When video surfaced of Owasso police officer Mike Denton abusing and elbowing a handcuffed man, he was fired. After being reinstated to his same exact position, he was found yet again abusing someone, this time beating a man with his rifle. According to The Free Thought Project:
Owasso police officer, Mike Denton, was fired in 2011 after body cam and surveillance footage showed him stomping on a handcuffed man’s head and then repeatedly elbowing him in the face.
The victim was Brian Spalding.
Spalding’s arrest was caught on all of the officer’s lapel cams and paints a clear picture of excessive force, justifying the city’s response of firing Denton.
[VIDEO BELOW]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa3zwt21Krk
However, the Fraternal Order of Police, who argued that Denton was simply “protecting himself” by stomping on a man’s head, nearly breaking both of his arms, and elbowing him. So they filed a grievance, which was heard by federal mediator Edward Valverde in March of 2012.
On Sept 22 2014, keeping his rank and position, and back pay, Denton was reinstated. “He’s put back into the exact same role that he left under, which means that he is a lieutenant over a patrol shift,” Police Chief Scott Chambless told Tulsa World.
Less than a year later, Denton is caught on film again. This time he’s seen ramming the barrel of his rifle into the face of suspected car thief, Cody Mathews.
[VIDEO BELOW]
This is the exact kind of thing you should expect if you simply excuse the violence perpetrated by these cops. Police officers shouldn’t simply be given paid leave for their crimes, they should be tried just like every other citizen. It’s illegal for everybody else to stomp on someone’s head, police officers should also be held to the same standard.
Source: The Free Thought Project
