© Police State USAKelly Thomas, before and after dealing with Fullerton Police.
The violent story has reached its a heartbreaking conclusion when a jury announced that the police officers who had been charged with his death would all walk away as free men. The frustrating story shows that even in the rare instances when police officers face criminal charges for their brutality, their position of power makes it incredibly easy for them to get away with murder.
Easy Prey
© Orange County RegisterAn undated photo of Kelly Thomas’ life on the streets.
Many officers of the department were familiar with Thomas, as he had a history of drug problems and and had dealt with police before. But he was not prone to violence, a department spokesperson later stated.
Police officers spent several minutes questioning Thomas. They asked him if he had drank alcohol that day, and about the contents of his bag. Thomas refused a search of his bag and swatted an officer's hand away when someone tried to take it from him. Police threatened to arrest Thomas for burglary.
At one point Thomas was seated on the ground, posing no threat, but police did not take the opportunity to him. Instead, Officer Manuel Ramos turned away from the Thomas and went to go put gloves on his hands.
"See my fists, they're going to f*** you up," menaced Officer Ramos when he returned.
An officer displayed his baton and twirled it. Thomas backed up and fled.
Officers violently attacked Thomas. They wrestled with him on the ground and bludgeoned him with fists, batons, and the back of a taser. A total of six officers participated in subduing him as he squirmed on the ground, confused and pleading for help.
© Getty ImagesFullerton police during the killing of Kelly Thomas.
Audio of the incident captures Thomas's voice desperately crying for his father and the distinctive sound of electric shocks repeatedly being used against him. "Dad! ... Dad! ... Dad! ... Dad!..." the man wailed. He could be heard apologizing and saying he couldn't breathe.
"Dad, they are killing me!" were among his last words.
Aftermath
A coverup began immediately as police confiscated cameras from witnesses of the assault. Police even went so far as to rip the film out of one female witness's camera after the incident. But a surveillance camera mounted to the bus trailer captured the whole incident.
© Police State USAKelly Thomas in a police-induced coma.
He suffered from severe head and neck injuries. He remained in a coma for five days and was was taken off life-support on July 10th.
"When I first walked into the hospital, I looked at what his mother described as my son ... I didn't recognize him," said Ron Thomas, Kelly's father.
"This is cold-blooded, aggravated murder," he said, after reviewing the available witness testimony and video evidence. "My son was brutally beaten to death." Thomas said that his son was probably off his medication and didn't understand officers' commands.
Ron Thomas - himself a retired sheriff's deputy from Orange County - immediately took up his son's cause, demanding accountability and raising awareness. At a Fullerton Town Council meeting the month after the killing, he stated, "I just wonder where my son's rights went as a citizen. Where were his rights? Listen to my son beg those officers, 'Please, please, God, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.' And the last words of his life, 'Dad! Dad!' I want you to hear that for the rest of your life like I will."
A report from NBC-4 News on July 27, 2011, stated that all but one of the offending officers were back on patrol at that time. As pressure mounted and national attention grew, the six were placed on paid administrative leave.
Mark Turgeon, who witnessed the struggle, said this in an interview days after the attack:
Rare Criminal ChargesWell, when I came up here, I saw two cops on top of a homeless guy right here, that I know. They were pretty much beating him up, telling him to 'stop resisting.' And then more police came, and they started beating him with a flashlight in the back of his head. And he wasn't moving around at all, but more came and they started tasering him. It was just a horrible sight.
The police were saying, 'Quit resisting, quit moving, quit resisting arrest,' you know, and the guy wasn't moving. He had his arm in front of him and his head was down already, and he wasn't moving at all. They just kept going.
They asked me to make a statement. No one else really wanted to. I told them, 'You guys killed this guy. You murdered him.' They said: 'Well we don't see it that way,' but I saw the whole thing clear.
It was like a rampage. It was like a feeding frenzy. Like if you were to go watch National Geographic, where the wildebeest gets too close to the water, and the alligator - it was just terrible. It was completely out of line, completely uncalled for, completely too much force. It was brutal.
It didn't seem like [the police] were angry but it seemed like they had a vengeance. And they were letting it out on him. It was erratic. It was like piranhas.
He wasn't even moving, but he was yelling for his dad. 'Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad!' When he went silent, everything stopped finally.
© Police State USAFullerton Police Officers Jay Cicinelli and Manuel Ramos.
Officer Jay Cicinelli, 41,who used the stun gun to jolt Thomas and then used it as weapon to hit him in the face, was charged with involuntary manslaughter and assault under color of authority.
Officer Joseph Wolfe, 37, was indicted by the Orange County grand jury on involuntary manslaughter and excessive-force charges a year after Ramos and Cicinelli were charged.
A trial was conducted for Ramos and Cicinelli beginning in December 2013 in front of Superior Court Judge William Froeberg and a jury of twelve.
"The people's view of this is Kelly Thomas was acting in self defense," said Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas. "We don't expect our police officers to mistreat people because they don't like them. Our laws don't allow police to take a dislike to someone and then administer a punishment. It's for police to gather the evidence, make the arrest, if necessary." He added: "It's one of the major differences between us and a police state."
The attorneys representing the police made Kelly Thomas sound like a menacing figure who intimidated the police officers. Defense lawyer Michael Schwartz said that Thomas's wounds were caused by him "overexerting" himself while compassionate police officers restrained him. Essentially, the Fullerton Police argued that Kelly Thomas killed himself.
Schwarz argued that his gruesome appearance in the hospital was exaggerated and mostly due to superficial wounds, and blamed his death on his heart, saying, "His heart couldn't take it." Pathologists, however, confirmed that Kelly's enlarged heart was not part of the cause of death, and that there were no signs of drugs in his body.
Schwartz added, "A tragedy? Yes. A crime? No. Sometimes tragedies happen in this world."
The prosecution pressed on. "There's no statement of arrest," said Rackauckas. "He never tells Kelly Thomas he's going to be arrested, as opposed to being f - - up by the defendant's fists."
"(Kelly Thomas) was just trying to survive is all he was doing," argued the district attorney. "Look at the kinds of things he was saying: 'Please sir,' 'I'm sorry,' 'I can't breathe.'"
Fullerton Police Officer Stephen Rubio testified in court on the behalf of the defense. He said that he had trained Cicinelli and Ramos, and that he watched the 33-minute surveillance video of Kelly Thomas's death. He testified that the only "slight" violation of department policy that he witnessed was the use of profanity.
Prosecutors later brought in John Wilson, a FBI special agent who specialized in training and tactics. "I have problems with everything that happened after Ramos put the gloves on," he testified, saying that after studying the case for 60 hours he was convinced the force used by police was "clearly" excessive.
Wilson stunned the courtroom when he suggested that the Fullerton Police started the fight and Thomas had a right to end it using any force necessary to protect himself - including lethal force. The comment drew hissing sounds from the department lackeys that filled the courtroom.
Justice For Kelly?
© Joshua Sudock/Orange County RegisterA pool of Kelly Thomas’s blood.
"What this means is that all of us need to be very afraid now," said Ron Thomas. "Its carte blanche for police officers everywhere to kill us, beat us, whatever they want. It has been proven right here today that they'll get away with it."
"I'm feeling horrible. You know, the injustice is just unbelievable," he added. "Completely innocent on all counts - they brutally beat him to death, we've all seen that, but yet they're innocent on all counts. Unreal."
"I guess its legal to go out and kill," said the victim's mother, Cathy Thomas. "It breaks my heart. Part of me died that night with Kelly, part of me died that night, part of me died in court. I feel dead inside," she said. "They got away with murdering my son."
Defense attorney John Barnett's comments might be interpreted as sarcastic if they came out of anyone else's mouth: "These peace officers were doing their jobs. They were operating as they were trained."
In regard to the burglary complaint, the only property recovered from Thomas was some discarded letters that he picked up out of a trash can.
.......IN THE US OF A. By far, one of the HARDEST to read stories.....and see :((((((((((. How can a HELPLESS human being who is posing no violent threat what-so-ever.......BE BEATEN TO THIS POINT??? As a parent, I could never even FATHOM the profound pain I would feel seeing my child's face and body like that, all the while knowing it was the COPS who did it......just for the HELL of it......and that JUSTICE WOULD NEVER BE SERVED TO ANY IOTA. Why would anybody, in their 'right' mind even want to associate with these true pieces of EVIL SH*T......let alone defend them. Birds of a feather.......... The world really is being run by sociopaths. This sort of thing will start happening more and more........it already is. They are just more effective at 'shutting' people-up and getting rid of evidence. They....the good ole institutes........government, military and police......... are all working together......on the THE BIG PICTURE......of controlling the masses.......and if anyone gets out of line in any way or tries to stand-up for their rights, will be taken-down like Kelly Thomas was. They wanted to make an example out of him. There are 'thousands' of US police brutality videos on Youtube......most of them are extremely violent and extremely hard to watch because 98% of the victims being abused were completely innocent and are completely helpless in what is happening to them, and no one can intervene because it is the cops and they are being threatened. What is going to happen when this gets worse?