White Supremacy is Carried Out Through Violence: Dallas Police Terrorize & Batter Black Man Driving Home with 3 yr old daughter - suit filed
/From [HERE] and [HERE] A Black man is suing the city, and two Dallas Police Department officers, over an “unnecessary, unreasonable, excessive” 2012 arrest that he says culminated in several surgeries and a laundry list of medical problems. And he has dash-cam video he believes will help make his case.
George Pogue says in a federal suit filed Tuesday, which you can read below, that at around 10 p.m. on June 19 of last year, he was driving west on Fort Worth Avenue near N. Hampton Road with a friend in the front seat and his 3-year-old daughter in the back seat. According to the suit, officers Jason Arozamena and Louis Pacheco were heading the opposite direction when they “shined a spotlight on plaintiff’s vehicle, made a U-turn, and then followed the plaintiff.”
Pogue insists the officers took a long time to turn on their sirens and their lights as they followed him home. In the end, he says, the arrest warrant affidavit says the officers were going to pull him over for failing to use his signal during a lane change — though KTVT-Channel 11 says he was eventually stopped for having a broken headlight and because his daughter wasn’t properly restrained (how is the child visible? how is the headlight visible? Police came from the opposite direction and then turned around to stalk from behind so they should have immediately pulled him over for alleged headlight infraction -Bw).
Regardless of the charges, one thing is clear: As the video shows, once Pogue finally pulled into his driveway, the officers rushed his car with guns drawn. According to Channel 11′s Jack Fink and the lawsuit, it’s Arozamena seen in the video first pointing his gun to Pogue’s head, then using his Taser on Pogue once he gets out of the car and tries to walk away.
Pogue “fell to the ground on his right side back while feeling the effects of the Taser through his body, including his arms and legs,” says the suit. “Plaintiff initially thought that he had been shot by the officer’s gun as it previously drawn to this head. Plaintiff felt immense pain and began to pull the probes out of his skin to stop the pain.”
At that point, says the suit, Pacheco started to punch and kick the unarmed Pogue, who was tased a second time within 13 seconds by Arozamena. He was finally cuffed and taken to Dallas County Jail — but, Pogue says, not before the officers stopped at a 7-Eleven for a half-hour break during which they “could be observed eating food and talking on their cell phones during this time,” says the suit.
The suit also says Pogue was “concerned for his daughter’s well-being,” as she “had witnessed the attack from the back seat of the vehicle. According to Dallas Police Department documents, defendants had to calm plaintiff’s daughter down because she thought her daddy had been shot. Plaintiff could hear his daughter cry ‘Daddy, Daddy.’”
Nevertheless, Channel 11 got its hands on recordings from the officers’ disciplinary hearings, during which their superiors told both men they acted inappropriately; Jack Fink also reports that “Pacheco entered false information on the police report” and “Arozamena gave misleading statements during the internal investigation.” Both men were suspended for one day without pay.
Meanwhile, Pogue says he suffered myriad injuries stemming from his arrest — including, he says, two strokes.
Says the suit, Pogue will “show that the acts and omissions of the individual defendants in their individual capacities complained of herein were committed with malice or reckless indifference to the protected rights of the plaintiff.” It doesn’t specify how much he’s seeking in damages, but Channel 11 says it’s $750,000.