"FBI enters probe of police beating in Mass.
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. --The FBI has launched a preliminary investigation into allegations that a white police officer beat a black suspect with a flashlight during a traffic stop, leaving the man partially blind in one eye....
Now the city has a black eye!
Patrolman Jeffrey Asher was seen on video shot by a bystander repeatedly hitting Melvin Jones with the flashlight during the incident. Three other police officers were on the scene.
Related: Police fight cellphone recordings
This is why they want you to shut 'em off.
An arrest report stated that Asher struck Jones after he grabbed another officer's gun during a struggle with police. Jones was charged with drug possession and resisting arrest. His family has stated that the beating left him with a partially blind eye, fractured bones in his face and a broken finger.
Asher, a 16-year veteran of the force, was suspended for six months without pay in 1997 when another video showed him kicking a black suspect who had already been subdued by two other officers.
Uh-oh.
The Springfield police union has defended Asher, saying he was justified in using force and that racism had nothing to do with the incident.
"Force was used during Mr. Jones' arrest because he resisted, not because he is black," said Joe Gentile, president of Local 364 of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, in a statement.
People who resist arrest are sometimes "desperate enough to kill," and that the amount of force required by police is a "subjective matter," Gentile said.
He also said the cell phone video was of poor quality and did not reveal what was said during the altercation, what dangers the officers believed they faced, or on what part of the body Jones was struck by the flashlight.
Yeah, but did he CATCH the GUY GRABBING a GUN?
In the aftermath of the incident, the mayor and police commissioner announced that a civilian review would be formed to investigate future citizen complaints of police misconduct....
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