Horrifying Video Shows Cops Torture Handcuffed Man, Repeatedly Taser Him for Suspended License

 Antonio Strawder is an unfortunate reminder of the lengths cops in America will attend enforce arbitrary laws like paying the govt for the privilege of driving.

For a suspended license, Strawder was handcuffed, thrown to the bottom, and repeatedly tasered as he cried call at agony.

Victimless "Crimes" like suspended licenses or expired registration are disproportionately aimed toward poor people and minorities.

Often times people need to choose from paying for food for his or her family or paying the govt for a sticker to place in their car.

When they take out and therefore the government doesn't receive their money, as Strawder's case illustrates, they're going to kidnap you.

When people are thrown in jail for arbitrary offenses like driving on a suspended license, they're put into further turmoil as they're unable to travel to their jobs, get fired as a result, and kept during a perpetual cycle of poverty ensuring further interaction with police.

What's more, as Strawder's case shows us, police haven't any problem torturing people that fail to pay the state to drive.

Strawder's case happened in 2016 but the video has barely been released because of the Memphis police department's ridiculous requirements for obtaining information from them.

It can cost upwards of $1,000 to urge information like police reports and body camera footage from them.

Thanks to a joint investigation by the University of Memphis Institute of Public Service Reporting and therefore the Daily Memphian, the general public now knows how that fateful day unfolded.

On March 13, 2016, Strawder and his family had just returned from church when Memphis policeman Otto Kiehl showed up outside his North Memphis home.

Kiehl was an equivalent cop who pulled Strawder over a month earlier for driving on a suspended license.

Kiehl knew Strawder hadn't paid to renew his license, so he moved in to kidnap him.

"I got out of the car," Strawder recalled.

"He was like, 'Antonio did you ever get your license?' i used to be like, 'Nah.' He said, 'Come here.'".

Strawder said he originally walked inside his house on the other hand rotated, came outside, and allowed the officers to handcuff him.

Strawder says after he was placed in handcuffs, Kiehl tasered him within the back.

"When he hit me with the Taser, I fell," Strawder said.

Strawder's girlfriend then pulled out her cellphone and commenced recording.

"There was this tiny puddle of riparian right there, so whenever you hit the Taser, he would tell me to urge up, and that I would tell him, 'I can't move.'" Strawder said.

"Every time I moved, he hit that Taser."

Every time the officer told Strawder to urge up, he shocked him.

No one can get up while getting shocked with a taser as this is often what the taser is meant to try to to.

"I was praying in my head that nothing else would happen," he said.

As the video shows, Strawder was seen writhing during the agony in a pool on the bottom as Kiehl apportioned taser strike after taser strike.

Finally, after he stopped tasering the person for a quick moment, Strawder was ready to rise up and was put within the cruiser.

He was arrested for a suspended license and assault.

He was found acquitted on the resisting charge as there was no evidence that Strawder resisted.

Strawder filed a complaint with the department after the incident which prompted an indoor affairs investigation.

Kiehl told fellow officers that Strawder "Snatched away" when he tried to urge him within the cruiser, so he used the stun baton on him.

Kiehl said while he understood "The muscles lock up" when both prongs hit the body, he continued to shock him because he felt Strawder "Was still resisting."

No resistance was evident within the video and as a result, Kiehl was disciplined - but not fired or charged.

Kiehl was suspended for 10 days for excessive force and not obeying multiple sections of the weapons policy, like not giving "Great care and consideration" to "Any environment where the individual could fall" and obtain hurt.

They also said the officer "Should be aware" the "Individual might not be ready to answer verbal commands during or immediately after" the shock, consistent with WREG. MPD decided to not forward the case to the district attorney's office for criminal charges against the officer - despite clear evidence of criminal actions.

"What this does to our community, it emphasizes that Black lives don't matter," Josh Spickler with Just City, a criminal justice reform advocacy group said.

"There again we have a politician standing over a Black man screaming in pain."

By making these incidents public, Spickler said the community features a better understanding of what must change, WREG reports.

"That's precisely the quite thing which will build trust back during this community, that yes, you are doing matter. The Black lives we are mostly policing matter," he said.

"That's a method to try to to it. Open these things up."

https://wreg.com/?p=793618