The Beating of Kelly Thomas

From the video, I see an officer being very unclear about what he expects Kelly Thomas to do…

“Put your feet out in front of you…put your knees back…put your feet out in front…put your knees back…”

This while the entire time he’s putting gloves on like he’s suiting up for a fight. Then, he punches Kelly in the face. What grown man is going to sit there and take that? It’s like being put on a stove and told to sit there while they turn the heat up on you. They expect you to take whatever they dish out to you, pain and all. Resist and they start beating you with batons.

They were telling him to put his hands behind his back. But, I could see him holding himself up so that his face wouldn’t hit the road. It’s natural! If he moves his arms, he hits the ground.

With their knees in his back, pushing and pulling his body in different directions, how do they expect him to do anything they are asking him to do?  Then, of course the posse comes running into help.  At one time, I think I counted six officers.

While several knees are in his back and several officers are holding his extremities, one officer is beating him relentlessly.  Another officer is tasing him just for fun.  He’s just shooting watts through Kelly like he’s a lab rat and the officer is getting to use his taser for the first time.

Toward the end of the video, listen hard. One officer is asking another officer, “What are we doing?”

The other officer’s answer, “I don’t know.”

It doesn’t appear at all throughout the video that the officers had a game plan other than to torture the man. It cannot possibly take that long to grab an arm and put it in handcuffs, then maneuver the other arm to cuff it. After a minute, you can have his feet in shackles too if you’re that insecure about it. But, I didn’t see any rhyme or reason to what they were doing and obviously they didn’t either.

Watch: