The city surveillance video that shows a group of Fullerton police officers beating a homeless mentally ill man to death last year was finally released today, laying to rest any argument that Kelly Thomas was a threat to officers.
The shocking video, which was combined with an audio recorder worn by one of the police officers on the night of July 5, 2011, was shown in court today, then later released to the media.
“Now you see my fists?” Fullerton police officer Manny Ramos asked Thomas while slipping on a pair of latex gloves.
“Yeah, what about them?” Thomas responded.
“They are getting ready to **** you up,” said Ramos, a burly cop who appears to outweigh Thomas by 100 pounds.
"Well, start punching," Thomas responds, never once displaying any physical aggression towards Ramos.
Moments later, as Thomas is standing while Ramos is ordering him to get on his "****ing knees," Fullerton cop Joseph Wolfe, who is not charged in the case, walks up and starts beating his legs with a baton.
Then Ramos gets into the act and Thomas takes off running, moving out of the frame of the camera.
The camera, operated by a dispatcher at the station, then moves toward the beating, showing Ramos and Fullerton cop Jay Cicinelli on top of Thomas as Thomas repeatedly apologizes and telling them he is unable to breathe.
The cops keep telling him to put his hands behind his back and lay on his stomach, but they are both laying on top of him, making it impossible to even breathe, much less move.
As the video continues, one of the cops can be seen kneeing him.
"Please, I can't breathe," Thomas pleads as the officers keep telling him to put his hands behind his "****ing back."
The cops keep telling him to "relax" to which he responds, "I can't, dude."
More cops eventually arrive and a little more than four minutes into the video, they start tasing him.
And a little after five minutes into the video, as three cops are piled on top of him, beating him, tasing him, one cop looks up at another cop who just arrived on the scene and says, "help us."
At one point he yells out, "Dad, they are killing me."
Even after seven minutes into the video, when six cops are on top of him and all Thomas is doing is crying for his father, they keep telling him to "relax."
Last year, Ron Thomas, a retired Orange County Sheriff's deputy, said the City of Fullerton offered him $900,000 to just go away, which would have allowed the two cops to remain on the force unpunished for killing his son.
Thomas was pronounced dead on July 10, five days after the beating that left him in a coma.
The cops weren't placed on administrative leave as is customary in a death of a suspect until August 2. And only because the community was outraged.
But it's no doubt city and police officials watched the above video that same night. They even acknowledged allowing the officers to watch the video to complete their incident reports.
I guess we should be relieved they never destroyed the video as cops are so used to doing.
During today's hearing, a crime scene investigator named Dawn Scruggs testifed that Ramos and Cicinelli were out of breath and in disbelief after killing him, apparently trying to sway the court into believing Thomas deserved to die.
But anybody who sees the video can see he did nothing to deserve the beating.
Ramos is being charged with second degree murder and faces up to 15 years in prison. Cicinelli is being charged with involuntary manslaughter and faces up to four years in prison.
It is extremely rare for any cop to receive prison time for their crimes.
In the photo below, Ramos demanded treatment for his injured elbow as Thomas lay dying a few feet from him.
