Angela Garbarino was arrested on a DWI charge and demanded to seek legal counsel. Instead of providing her the opportunity to speak with an attorney, she was beaten up and left in a pool of blood. The arresting officer states she “fell accidentally.” Yet another fine example of abuse from power-hungry police.
The officer clearly knew his intentions when he turned off the surveillance camera, then when it was turned back on, she was lying on the ground face up with a pool of blood next to her. Sixteen minutes later paramedics arrive to provide medical attention.
The officer was fired but is seeking reinstatement. The question is “why?” … so he can beat more suspects, draw more blood, exert out his insecurities?
In this situation, it would be reasonable to ask her to sit down and wait patiently and then provide her a telephone or put her in 24hr lockup until she controlled her behavior. Sure she was rather loud and partially resisting, but she was already handcuffed, already in the station — what more do they need? I agree that there was opportunity for her to better handle the situation, but a lot more opportunity for the officer who is expected to rationally handle these situations.
This paints a pretty bad picture for a lot of upstanding police officers. They aren’t all bad, but the ones who have anger management issues, are trigger-happy and pride themselves on beating a suspect senseless are the ones to blame. I know several police officers and they have a very strong moral fiber to their character and it displays in their law enforcement duties.
I hope her attorney can sue the the living daylights out of this police department and make it a precedent for police brutality. Luckily, I haven’t been incarcerated, so I don’t know about the “booking” process, but I don’t think refusing an attorney is one of them.
