LA Times – by Diana Marcum, Paul Pringle and Richard Winton
BAKERSFIELD — The FBI launched an investigation Tuesday into the death of a man who was beaten by authorities amid questions over whether officials tampered with cellphone videos confiscated from witnesses.
Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said he asked the FBI to get involved after learning that one of two phones seized from witnesses had no footage on it.
Two witnesses told The Times that they watched the videos on each of the phones last week in the wake of David Silva’s death. The case is generating widespread attention because several witnesses have come forward to say deputies ruthlessly beat Silva with batons on the head, even after he was motionless on the ground.
“Our credibility is at stake here,” Youngblood said in an interview. He did not dispute the witnesses’ accounts about the videos but said he would not draw any conclusions until the investigations were complete.
The phones were flown to the FBI’s Sacramento office Tuesday for analysis.
Youngblood said he asked the federal agency to conduct a parallel investigation into Silva’s death, a move he described as unprecedented for his department. The FBI said it had agreed to launch an inquiry and emphasized that it would be independent of the sheriff’s own work.
It appears several videos captured parts of the incident. Last week, KERO-TV broadcast grainy footage from a security camera. The Times on Tuesday reviewed a security video provided by a source, which showed blurry images of figures swinging batons or sticks at a man on the ground.
Youngblood said the Bakersfield Police Department found a video on one of the phones; he asked the department to do the analysis to avoid a conflict of interest. He declined to elaborate on the length or condition of the video, but confirmed that it shows baton blows.
“I have seen the video,” said Youngblood at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. “I cannot speculate whether they acted appropriately or not just by looking at the video.”
“Baton strikes were used but what I don’t know is how many and where they were on the body and if they caused significant injury that caused death,” he added.
Youngblood said the sergeant and six deputies at the scene of the beating had been placed on paid administrative leave, in part because they had received emailed threats.
In interviews Tuesday, the two witnesses insisted that the videos on both phones — each several minutes long — clearly captured deputies repeatedly striking Silva with batons.
“They must have gotten rid of one of the videos,” said Melissa Quair, 31, who told of seeing deputies pummel and kick Silva after confronting him across the street from Kern Medical Center in East Bakersfield. Quair and several relatives and friends were at the hospital because a family member had been in a car crash.
Quair said a phone video shot by her mother showed a deputy trying to block her view of the beating. “She went around him and told him, ‘I’m still recording,’ ” Quair said.
Laura Vasquez, 26, a friend of the Quair family, said she also watched both videos — the other shot by a friend of Melissa Quair — and they vividly depicted the violence she witnessed.
Echoing the account of two other people interviewed, Vasquez said the first two deputies at the scene woke Silva, who was sleeping in front of a house, and ordered him not to move. When Silva sat up, looking confused or scared, a deputy hit him in the head, Vasquez said.
“He fell back and then the other officer got out and swung toward his head,” she said. “Mr. Silva was reaching for his head and the officers said ‘stop moving’ and ‘stop resisting.’ He wasn’t resisting. … He rolled on his back and they kept hitting.”
More deputies and two California Highway Patrol officers arrived at the location. Vasquez said the deputies hogtied Silva, lifted him off the ground and dropped him twice, and delivered more baton blows and kicks to his head and body until he went limp.
“He was screaming for help. He was laying on his chest. The cops were still on top of him, still hitting him. My family and I screamed at them to stop hitting him.… The blood was all over Mr. Silva’s face. We couldn’t even tell if he had eyes or a mouth.”
Vasquez said her girlfriend yelled, ” ‘Somebody call the cops,’ and everybody looked at her and said, ‘They ARE the cops.’ ”
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-kern-beating-fbi-20130515,0,678364.story
Just the eyewitness testimony proves this was nothing more than cold murder. Why these bastards haven’t been fired and thrown into a federal prison is beyond me.
FBI: “Why weren’t we called? We want to beat people to death too.”
To stop things like this in the future, I urge people to install an app like Qik on their smartphones. It’s free. Then, while they’re filming, the evidence is uploading in realtime to the cloud AND optionally staying on the phone. Let the local police try to tamper with something you’ve already shared with all your friends. Better yet, let them take the phone and think they deleted the video.
Then see their faces when you show them the same video later, in front of their boss.
Disclaimer: I have no financial interest in Qik, and there are other apps that also do this.
Hey Joe, I have an idea. Next time, why don’t you take your phone and shove it down the cops throat and then beat the shit out of him, instead of standing there like an idiot videotaping it, while some helpless guy is dying right in front of you.
Tell me again, how video-taping will help a dying man AFTER he is dead and beaten to death. Is that what you would want someone to do for you when you are being beaten to death by 9 cops? I think you would be shouting, “Don’t just stand there with your damn phone. HELP ME, YOU STUPID FOOL!!!”
Stop being a passive coward and start taking action!
The idea is to help the guy and prevent the him from dying. Not video taping him. The cops will just take your phone and have the courts dismiss the video recording whether it was on the Internet or on your phone since they DON’T CARE and are in on it anyways. WE HAVE NO COURTS!!! Get it through your thick heads, people!!
FIGHT BACK! FIGHT BACK! FIGHT BACK!!!! It’s the ONLY way!
You’re goddamn right.
So…don’t video record, so you don’t have evidence, so you’re thrown in jail, life ruined, the person you didn’t record being murdered is still dead, and because you have no evidence, means of public disclosure, there is no hope preventing future incidents.
Good job.
It’s not true that the courts/judges, and/or prosecutors, or even cops are all the same — bad cops want you to think that, but when it gets to court, they’re often singing a different tune (especially with a good defense attorney) as they face their rude awakening. Cops get denied by judges all the time.
I agree you should help someone if possible, but it’s more likely you’re gonna get your ass kicked, or shot and killed, or thrown in jail, and achieve less than nothing to deter future incidents.
No doubt they’re talking about an anal probe.
Sorry, couldn’t resist that one. I think I better delete.
Criminals with badges should be treated just like an invading army – shot down like rabid dogs. The many ‘good cops’ had better wake up and take action against these ‘criminals’ before the Public looses complete trust in Police Departments.