mission Viejo, CA on Feb 5, 2005.

As far as a political discussion, this would probably fall under the same category as Amadou Diallo Case, and Abner Louima in an example of law enforcement brutality bordering on outright criminality. Here are the relevant facts:

Early in the morning on Saturday February the 6th around 1:30 am, Bassim Chmait along with three other friends were walking through an apartment complex heading towards a college house party. As they were walking through the apartment complex one of the neighbors threw a soda can at them from above. In frustration, one of the young boys threw the can into the street, and continued walking down the pathway of the apartment heading to the party. At that point Douglas Bates, an off duty U.S. Custom’s officer, left his home with his badge in hand and gun drawn confronting the group of 4 to 6 friends. . he started to yell at them, and when the group of boys turned around, they saw the provoker yelling at them about laughing and being too loud, he was heading towards them pointing his gun a them with a badge in the other hand, yelling “You don’t want to fuck with a cop, do you?” Apparently he was upset at the noise and commotion. Mr. Bates then pistol whipped one member of the group. The aggressor was an off duty border patrol/homeland security officer who was not in uniform, his name is Douglas Bates. The four unarmed boys were questioning him, asking why he was pointing his gun at them and begging him to put it down. One of the four boys that were there kept asking the gunman to stop pointing the barrel of the gun in his friends direction. Because of that, the aggressor pistol-whipped his friend on the forehead w/ the gun. Anticipating that the provoker was going to hit his friend again Chmait Bassim got in front of his friends telling the man to please put the gun down. Almost instantly the off duty cop shot Bassim in the head and face by Douglas Bates. After shooting Bassim, Mr. Bates simply walked back into his apartment. While friends were screaming about what happened to Bassim, neighbors dialed 911. About 5 minutes later the murderer opened his door, with the gun still in hand and yelled at neighbors to shut up, and he want back inside his apartment.

This story comes straight from four witnesses, and neighbors that were there when the murder took place, they saw and heard everything that occurred that night.

You would think that this would be an easy case to prosecute. You would think that Douglas Bates is in jail right now. But he’s not, he’s a free man, he was never arrested, he was never charged, he was never even asked to come to the police station to give a statement. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department Spokesman, Jim Amormino stated, “We treated this the same as we would any case. There was no clear evidence of a crime being committed, so there was nothing to book him on.”

Here are the reports that this information was taken from:

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Here is another account of police brutality as a had cuffed suspect is punched for what seems like no good reason, this officer was put on un-paid leave over the incident, surprised they didn’t pay him for his time off. The officer must have forgotten the whole innocent ’till proven guilty thing incorporated into the US justice system