Tag: civil rights

Cop Who Allegedly Kneed a Subdued Suspect in the Eye ’20 to 30 Times’ Gets Qualified Immunity

A police officer who allegedly kneed a suspect 20 to 30 times in the eye after the man had been restrained is entitled to qualified immunity and thus cannot be sued over the incident, a federal court confirmed Monday.

Charles McManemy, who law enforcement suspected was making a drug delivery, claims that Deputy Bruce Tierney of Iowa’s Butler County Sheriff’s Office violated his Fourth Amendment rights by using excessive force after McManemy had surrendered with at least four cops already on top of him. Following the incident, McManemy says he suffered lasting damage in his eye with increased light sensitivity and “floaters.” But while a majority of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held that Tierney did indeed violate McManemy’s rights, his suit “fails for a different reason: the absence of a clearly established right.”

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Innocent Black Man Held at Gunpoint for 5 MINUTES for Legally Filming in Public

Filming the police is entirely legal, in every state. However, all too often, we will see police officers overstep their authority and arrest, attack, and assault innocent people for the constitutionally protected act of documenting their behavior in public. As the following case out of Clinton County, Indiana illustrates, cops will even pull their guns on people for exercising their First Amendment right to film in public.

In the land of the free, there are ostensible checks and balances which are in place to prevent corrupt and power drunk government officials from overstepping their authority and depriving people of their rights. The largest ostensible restraint on this power is the constitution. However, as TFTP has reported for years, despite the fact that police swear an oath to uphold this constitution, they are all too often the ones who ignore it.

In an exclusive interview with the Free Thought Project, activist and First Amendment auditor, Floyd Wallace tells us that this week, he went to Clinton County and was walking around filming in public. He had committed no crime but being black and filming apparently set off a resident who called police to report him — for filming.

Clinton County Sheriff’s deputy B. Knapp shows up to the call and is apparently afraid of his own shadow. Within a few seconds of arriving to Wallace’s location, he pulls his gun out and points it at the innocent man. His gun would not go back in its holster for nearly five minutes.

“I was just walking around filming in public when they pulled guns on me,” Wallace tells the Free Thought Project.

The cop demanded Wallace “drop his phone” and stop filming but this would have ended the documentation of this incident. The officer could have shot him and simply claimed he feared for his life and that, as they say, would’ve been that.

Showing just how scared these deputies are of a black man filming is the fact that deputy Knapp called for backup and another deputy arrived and pointed an AR-15 at Wallace. He was then handcuffed and interrogated — for filming.

Wallace was then handcuffed and detained as a half dozen other cops show up to investigate a black man filming.

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