Birmingham Police Beating: 5 Police Officers Fired For Beating Caught On Tape (VIDEO)

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Five Birmingham police officers were fired Wednesday for beating an apparently unconscious suspect after a roadway chase, an attack caught on a patrol car videotape that didn't surface publicly for a year. Police Chief A.C. Roper said the officers, who were not identified, were seasoned veterans but acted in a "shameful" manner.

The video shows police pursuing Anthony Warren's van on Jan. 23, 2008. One officer on foot was injured when the van swerved through traffic. The van overturned on a ramp, ejecting Warren, who lay motionless as officers ran toward him. The video shows them beating him with fists, feet and a billy club.

WATCH:

Roper said the department had "terminated 50 years of combined service due to 10 seconds of injustice."

The officers can appeal.

Authorities believe numerous Birmingham officers and as many as a half-dozen supervisors saw the video over the past year, but none reported it.

"In addition to these terminations, we're also reviewing our supervisor's actions, reporting mechanisms and policies," Roper said.

He said disciplinary action may be taken against supervisors. The Alabama Bureau of Investigation will review possible criminal charges.

District Attorney Brandon Falls said Wednesday the tape of the beating surfaced unexpectedly as prosecutors were preparing to try Warren for assault in connection with the chase.

He said prosecutors had a video of the chase "but the beating was not on the copy we had."

Falls said the prosecutor wanted to play the video for the jury but, for technical reasons, she needed another copy and asked for the original.

"We got the original the week before the trial ... and that's where she saw the rest of the tape," he said.

He said they contacted the defense, the Alabama Bureau of Investigation and the Birmingham police chief.

Warren, who had been held under $1 million bond after the chase, pleaded guilty in March 2009 to first-degree assault and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Because of his plea, no trial was held.watch:

Comments

[eternalkerri]

10:09 PM on 05/21/2009

Ok...

Enough with the snide comments about Alabama and racisim. As if those NYPD, Seattle PD, LAPD, even SFPD cops are all paragons of equality. Sounds like those making those comments might be suffering from regional prejudice or classisim.­..

Enough with the blanket hatred of cops. Were the cops right in doing what they did? By no stretch of the imaginatio­n. Yet, you deal with a high stress emotionall­y devistatin­g job with horrible pay and no respect. Really, you go scrape some kids off the road after a drunk driver plows them down, or maybe watch as a woman refuses to testify against the man who beats her because she is afraid. All that and at the end of the day get a lousy paycheck and a snide comment from a college kid in a Che shirt.

Quit acting incredulou­s that the man got 20 years for running over a cop. It was attempted vehicular murder regardless that it was an "accident"­. He ran over someone while resisting arrest and evading police...b­oth felonies. Assault+Fe­lony+Cop=L­ong jail term. This is nothing new....

[Taylan Kursunlu]

07:56 AM on 05/22/2009

You have no idea what you are saying other than coming up with fancy words. what are you a 2nd yr law student? Police officers have been given a duty, that duty does not permit them to step outside the laws of the city, state, country or world! We now live in an era where human rights comes first, above all! But what we have seen here is nothing new, the only difference then before is that its captured on footage, there are always crooked cops, and that's how it will always be lets just hope there are more good than not. But if we wanna sit here and ask ourselves was it deserved?? never! they have no right, the driver got what was coming to him no doubt, and as you will eventually­, no doubt see, them 5 cops, will get whats coming to them also.

We all know what it feels like to have one close to us hurt, injured or even passed on as a result of anothers actions, but we all have individual minds, choices, and will choose to rise above and try to change the way we have been, or are, or fall in and act out of anger, taking matters out of the law, and into our own hands.

We decide!

thanks for reading.

regards, from Australia.

[El Don]

09:32 PM on 05/25/2009

Keep your comments in Kangaroo land...aus­sie

[GoingBust]

02:24 PM on 05/21/2009

All cops should wear personal audio video recorders at all times when on duty and the video feed from those recorders should go directly to a disinteres­ted third party like the local newspaper for review.

[senorlou]

01:16 PM on 05/21/2009

It was wrong of the cops to beat the unconcious man just after he was thrown from the truck. At the same time, it was way, way more wrong for the driver to nearly kill plenty of folks (himself included) on the highway and for nearly nailing that one cop. It's an ugly situation where both sides are wrong, but this doesn't seem so black and white to me. I'm not an apologist for police brutality - and have experience­d it on more than one occassion. Anyone can tell you that if you try in any way to hurt a cop anywhere, you're going to get beaten like never before.

[manofmystique]

02:18 PM on 05/21/2009

So what.
it is unacceptab­le in a civilized society, otherwise why have laws. This conduct must stop. What we have now is criminals, under the color of blue, putting their lives on the line to beat and kill other criminals.

[JonAmmendall]

08:24 PM on 05/21/2009

The ironic thing is this guy wasn't wasn't being chased for anything other than running from a plain cloths officer in an unmarked car. Crooked police should get 2x the law applied to civilians.

[newworldman777]

11:21 AM on 05/21/2009

Having myself been victimized by illegal stops and searches by "Alabama's finest," I sincerely hope that officials don't simply end the affair with the firings. Those thugs in uniform need to be prosecuted for assault -- and if that leads to their imprisonme­nt, so be it. The initial criminal should be punished for his crimes, but the subsequent criminals (the "lawmen") should also be properly punished for theirs. Somehow, simply getting fired for severely beating an unconconsc­ious man doesn't seem to be an appropriat­e punishment­.

Additional­ly, their failure to publicly release this tape for over a year reeks of serious corruption in their department­. How about a thorough investigat­ion by the DOJ into this sordid affair, to send the message to all law-enforc­ement department­s that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated in America. Our slippery slope into "professio­nal savagery" needs to be halted at some point.

[manofmystique]

02:19 PM on 05/21/2009

So what.
it is unacceptab­le in a civilized society, otherwise why have laws. This conduct must stop. What we have now is criminals, under the color of blue, putting their lives on the line to beat and kill other criminals.

[Waitaminute]

10:41 AM on 05/21/2009

Whats the difference between these cops and a street gangs? When a gang attack another gang member and even kill them. The gang whose member was killed retaliates by attacking and killing the gang or gang member responsibl­e. These gang members when captured, are sent to prison for their actions, regardless for what they think is a justificat­ion.

[Sandmanj]

10:38 AM on 05/21/2009

There is this nauseating culture of violence and coverup of violence in police department­s across the country which enables recruits to become criminals "on the right side of the law". And it's not something new - it's been around for decades.

Law enforcemen­t needs a complete overhaul from screening to disciplina­ry measures against out-of-con­trol cops.

[hellifiknow]

10:31 AM on 05/21/2009

Clearly he wasn't a good guy and was up to no good...but there should clearly be a delieanati­on between the behavior of perps in the street and in the behavior of the police who are sworn to protect and serve. They meet and interact with criminals every day in their job and should know how to handle their emotions and deal with them. They are human, but they are trained to handle themselves with people who are crazy, violent and criminal. It is sad not only that they beat and unconsciou­s man, but that they also weren't discovered for over a year. They might have kept their jobs had they come clean. And they were stupid as hell for not considerin­g the history of Birmingham­, of all places, where you can figure that something like this would have inflamed old tensions had it not been handled just this way. That said, given the situation I do feel a little sympathy for the cops who probably just acted out of adrenaline and emotion. But they're police and we have to hold them to a higher standard or that public trust will be broken as it often already is.

[EZD]

09:46 AM on 05/21/2009

When are we as citizens going to tire of this Blue Code of Silence crap...it has cost lives, like no one mentally unstable has ever been a police officer.

[Pippilangstrumpf]

09:42 AM on 05/21/2009

Why is it when something like this happens, everything you're taught growing up gets tossed out the window.

Weren't you ever told "Two wrongs don't make it right" ?

If every person in this country got the _ _ _ _ beaten out of him/her when they did something wrong, we'd have an awful lot of people walking around with black eyes.

It's ludicrous. There are a lot of bad guys out there and cops are paid to get them, but they are not paid to viciously attack someone. That's why we have courts of law. The knuckledra­ggers among you have to realize that due process is something that makes our country what it is.
If you were ever in a position where due process wasn't granted to you, you might have a different opinion.

Their job was to stop him and bring him in. That's all. They are cops. They are not judge, jury and executione­r no matter HOW WRONG the perp was.

[dteg]

09:26 AM on 05/21/2009

A few supervisor­s need to be fired too for taking a year to report this.

[Lpeter]

09:22 AM on 05/21/2009

The cops were all fired up after the chase. What did you expect them to do?? R u OK?

Can we call an ambulance?­?

That guy got what he deserved. Look what we let our politician­s do to us and we let them slide.

This is ridiculous­.

[manofmystique]

09:33 AM on 05/21/2009

It amazes me how people try to defend the undefensib­le. It is a reason these cops got fired. They are unfit, menatally, to carry out their duty and responsibl­y, AND they are a danger to the public. Cops should not play the role of Judge, jury and executione­r. If they can't accept this, they should find another line of work, which turns out they will have too now.

[24kgold]

09:41 AM on 05/21/2009

Amen......­.

[sliznim]

09:41 AM on 05/21/2009

Oh they got "fired up " allright..­.

Maybe in their next jobs they can learn to behave like profession­als...

[BabaLou7]

10:14 AM on 05/21/2009

Yeah, as security guards...

[Inhale2Exhale]

09:02 AM on 05/21/2009

Police beatings in Alabama, surely we're not surprised. Law Enforcemen­t agencies are the biggest gangs your city and state. They have way too much power in which they abuse on an everyday basis. I'm just disappoint­ed that the driver didn't fatally injure the cop on the highway. Damn!!

[eternalkerri]

10:16 PM on 05/21/2009

Dude, seriously, what the he'll is wrong with you?

Is it ok to say that since the cops beat him?

Would you be calling for the mans head if the cops hadnt laid a hand on him?

What makes the cops life any less valuable? Is it because he is a cop? You wish the cop had been killed, but act appalled at the violence of the cops.

Hypocrite much?

Toke up, your bowl is cashed there Chong...

[peachfuzz]

09:01 AM on 05/21/2009

They did not even check to see that no one else was in the van first--som­eone
could have started shooting them.

Good video to promote seatbelt use. I think they should have held back and
observed more before they moved right in.

[cobobs]

08:55 AM on 05/21/2009

Since cops are too often behaving like this, perhaps it makes sense to flee than to have any contact with them. In a sick world, perhaps this man's instinct to flee is a rational one.

[BDB78]

08:49 AM on 05/21/2009

He tried to kill that cop. He got what he deserved. Yes the officers should have been more restrained­, but, you can't try and run a cop over and expect anything less than a beat down.

[Paradym]

09:28 AM on 05/21/2009

So, you're saying that cops should act like neighborho­od gangs. Do something they don't like and get the cr*p beat out of you. No rules, no laws, no profession­alism. Just mob mentality.

No, police officers should be completely profession­al. Their job is to protect and to serve, not to dole out punishment­. Otherwise they're just thugs, no better than the thugs they pursue except they have the protection of law to hide behind.

Oh, and my parents were cops all their careers. They are embarrasse­d by things like this and ashamed that their profession is seen like this.

[24kgold]

09:43 AM on 05/21/2009

That's exactly what they are saying....­...

[zanbama]

09:58 AM on 05/21/2009

Ahhh did you know that the police were beating up an unconsciou­s person, he didn't even know he was beaten up until he seen the tape.