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| image credit: Susan Poag/The Times-Picayune |
Madison Ruppert, Contributor
Activist Post
Jefferson Parish, Louisiana Sheriff Deputies turned on Sean Warren last week simply for recording the questionable treatment meted out to his brother, Casey Warren. The police beat him, tased him, handcuffed him and smashed his cell phone after treating his brother in a nearly identical manner.
Unfortunately this is far from an isolated incident given that police across the country have been guilty of similar attempts to destroy evidence. Similarly, police have brutally beaten people simply for legally filming an arrest from the seeming safety of their own property.
Despite the phone being thrown to the ground after Sean Warren was sucker punched by the deputies, Warren managed to recover the video after taking his phone to a repair shop.
As Carlos Miller rightly points out, the recovered video (available here) is quite dark and grainy, thus making it quite difficult to make out exactly what is going on. However, “it does show deputies trying to shove Casey Warren into the back of a patrol car.”
Witnessing the strange and likely disturbing incident, Sean Warren’s fiancée called 911 in an attempt to get the New Orleans police to come to the rescue.
The New Orleans police arrived, informed both Warren brothers they were not being arrested and one officer even used his flashlight to assist Sean Warren in locating his broken phone.
According to The New Orleans Times-Picayune, “The brothers and other witnesses say the Jefferson Parish deputies initially threw the spent Taser cartridges into a neighbor’s trash can, but retrieved them once New Orleans police arrived.”
New Orleans attorney Sonny Armond, who is both the stepfather and attorney of the Warren brothers, said that the police were actually trying to cover up evidence of their actions.
“They were clearly trying to manipulate the scene,” said Armond.
Around 12 hours after the initial incident, which occurred at roughly 12:30 am on the Crescent City Connection in Orleans Parish on Monday, September 10, 2012, according to Armond, Casey Warran was arrested by New Orleans police “on a Jefferson Parish warrant for reckless driving and flight from an officer.”
The entire ordeal can be traced back to when Casey Warran was driving with his brother and noticed that a brown Crown Victoria was following him.
According to Armond, Warren slowed down and at one point came to a complete stop in the right lane in an attempt to lose the unknown vehicle.
A man in a white T-shirt and jeans then exited the Crown Victoria and approached the brothers’ car with his gun drawn, according to Armond, and he identified himself as a detective with Jefferson Parish.
However, due to the lack of sirens or any such traditional identifiers, Casey was frightened.
“No badge, never used lights, sirens or anything else,” said Armond. “As soon as Casey saw the gun, he got a bad feeling and took off down the bridge,” in the direction of their home.
Later the same plainclothes detective and four Jefferson Parish sheriff’s deputies in uniform arrived at their home, according to Armond.
Armond said that Casey answered the door in his boxers and when police confirmed that he was behind the wheel on the bridge he was dragged out of the house and threatened by two of the deputies.
According to Armond, Warren then asked the deputies why the New Orleans police were not present at which point he was tased on the top of his head.
“At no time did JPSO [Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office] request NOPD [New Orleans Police Department] assistance or anything else,” said Armond. “The deputies violated all protocol known to man. We understand none of them reported leaving their post in patrol areas (in Jefferson Parish).”
After Casey was handcuffed by deputies, Armond said that they beat him in his kidneys and back and then tased him two more times in his back before placing him in their patrol car.
Sean Warren only caught about 30 seconds of the scuffle on his cell phone before he was allegedly punched in the mouth and eventually handcuffed and tased twice in the back.
“After they tased me the first time, a deputy said, ‘Tase him again,’” said Sean Warren. “I said, ‘Please don’t tase me. I’m not resisting.’”
As Miller rightly points out, “The deputies were apparently out of their jurisdiction, which is why New Orleans police eventually got involved.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been notified of the incident which left both of the brothers hospitalized, but they have yet to launch an official investigation into the events.
Unfortunately, if we can take the previous actions of the FBI as any hint at what they might do here, it doesn’t look all too promising for the Warren brothers.
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This article first appeared at End the Lie.
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