Arizona Police Caught Saying They Should Have Brutalized BLM Protesters

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OFFICERS EXPRESSED REGRET OVER NOT STOMPING AND GASSINGGROUP OF PEOPLE ARRESTED FOR PROTESTING IN OCTOBER.

Officers in Phoenix, Arizona were caught via their own body cam­eras dis­cussing regret over fail­ing to com­mit acts of bru­tal­i­ty against Black Lives Matter pro­test­ers dur­ing arrests last October. After arrest­ing 18 mem­bers of BLM, three Arizona offi­cers sat in a squad car ques­tion­ing why “they hadn’t tram­pled the group and doused them in pep­per spray,” accord­ing to The Washington Post. “Why didn’t we just stomp on them when they were leav­ing?” one offi­cer can be heard ask­ing. Another offi­cer said they should, “just gas them and let them run like crazy.” Arizona Police Chief Jeri Williams promised “swift and deci­sive dis­ci­pli­nary action,” and described the offi­cers involved as dis­re­spect­ful. Williams has so far not revealed what that dis­ci­pline may look like.

According to The Post, just hours after the body-cam footage was released, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office announced that it would dis­miss charges against 15 of the pro­test­ers who were arrest­ed on October 17, 2020. The pro­test­ers were fac­ing a num­ber of charges, includ­ing riot­ing, aggra­vat­ed assault with a dead­ly weapon, and resist­ing arrest. Phoenix pros­e­cu­tors also filed gang-relat­ed charges against the pro­test­ers. An offi­cer explained that, although they were not in a gang, the pro­test­ers faced gang charges because they chant­ed “all cops are b — — ,” and most of them wore black and car­ried umbrellas.

Chief Williams said the depart­ment is going to under­go reform in order to pre­vent anoth­er inci­dent like this one from occur­ring again. “I have been and will con­tin­ue to be an advo­cate of the amaz­ing work done in this depart­ment each day,” she said in a state­ment. “However, I know that unpro­fes­sion­al, dis­re­spect­ful, and inap­pro­pri­ate behav­ior from even one of our offi­cers tar­nish­es the badge, but more impor­tant­ly, it hurts the com­mu­ni­ty we have sworn to protect.”

YA!!!