Two former Jasper police officers won’t face criminal charges for assaulting a woman in their custody last year, the last chapter in an incident that became a flashpoint for racial tension in the East Texas town.
The Beaumont Enterprise reported in November that a grand jury had cleared officers Ricky Grissom and Ryan Cunningham, who are white, for a violent encounter with a black woman named Keyarika Diggles inside the Jasper City Jail. Overhead cameras caught the officers grabbing Diggles by the hair, slamming her face onto a counter and pinning her to the floor, before dragging Diggles, by the feet, into a holding cell. According to her lawyers, Diggles spent hours in the dark “detox” cell before being strip-searched by police dispatcher Lindsey Davenport.
Along with the damning video footage, the case was troubling because Cunningham and Grissom had arrested Diggles at home that morning for nothing more than an unpaid traffic ticket. And the ticket wasn’t quite unpaid—the single mother of two had been paying down her debt in monthly installments. Even after those payments, she still owed $100 at the time Grissom and Cunningham knocked on her door—but it’s still not clear why they’d chosen to arrest her that day.
It was already a touchy time for Jasper’s police. The city’s first black police chief, Rodney Pearson, had been removed in 2012 by a City Council stacked with new members who ran, in part, on a pledge to replace Pearson with a chief they deemed more qualified; all the serious candidates they considered were white. It wasn’t until October 2013 that the council hired the current chief, Bob MacDonald, who spoke freely about the need to reach out to the city’s black community and build trust. One of his first initiatives was to buy body cameras for the city’s police force.
The Beaumont Enterprise reported in November that a grand jury had cleared officers Ricky Grissom and Ryan Cunningham, who are white, for a violent encounter with a black woman named Keyarika Diggles inside the Jasper City Jail. Overhead cameras caught the officers grabbing Diggles by the hair, slamming her face onto a counter and pinning her to the floor, before dragging Diggles, by the feet, into a holding cell. According to her lawyers, Diggles spent hours in the dark “detox” cell before being strip-searched by police dispatcher Lindsey Davenport.
It was already a touchy time for Jasper’s police. The city’s first black police chief, Rodney Pearson, had been removed in 2012 by a City Council stacked with new members who ran, in part, on a pledge to replace Pearson with a chief they deemed more qualified; all the serious candidates they considered were white. It wasn’t until October 2013 that the council hired the current chief, Bob MacDonald, who spoke freely about the need to reach out to the city’s black community and build trust. One of his first initiatives was to buy body cameras for the city’s police force.
What the hell is going on in this bloody country?
ReplyDeleteAmericans should bear in mind that two or three days of total national strike can bring the entire criminal system.
I wonder if there's more than just fluoride being put into the tap water in Texas. Here is this incident, plus the people of Texas elected W, plus they elected Rick Perry, plus they sanction John Hagee living in their State. The list goes on.
ReplyDeleteI hope this woman has a real man in her life, a father living, a brother, a husband, boyfriend, cousin any real man in her life, that will find out where the scum lives and patiently wait for the perfect opportunity to get justice for her, and leave them so they will never want to harm another human again. When these thugs start learning they are not invincible and people are willing to extract revenge where they can surly get it, and not in no corrupt court of law ,then and only then will we see a major decline in there abuse of the people, the very people that pay their salaries, they bite the hand that feeds them, shows how stupid they are,their masters and so the master must convince them this is unexceptable and make the servant the servant again.
ReplyDeleteReal problem in America in to days times--Poo'lice are over paid and hired on the bases served in the military with killing experience.
ReplyDeleteReal culprits are politicians,Example--over 67% of the public want killings in the middle east to FKN stop.But Politicks ignores the public--same happens in local government.However most blacks do have an attitude--slave card, they can be very obnoxious. Why is it when blacks do gruesome attacks on whites--not much is reported. :^(
This is an active attempt to bring on an active race war. There is no doubt that this is US government sponsored to have a real reason to apply total Martial Law and disarm everyone without regard to any Constitution...Oh, wait. They have no regard for it, anyway.
ReplyDeleteYou're exactly right... it's obvious that the white police in the big cities are being told by their superiors (who in turn are being told by their superiors, and so on) to use excessive force on the blacks in order to foment racial tension, for the reason you pointed out, i.e. so that TPTB can use it as an excuse to declare martial law and confiscate the guns.
ReplyDeleteWhat really needs to happen is for the real decision makers to be exposed and dealt with accordingly, but that probably isn't going to happen. It reminds me of this famous quote by Ezra Pound:
ReplyDelete"The real trouble with war (modern war) is that it gives no one a chance to kill the right people."