-By Warner Todd Huston
A man who only hours before had served as the commencement speaker at San Jose State’s graduation ceremony was beaten by San Diego police after he questioned how they were treating a companion and the whole incident was caught on video.
Nathaniel Howard, a 23-year-old motivational speaker, confronted police who were issuing a citation to his friend who they caught urinating on the sidewalk.
As witnesses screamed in shock, police grabbed Howard throwing him to the ground beating him with batons.
“My hands are forced behind my back,” Howard told San Diego’s KGTV. “They throw me on the ground, pick me up, throw me on the ground again, hit me with a baton.”
Strangely, after being so roughly handled, carted in to the station, and thrown in a cell, not long afterward Howard was released with no charges filed. In fact, no paperwork at all was filed.
“To be beaten like that, handcuffed, taken and put in a cell, bruised badly and then released with no communication, no charges, no police report anything,” Howard said.
“I’m not against cops. I’m not against the police. What I really do want to say is if you do have a couple bad cops it represents the whole system,” the motivational speaker said.
Howard wants the San Diego PD to reassess their rules on the use of force as well as issue an apology.
The entire incident was caught on video made from across the street by a bystander.
With the growth of video in the hands of nearly everyone, evidence of police overreacting like this frequently shows up online. These videos often go viral bringing criticism upon police everywhere. Such videos are so frequent that fears of a police state are becoming common even among those who are usually supportive of the police.
A recent piece at the National Review Online by A. J. Delgado, for instance, warns that it is time for conservatives to “stop defending police.”
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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