Cops punch, tase, handcuff man then smash his cell phone for recording brother’s arrest
By Madison Ruppert: Jefferson Parish, Louisiana Sheriff Deputies turned on Sean Warren last week simply for recording
the questionable treatment meted out to his brother, Casey Warren. The
police beat him, tased him, handcuffed him and smashed his cell phone after treating his brother in a nearly identical manner.
Unfortunately this is far from an isolated incident given that police across the country have been guilty of similar attempts to destroy evidence. Similarly, police have brutally beaten people simply for legally filming an arrest from the seeming safety of their own property.
Despite the phone being thrown to the ground after Sean Warren was
sucker punched by the deputies, Warren managed to recover the video
after taking his phone to a repair shop.
As Carlos Miller rightly points out, the recovered video (embedded
below) is quite dark and grainy, thus making it quite difficult to make
out exactly what is going on. However, “it does show deputies trying to
shove Casey Warren into the back of a patrol car.”
Witnessing the strange and likely disturbing incident, Sean Warren’s
fiancée called 911 in an attempt to get the New Orleans police to come
to the rescue.
The New Orleans police arrived, informed both Warren brothers they
were not being arrested and one officer even used his flashlight to
assist Sean Warren in locating his broken phone.
According to The New Orleans Times-Picayune, “The brothers and other witnesses say the Jefferson Parish deputies initially threw the spent Taser cartridges into a neighbor’s trash can, but retrieved them once New Orleans police arrived.”
New Orleans attorney Sonny Armond, who is both the stepfather and attorney of the Warren brothers, said that the police were actually trying to cover up evidence of their actions.
“They were clearly trying to manipulate the scene,” said Armond.
Around 12 hours after the initial incident, which occurred at roughly
12:30 am on the Crescent City Connection in Orleans Parish on Monday,
September 10, 2012, according to Armond, Casey Warran was arrested by
New Orleans police “on a Jefferson Parish warrant for reckless driving
and flight from an officer.”
The entire ordeal can be traced back to when Casey Warran was driving
with his brother and noticed that a brown Crown Victoria was following
him.
According to Armond, Warren slowed down and at one point came to a
complete stop in the right lane in an attempt to lose the unknown
vehicle.
A man in a white T-shirt and jeans then exited the Crown Victoria and
approached the brothers’ car with his gun drawn, according to Armond,
and he identified himself as a detective with Jefferson Parish.
However, due to the lack of sirens or any such traditional identifiers, Casey was frightened.
“No badge, never used lights, sirens or anything else,” said Armond.
“As soon as Casey saw the gun, he got a bad feeling and took off down
the bridge,” in the direction of their home.
Later the same plainclothes detective and four Jefferson Parish
sheriff’s deputies in uniform arrived at their home, according to
Armond.
Armond said that Casey answered the door in his boxers and when
police confirmed that he was behind the wheel on the bridge he was
dragged out of the house and threatened by two of the deputies.
According to Armond, Warren then asked the deputies why the New
Orleans police were not present at which point he was tased on the top
of his head.
“At no time did JPSO [Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office] request NOPD
[New Orleans Police Department] assistance or anything else,” said
Armond. “The deputies violated all protocol known to man. We understand
none of them reported leaving their post in patrol areas (in Jefferson
Parish).”
After Casey was handcuffed by deputies, Armond said that they beat
him in his kidneys and back and then tased him two more times in his
back before placing him in their patrol car.
Sean Warren only caught about 30 seconds of the scuffle on his cell phone before he was allegedly punched in the mouth and eventually handcuffed and tased twice in the back.
“After they tased me the first time, a deputy said, ‘Tase him
again,’” said Sean Warren. “I said, ‘Please don’t tase me. I’m not
resisting.’”
As Miller rightly points out, “The deputies were apparently out of
their jurisdiction, which is why New Orleans police eventually got
involved.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been notified of the incident
which left both of the brothers hospitalized but they have yet to
launch an official investigation into the events.
Unfortunately, if we can take the previous actions of the FBI as any
hint at what they might do here, it doesn’t look all too promising for
the Warren brothers.
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