The facts are horrific. Video capture the brutal attack on the side of a busy street. Onlookers and passerby don't come to the victims aid. Eventually, the bruised, bleeding, half-dead body is attended to by medical personal, but it is too late. The victim dies.
No, I am not talking about the tragic hit and run of a two year-old Chinese girl -- I am writing about the death of Kelly Thomas of Fullerton, California.
Kelly Thomas, a 37-year-old mentally ill homeless man, was brutally beaten by six Fullerton police officers on July 5. Yes, on-duty police. They then tried to cover up the murder. Thomas was beloved, not abandoned, but mental illness kept him on the streets.
Kelly's beating at a bus stop was done in public. No one came to his aid. Cars and passersby watched. The investigators interviewed 151 witnesses -- yes, that is 151 people stared, watched and did nothing -- viewed seven surveillance videos and two videos recorded by witnesses on their cellphones. In addition, a recording device attached to the leader of the assualt, which all Fullerton officers wear, recorded the murder in vivid detail. Two officers are being charged with his death, four others that took part have not.
Ron Thomas, Kelly's father, is waging a relentless battle to raise awareness about Kelly's murder, the police cover-up and ultimately about the fate of the mentally ill on our streets. And it's working. Residents of Fullerton are taking their city council to task and the FBI is now investigating the crime. Fullerton just set up a task force in the wake of the murder to look for ways to improve the plight of the homeless in Fullerton.
Paul Orloff, a Fullerton resident, has launched a Change.org campaign to bring the four Fullerton police officers who have yet to be charged in the Kelly Thomas murder case to justice. In just a few days, more that 14,000 people signed a petition for justice in the murder of Kelly Thomas.
While the world gasped in horror at the death of the Chinese girl, in America we walk by the legions of homeless who lie motionless on the side of the street every day.
We are numb to the facts: hundreds of thousands of them call the streets their home every night. They sleep over subway grates, in alleyways and doorways. As the economy worsens, the numbers on the streets are increasing.
Those who call the street home are mostly ignored as if they do not exist. From time to time a passerby will show compassion, offering food, money, a kind word. Yet, most of us find ways to harden our hearts to their plight. We dismiss them as junkies, bums, beggars, or mentally-ill. Cities create laws to banish them from our sight. Yet, each homeless person, no matter their mental, physical or hygienic condition, is a human being endowed with the same soul as anyone else.
In addition to their plight living on the streets of America, literally under our feet, the homeless are also targets of random murders across the country. Kelly Thomas's murder is just the latest to make the papers. Just in the last week, these cases made the news:
On October 23rd, Allen Harrell Hunter, from West Palm Beach man was arrested for the 2008 murder of a homeless man David Roland Ulmer.
On October 19th, in Butte, Montanta, Shane Hans, 35, was charged with deliberate homicide in the killing of a homeless man, Teddy James Hildebrant.
On October 13th, Casey Daniel Brown was sentenced by Sacramento County Superior Court for the second-degree murder of 68-year-old Bernice Nickson, a homeless woman who approached him at a bus stop.
Why are homeless people targeted for such random killing? Often because they are regarded them as less than human, murderers wrongly believed no one would miss these creatures of the streets. Some of the murderers have ready admitted that they calculated that no one would miss these people.
Kelly Thomas's tragic life and death are causing one city to move forward and continue the soul-searching needed to work on the issue of homeless on their streets. Hopefully it will not take more grizzly videos of a homless person being bludgeoned, run-over, or stabbed and left to die by the side of the road for America to start taking notice.
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Update on Kelly Thomas murder | Cop Block
Six Officers Suspended After Murder Of Homeless - Care2
On March 9, 2011 several Police brutally ordered a K-9 to attack an unarmed, California Registered (RN). The California Highway Patrol (CHP) in Orange County then attempted to cover up the incident.
Malik King, a reportedly Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN) since nineteen and RN since twenty three, is said to have initially attempted to steal a car. Later, it was found he was the owner of that Mercedes. What ensued next on the part of several officers goes well beyond the bounds of simply trying to subdue their suspect.
The several police officers ordered a police K-9 to attack him while he was still fastened in his seat-belt; tasered multiple times while the K-9 attacked for over one minute and thirty seconds, then hand cuffed, slammed to the concrete, hog tied, beat and kicked in the head until unconscious. He was then taken to jail, accused of multiple felonies, and had to pay $50,000 for bail.
The beating of Mr. King is sickening and disturbing. The police involved in the beating and cover up must be brought to justice. Tell Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas to thoroughly investigate and prosecute the officers involved in the brutality of Malik A. King,LVN,RN.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/196/722/705/
Respectfully,
Malik King,LVN,RN
THE JABBERWOCK... Radical Reconstruct... By Illustrated by Ca... Book Preview
Why should a uniform or a stinking badge allow cops to do anything they want, including murder while the citizenry stand by horrified but afraid to act? Where are the guts qanymore? Where is the willingness to step in and stop a moral outrage? If the cops took a knife and began stabbing someone would the public ignore it? What CAN'T a cop do anymore ? Dear God people, cops are just people, granted most are amoral and violent, but they are not above justice on the spot if they shock the conscience...if the public CAN stop police murder and brutality we should...someday I swear if this crap doesn't stop the people are going to have to rise up and take care of these killer cops ourselves...I promise you that would get their attention.
RIP kelly.
But like every group of people there are some bad apples in every bunch and they need to be removed before they ruin the whole bunch!
Hard issues, difficult questions, no good answers...tragic.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." C.S. Lewis
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