© Screengrab via YouTube/MLive.com StaffJudge Vonda Evans
In a
speech that lasted almost 30 minutes, Judge Vonda Evans of Detroit laid into 47-year-old William Melendez, the former Inkster, Michigan, police officer
caught on video beating an unarmed black man in January 2015.
Melendez was
sentenced to 13 months to 10 years in prison Tuesday for his role in the attack on Floyd Dent, a 58-year-old black auto worker, that occurred during a late night traffic stop in the struggling Wayne County suburb last winter.
"The one image [from this trial] that stood out to the court was looking at Mr. Dent in his cell, shaking his head in disbelief of what had occurred to him," Evans said in a
courtroom video published by local television station WJBK.
"If his conduct was indicative of what he was thinking, I would have thought this: 'What crime did I commit, being a black man in a Cadillac, stopped for a minor traffic offense by a group of racist police officers looking to do a nigger?'"
On Jan. 28, 2015, Melendez and his partner, John Zieleniewski, pulled Dent over for an alleged traffic violation.
Upon finding that Dent was driving with a suspended license, the officers dragged him from his vehicle and onto the ground, where Melendez placed him in a chokehold and punched him 16 times in the head. At least eight more Inkster police officers gathered at the scene, none of whom intervened to stop the attack. Dent was charged with resisting arrest and drug possession, the latter due to a baggy of cocaine that he alleged the officers planted on him.The beating — which left Dent's face and shirt drenched in blood — was captured on a patrol car dashboard camera and went public soon after, prompting a criminal investigation. After his arrest, as he sat in a cell nearby, Dent reportedly had to listen and watch as officers made fun of him and
cleaned his blood off their uniforms with disinfectant.
All charges against Dent were eventually dropped, and in May, he
settled with the city of Inkster for $1.4 million.
Comment:
From My distant cousin Serpico: the man who took a bullet to expose police corruption:
"Today the combination of an excess of deadly force and near-total lack of accountability is more dangerous than ever: Most cops today can pull out their weapons and fire without fear that anything will happen to them, even if they shoot someone wrongfully. All a police officer has to say is that he believes his life was in danger, and he's typically absolved. What do you think that does to their psychology as they patrol the streets—this sense of invulnerability?" -Frank Serpico