Summary
The Oklahoma City Police Department faces backlash after body-camera footage showed Officer Joseph Gibson forcefully throwing 71-year-old Lich Vu to the ground during a traffic stop on October 27.
Vu, who has bone cancer, reportedly suffered a brain bleed requiring surgery and remains hospitalized.
The incident began with a language-barrier dispute over a U-turn citation. Vu’s family and local Vietnamese American leaders have condemned the officer’s actions, calling for his termination.
Police placed Gibson on administrative leave, pledging a thorough investigation into the incident.
Yes, they are protected by “qualified immunity,” a supreme court invention that says that cops cannot be individually prosectuted when engaged in reasonable, legal acts. It also has a fun carve out that says that cops can do brutally, blatently wrong things as long as they don’t “clearly” know they were wrong, I.e no one had been sued or arrested for doing that literal, specific thing.
Its a shit ruling, and why cops in the US are so brutal. Literally no personal consequences for their actions.
This cop was clearly agitated and took a simple, non threatening “shush” gesture as a reason to brutalize a 71 old, non violent man. He will not likely not be fired, but also won’t face a lick of jail time for assualt. The likely soon to be dead mans family, who will lose their relative specically because of his actions, will make some number of millions in a few years from a lawsuit from the city that will admit no fault. The cop will go on brutalizing and murdering others needlessly.
Thats the norm for this, and Trump has promises to let cops get away with it more often.
Ah yes. This.
Thank you. I forgot about that bullshit ruling.