The State Protects Its Own
It is simply appalling that the officer in this video was acquitted by a judge of assault. It is clear from the video that he punched a woman who did absolutely nothing wrong (he thought she was the one who had thrown the liquid at him in the early frames). But even if she had been absolutely guilty of splashing him with a few drops of beer, his reaction is STILL assault.
This quote is particularly amazing:
Josey testified that the woman refused to drop a bottle of beer she had been holding. He said that he went to knock the bottle from her hand and was “shocked” to see her go down when his hand hit her face. She was originally charged with disorderly conduct but the charges were later dropped.
This is an outright lie. Watch the video. There is absolutely no time for the officer to have ordered the woman to have dropped the beer. Nor would that have been a legal order. Nor is there any evidence of him waiting for her response. He was pissed off that someone "dissed" him and he lashed out like a violent jerk in a biker bar.
I shudder to think how many people in the past were prosecuted and went to jail on the BS word of police officers. Without video, this woman probably would have been successfully prosecuted and convicted. Even with video, the police officer can't be successfully prosecuted. Though I must give Philly a few point here -- a lot of jurisdictions would not have even prosecuted or fired him.