Philly Cops Fired After Videotaped Beating

Police Department Says 4 Officers Will Be Fired, 4 Others Disciplined For Roles In Incident

(AP)  Four officers will be fired and four others disciplined for their roles in the beating of three shooting suspects, an encounter that was caught on videotape.

The police department made the disciplinary decisions after reviewing frames from enhanced tape of a video shot by a television news helicopter on May 5, Commissioner Charles Ramsey said Monday.

A total of 19 officers - 18 city police and one transit officer - were involved in the apprehension of the three suspects.

Two of the officers are relatively new to the force and can be terminated immediately, Ramsey said. Two others are being suspended without pay for 30 days with intent to dismiss.

Three other officers are being suspended and one sergeant is being demoted.

The video, shot by WTXF-TV, shows the suspects being pulled from their car on the side of the road and groups of officers kicking, punching and beating the men.

Police said they had been pursuing the car in connection with a triple shooting. The three men - Brian Hall, 23, Pete Hopkins, 19, and Dwayne Dyches, 24, all of Philadelphia - have been charged with attempted murder and related counts stemming from the shooting. Their attorneys have said they had nothing to do with it.

One of Dyches' attorneys said he suffered a welt on his head the size of a baseball and that one of his legs was seriously injured.

The beating occurred at the same time police were conducting an intense manhunt for a suspect in the slaying of Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski, but Ramsey said Monday that there was indication that any of the officers thought the suspect was among the three men in the car.

[observer2020]

thgdriver and scnitelife, I SO agree with you. I live near where this happened and all the cops ARE just plain gang members. Cops can do no wrong. Even when they are caught on tape by a news chopper. Where are the charges against these guys for assault and battery? Just firing only 4 of them and slapping the other on the wrists, condones these actions. Anyone else would be in jail with all sorts of charges against them. I wouldn''t waste the spit either on any of these slimes.

[thgdriver]

Remember all the bullies in school? Want to locate them now? Go to your nearest police department. The only difference now is that they have guns, badges, lots of others with the same mind set in the same large club.

This incident was taped, thousands of other Police beatings/brutality go undocumented.

[scnitelife]

Police are paid gang members, theres not a single cop that can do anything at all without another 8 cops backing him up and just like alot of street gangs they lie and cover up for one another and they kill and abuse and bully anyone who isn''t one of them. Police, all of them, deserve nothing but contempt from the public they daily abuse. They deserve only to be spit on but i personally wouldn''t waste the saliva.

[dinkydog1]

Big mistake to fire these guys. These guys put their lives on the line every day. All they were doing was trying to control the situation and apprehend dangerous criminals. Posted by jackie0428

19 men kicking and hitting a subdued man lieing face down on the ground is not "trying to controll a situation and apprehend a criminal" it''s cowardly and disgusting. None of these cops knew for certain that these men were guilty and even if they did they had no excuse or authority to carry out punishment. If "putting thier lives on the line every day" gives them an excuse for this type of behavior I wonder, statisticly thier job is not really that dangerous so do loggers or farmer with a more dangerous job get to beat people? Allowing police a lower standard of behavior than ordinary people is neaver a good idea.

[honestabe8]

Why not put them in jail? If they were pipefitters instead of cops, they would not get off this easily.

[nishaboston]

Yes they put their lives on the line and that is respect, but they went too far and they should be treated like any other criminals who beat people like this.

jackie0428 wrote:

"These guys put their lives on the line every day."

Yeah, they do, but it doesn''t mean they can beat the cr@p out of people or break the law themselves.

The fact is that they should know better - and if they don''t, then they shouldn''t be in the police force.

[brianbwb-2009]

"These guys put their lives on the line every day." Posted by jackie0428

Jingoistic BS.

The truth is that they also put innocent people''s lives on the line with such fascist tactics, and since they do control the drug, prostitution, gambling, and other illicit trades in all major cities, even the few "good cops" won''t "snitch" on their buddies, making them no better, or worse, than any criminal organization.

The police should be disbanded, and their function should become part of the US military, where at least there is a chain of command that can be held responsible when violations of law occur.

[brianbwb-2009]

"BrianBWB, with your logic, you would have been deported years ago. Since there was enough evidence for me to determine that YOU are an as*shole and a traitor, then there should be enough evidence for the State Dept to kick your worthless scum a*ss out, right?" Posted by jackie0428

Well, since I was born in Highland Park, Michigan to the descendant of African slaves and to a full blood Cherokee, there is enough evidence to show that you assume without adequate knowledge, and are therefore as much a fool as your post would suggest.

[brianbwb-2009]

Posted by michaelt302

Once again, you are out there in kkk heaven. The ethnicity of the victims is irrelevant, they have not been proven to be the "bad guys", that part is only your assertion, and one you probably wouldn''t be so quick to make had the victims indeed been "White".


The beating went beyond apprehension, it is not the purview of the police to judge and punish, but to apprehend and deliver lawbreakers to due process. Innocent until proven guilty, remember?

No matter if the victims were "White" what that tape shows is a wanton violation of civil and criminal law by the police.