Code Word By Police “Stop Resisting”; and What Does It Really Mean?

For year’s law enforcement in New Jersey have kept hidden a dirty little secret which now is starting to come to light and being exposed by civil rights attorneys and federal prosecutors.  For years some law enforcement officers engaged in the beating of handcuffed prisoners and jail inmates have used the code words, “stop resisting” “or stop fighting” while beating non-resisting prisoners in handcuffs.

For years the New Jersey State police have been notorious for using this disgusting trick in an attempt to blame the handcuffed prisoner who is not resisting.  This dirty trick is often used by police officers who know that their beating is outside the view of a video camera but being recorded by a body-mic.  This cruel trick gives the person viewing the video tape in believing that the prisoner is actually resisting when in fact the prisoner is not.

In the last several months, especially in California, civil right group has amassed 70 declarations from former prisoners and civilians who witnessed beatings. The statements suggest few patterns — the complaints span all times of day and multiple units in the jail. But, the A.C.L.U. says, the guards do seem to use the same terms repeatedly, shouting, “Stop resisting!” and “Stop fighting!” while they hit inmates, even when inmates are not moving or are in handcuffs.
In one specific case Paulino Juarez, a Roman Catholic chaplain who was assigned to the Los Angeles County Jail (Twin Towers and Men’s Central Jail) has worked in the jail since 1998, was visiting an inmate’s cell early one morning in February 2009 when he heard several thumps and gasps in the hallway. When he moved to the cell door, he saw three deputies hitting a man and yelling, “Stop fighting!”
“But he wasn’t fighting; he wasn’t even defending himself,” Mr. Juarez said in an interview. “When they saw me, they froze. I was frozen, too. I didn’t say anything. I was too shocked, and I was terrified.”
Mr. Juarez filed a report with the Sheriff’s Department but did not hear anything about it for several months. More than two years later, during a meeting with his supervisor and Sheriff Baca, Mr. Juarez was told that the department found that the inmate had resisted going into his cell. There was no record of Mr. Juarez’s report, although a guard indicated in the file that the chaplain had exaggerated what he had witnessed. He was told that the inmate, whose name he did not know at the time, had later been released.
“I really don’t trust anymore,” Mr. Juarez said. “They always say inmates are liars and nobody believes them. But I saw them treated like this.”
While the sheriff has repeatedly dismissed complaints from prisoners, the number of civilians who have witnessed beatings has steadily increased, showing the brazenness of many of the guards in the jails, said Peter Eliasberg, legal director for the A.C.L.U. Foundation of Southern California.
Another chaplain said he saw deputies punching an inmate until he collapsed to the ground. They then began kicking the apparently unconscious man’s head and body.
“This situation, the length of time it has been going on, the volume of complaints and the egregious nature are much, much worse than anything I’ve ever seen,” said Tom Parker, a retired F.B.I. official who led the agency’s Los Angeles office for years and oversaw investigations into the Rodney King beating and charges of corruption in the Los Angeles Police Department. “They are abusing inmates with impunity, and the worst part is that they think they can get away with it.”
Of course, Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca has repeatedly dismissed any suggestion of a systemic problem in the jails, saying that all allegations of abuse are investigated and that most are unfounded.  Instead of attempting to solve the problem, again, police supervisors are the root of the problem because they continually sanction and turn a blind eye to their fellow errant and rogue officers.
When the Sheriff learned that F.B.I. agents sneaked a cell phone to a prisoner as part of an investigation to catch criminal corrections officers, Sheriff Baca reacted to the investigation angrily, with the shameless and pitiful comment, saying that the agency did not know what it was doing and was putting prisoners and guards in danger.
In one of my civil rights cases New Jersey State Troopers engaged in exactly this dirty trick when they beat an African-American motorist who was handcuffed while still in his motor-vehicle but outside the trooper’s motor vehicle recording camera, or MVR.
In that case the troopers repeatedly yelled “stop-resisting as they kicked, punched and struck the motorist over the head with a metal flashlight causing the motorist extensive external and internal injuries.
Another trick routinely used by the cops is to isolate the prisoner or suspect into the “hole” or jail for several days or weeks so that the external bruises and cuts and abrasions heal before seen by any witnesses.

Law Office of Vincent J. Sanzone, Jr., Esq.

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Dated: November 6, 2012

“If you want peace work for justice.” Pope John Paul, I

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