Massachusetts Cop Convicted For Violent Attack On Innocent Handcuffed Victim

In the fol­low­ing arti­cle, you will see a vio­lent cop who was allowed to remain unchecked for his entire career, con­tin­ued to bru­tal­ize inno­cent civil­ians until tech­nol­o­gy caught up with him. It was only then that the pow­ers that pro­tect offi­cers like him had no choice but to take action.
You will also see a pros­e­cu­tor bemoan the fact that the cop was con­vict­ed for his crimes even as he pledged that he would pro­ceed with oth­er crim­i­nals against the con­vict­ed cop, declar­ing it a somber moment, speak­ing of the ver­dict. The pros­e­cu­tor also bent over back­ward in oblig­a­tory praise of police, usu­al­ly a sign that they are afraid of the wrath of the police unions that are sup­port­ers of the vio­lent thugs in uni­form regard­less of their crimes against the public.
You will also see the police chief mak­ing the regres­sive argu­ment that it was his depart­ment that inves­ti­gat­ed the com­plaints, which led to the charges against the crim­i­nal cop. It is impor­tant to jux­ta­pose that asser­tion with the pros­e­cu­tor’s state­ment; with­out the video­tape evi­dence, there would have been no case’.
They were forced to act because of the irrefutable evi­dence enshrined in the video evi­dence. That is why it is crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant to record these crim­i­nals when­ev­er you encounter them. Had the young woman not stu­dious­ly record­ed Derek Chauvin’s mur­der, George Floyd Chauvin would not have faced any con­se­quences. In fact, the police depart­ment lied that Floyd suf­fered a med­ical emer­gency and died before know­ing that the video­tape exist­ed of the day­light murder.
The abu­sive cop was found guilty, but the ver­dict is what matters.
The good old boys’ net­work of cops, pros­e­cu­tors, and juries, is what gives rise to cops like this one. It should come as no sur­prise if he receives a slap on the wrist. Judges are a large part of the impuni­ty that char­ac­ter­izes police vio­lence in the United States.
Instead of expand­ing the rights of ‘we the peo­ple’, the courts, start­ing with the Supreme Court, have sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly con­strict­ed the rights of cit­i­zens while expand­ing the police state. (mb)

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Former Fall River police offi­cer Michael Pessoa has been found guilty of assault and bat­tery with a dan­ger­ous weapon, wit­ness intim­i­da­tion, civ­il rights vio­la­tions and fil­ing false reports in the case involv­ing city res­i­dent David Lafrance.

The for­mer city cop was tak­en out of the court­room in hand­cuffs Wednesday after the jury deliv­ered the ver­dict slight­ly after 1 p.m. fol­low­ing a five-day tri­al. Bristol County Deputy District Attorney William McCauley asked Superior Court Judge Renee Dupuis if they could post­pone sen­tenc­ing until Thursday because the vic­tim in the case, David Lafrance, was not at the cour­t­house. Both sides agreed to a June 7 sen­tenc­ing date.

In June 2019, Pessoa was indict­ed on 15 counts for alleged­ly assault­ing four men in sep­a­rate inci­dents, all while they were in cus­tody. One case was dis­missed, and Dupuis ordered that the remain­ing cas­es be sep­a­rat­ed. This is the first of three tri­als he will face. After the ver­dict, Bristol County District Attorney Thomas Quinn III said, “The evi­dence showed that Mr. Pessoa crossed the line in his behav­ior that night and he and oth­er offi­cers par­tic­i­pat­ed in a cov­er-up to con­ceal what happened.
All evi­dence is impor­tant, but the video­tape is sig­nif­i­cant because with­out the video­tape, there would have been no case.” Quinn said his office will be pur­su­ing the two oth­er pend­ing cases.
Quinn, after the ver­dict, called it a “somber moment.” “Because a major­i­ty of police offi­cers are serv­ing their com­mu­ni­ty and try to pro­tect them when they do with­in an appro­pri­ate way. He had to be held account­able based on the evi­dence, but it’s still not a reflec­tion on the vast major­i­ty of police offi­cers.” Fall River Police Chief Paul Gauvin said the Pessoa ver­dict is “cer­tain­ly a sad day in the depart­men­t’s his­to­ry.” “But I think it’s impor­tant to note that the Fall River Police Department inves­ti­gat­ed this mat­ter inter­nal­ly, lead­ing to his ter­mi­na­tion. We inves­ti­gat­ed this mat­ter crim­i­nal­ly and assist­ed through all phas­es of the pros­e­cu­tion,” said Gauvin. Despite the fact that the pros­e­cu­tion of Pessoa is over in this case, “we need to move for­ward and con­tin­ue the all-impor­tant work of regain­ing trust and con­fi­dence of this com­mu­ni­ty and restor­ing pride, dig­ni­ty and hon­or of the Fall River Police Department.”

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This arti­cle orig­i­nal­ly appeared on The Herald News: Former Fall River cop found guilty in police bru­tal­i­ty case