Jury Sees What it Wants: Video Taped Beating & Kicking of Black Man by Battle Creek Police Not Enough to Convict

BATTLE CREEK (NEWSCHANNEL 3) – Officer Ryan Lapratt lost his job after an incident back in December. Tuesday a jury found him not guilty of assault and battery.

 African American community leaders are expressing their disappointment in the verdict and questioning whether justice has been done.

 The incident was caught on a police cruiser dash-cam in Battle Creek.

 Community leaders say the video speaks for itself and they say what happened to Dujuan Rose is assault. They're concerned that a Calhoun County jury disagreed.

 "We are deeply disturbed by the outcome of the case," said Marvin Austin. Austin says anyone who's seen the video should be able to see it's assault.

 It's a dash cam recording from last December when Battle Creek police officers Andrew Olsen and Ryan Lapratt pulled over Dujuan Rose. When Rose is already down on the ground Lapratt comes into frame kicking and punching.

 "We are clear the the evidence of that video showed an assault that night by the police officer," said Austin.

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Black Woman Alleges Nassau County Police Attacked her

Sitting with her attorney, grandmother and father, a Roosevelt woman recounted Thursday an early-morning beating she claimed she suffered in April from two Nassau County police officers.

 Jasmine Jackson, 22, and her attorney, Kenneth Mollins of Melville, filed a notice of claim Wednesday with the police department, saying they intend to file a lawsuit against the officers, Eric Sperling and Lt. Brian Fitzgerald.

 Jackson was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest outside her Grenada Avenue home on April 4. She has pleaded not guilty.

 She claims that before the arrest, the officers pulled her out of her car by her hair, threw her to the ground and repeatedly kicked her.

 "I couldn't believe this was happening," said Jackson, who is black. The officers are white.

 Jackson said she sought treatment at Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow for a bloody nose and bruises. An internal police investigation is under way.

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Small Incidents Are Creating a Big Problem With the N.Y.P.D.

The important thing to remember here is that this behavior, in neighborhoods where the majority of the residents are black and Hispanic, is often the norm. This is not unusual police behavior. There is a huge percentage of cops on patrol whose knee-jerk approach to policing is to treat all young blacks and Hispanics as potential criminals.

All high-ranking public officials in the city are aware of what is going on. I asked a black official, who asked not to be identified, why more minority officeholders aren't objecting publicly to the way minority youth are treated by the police. He said no one wants to be responsible for challenging the cops and then being blamed if crime statistics start to go back up.

The two individuals most responsible for this sorry state of affairs are Mayor Michael Bloomberg (pictured above) and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. All it would take is a directive from them to bring the ugly harassment under control.

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Poisonous NYC Police Behavior

You most likely have no idea of the abusive treatment that students and teachers at many of New York City's public schools are enduring at the hands of overly aggressive police officers and security aides assigned to the schools.

Students are being belittled, shouted at, cursed at, intrusively searched and improperly touched by cops and security aides who answer to the Police Department, not school authorities. In many cases, the students are roughed up, handcuffed, arrested and taken off to jail for behavior that does not even begin to approach the criminal. Teachers and administrators who have attempted to intervene on the behalf of students have themselves been abused, and in some cases arrested.

This poisonous police behavior is an extension into the schools of the humiliating treatment cops have long been doling out to youngsters -- especially those who are black or Latino -- on the city's streets.

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