Free Thought Project – by Matt Agorist
Honolulu, HI — This week, a sadistic Honolulu cop pleaded guilty to forcing a homeless man to lick a public urinal to avoid being kidnapped and thrown in a cage. What this case illustrates is the power-tripping barbarous behavior of many men and women who claim to ‘protect and serve.’
The incident unfolded earlier this year when Honolulu police officer John Rabago and another officer responded to a nuisance complaint of a homeless man in a public bathroom. When officers arrived on scene, they found the homeless man in a stall.
When police began questioning him, he refused to cooperate and then gave officers a fake name, according to police. Rabago explained in court on Monday that the homeless man told he and his partner that he “would do anything not to get arrested.” That’s when this cop’s sadistic gears in his head started grinding.
For his sadistic actions, Rabago would be charged earlier this year with one count of conspiring to deprive a person of his civil rights and another count of acting under color of law to deprive that person of his civil rights.
Despite initially pleading not guilty, Rabago admitted in court on Monday that he told the man, Samuel Ingalls, that he wouldn’t arrest him if he licked the urinal. The man knelt down and put his head in the urinal, Rabago said.
Rabago and the other officer, Reginald Ramones, then allowed Ingalls to gather his belongings and leave the bathroom.
The victim’s sisters, Mary and Melody Ingalls say that he actually suffered far more abuse than what was reported. They say Ingalls told them that cops forced him to sit in urine and then pushed his head into the toilet, holding it under water. They also said Ingalls had a big bruise on his arm where police had hit him with a stick.
“We know our brother. We know when he lies. We know when he’s being dishonest,” Mary Ingalls said. “And he was very sincere and very detailed and it never changed, what he said.”
Despite being charged for this horrific act of depriving a homeless man of his civil rights, Rabago was never fired and was merely placed on restricted duty, where he remains collecting a paycheck. As the AP reports:
Rabago, who remains on restricted duty, and Reginald Ramones, who left the department in August, were arrested and charged earlier this year with conspiring to deprive the man of his civil rights. Ramones pleaded guilty in September to a lesser charge that he knew Rabago committed a civil rights violation but didn’t inform authorities about it.
Rabago attempted to claim that the order to lick the urinal was a mistake but U.S. District Judge Leslie Kobayashi didn’t buy it, saying, “You knowingly and willfully forced S.I. to lick the urinal.”
What’s more, this sadistic cop admitted to similar actions in the past. According to the report, had previously threatened another man he was questioning by saying he wouldn’t be arrested if he stuck his head in a toilet, court documents said.
Ramones previously said in court that Rabago persuaded him not to tell authorities what happened in the public bathroom and to delete their text messages about it.
In fact, Rabago bragged about that incident as S.I. walked out of the bathroom, laughing at his victim and telling other officers about what he had just done. Rabago said “the incident was ‘just like what happened at Cartwright Field’” when he had told a “man that he would avoid arrest only if he stuck his head in a toilet,” according to court documents.
Rabago now faces up to 30 months in prison if convicted. As of the writing of this article, there is no news that he has been fired. If history is any indicator, Rabago will do no time and may even keep his job.
This case is similar to another sadistic cop out of Texas who made a homeless man eat a sandwich with human feces on it. In November of 2016, the Free Thought Project brought you the disgusting story of a San Antonio cop putting feces on a piece of bread and giving it to a homeless man as food. For making a literal sh*t sandwich, San Antonio police officer Matthew Luckhurst was fired. Months lager, the Free Thought Project learned that Luckhurst was involved in yet another feces related ‘prank’ — after the sh*t sandwich. Then, earlier this year, we learned that this cop had his indefinite suspension, or firing, overturned.
After both incidents, Luckhurst would ultimately be fired from his job. However, thanks to a loophole in system, an arbitration panel overturned that firing after it was found that the 180-day period for firing a cop for misconduct had expired.
Luckhurst originally reported that the incident happened on May 6, 2016. However, after reviewing the records, arbiters found that to be impossible as Luckhurst was not working at the time.
According to a report from KSAT:
Arbitration documents state that later, Luckhurst reviewed his medical records and found that the incident could not have occurred on May 6, 2016, because he had injured himself during a martial arts class and was on light duty from April 6, 2016, to June 14, 2016, preventing him from riding a bike, as his peers had testified.
The paperwork states that after interviewing witnesses and others who had heard about the incident — all of whom gave varying dates — it was determined that the incident may have occurred outside the 180-day window to discipline Luckhurst, effectively voiding his dismissal.
The arbitrator overturned Luckhurst’s indefinite suspension due to a violation of the 180-day provision, noting that Internal Affairs investigators “had (the) ability to corroborate testimony by means of having the video tape preserved and reviewed” but did not.
This rehiring of Luckhurst shows just how broken the system is. When we can’t keep out sadistic repeat offenders because of silly loopholes, something is seriously wrong.