TAMPA – No doubt you’ve heard the adage: a picture is worth a thousand words. A picture of 62-year-old Nick Christie could be worth thousands of dollars when a jury sees it.
The photo shows the Ohio man restrained inside the Lee County Jail with his body covered in pepper spray.
“This photo is a picture of a man who is strapped to a chair naked inside a jail for hours with a hood over his face. That evokes thoughts of being tortured,” says Cleveland-based lawyer Nick DiCello who represents the Christie family.
The photo, which was obtained by FOX 13’s investigative unit, was taken in the final hours of Christie’s life.
The District 21 Medical Examiner ruled his death was a homicide because he had been restrained and sprayed with pepper sprayed by law enforcement officers. But to this day, nobody has ever been charged with a crime, and the Lee County State Attorney cleared the sheriff’s office of any wrong doing.
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“Turn about is fair play”
the next time you think you can’t live without the police.
THINK AGAIN…..
“Christie was arrested in March 2009 after suffering an alleged mental breakdown. He was allegedly pepper-sprayed ten times during a 43-hour ordeal.”
This is a total disregard of citizen rights. His death was deemed a homicide and nobody was arrested. The woman who witnessed the incident and has come forward has more courage than all the pigs in that station house.
You are 8 times more likely to be killed by a cop in the U.S. than a terrorist.
I think your ratio is too low.
Nice little story. Showing a lack of:
1. Mental Health Services
2. Appropriate Police Selection, Training, Management, Oversight
3. Defective City/County/Federal control of local Police.
Like any outrage you are forced to witness repeatedly: how long can this last before some people will react?==then maybe more or total repression?
Occupy movements start when there is no/little alternative.
If mental health services were FUNDED, and appropriate REGULATIONS were in place, this more likely would not happen. OTOH==he was mentally ill and alone. Who cares. Hopefully the cops wore themselves out on him and will leave me alone?
Fat chance.
I love how commenters here are ignorant and believe everything they are told. Who is on the video? The attorney for deceased, of course an attorney is not going to present a balanced argument or discuss matters that are not in support of his attempts to fleece money from the taxpayers.
“Lee County jailers cleared in pepper spray death of inmate”
“He arrived at the downtown Fort Myers jail on March 27, following an arrest for trespassing at a North Fort Myers motel.”
““A review of the report indicates that inmate Christie presented physical, verbal and bodily fluid contamination threats to the jail staff during his incarceration”
“Christie suffered from several medical problems, including an irregular heartbeat.”
“After spraying him, jail staff placed a spit mask over Christie’s face, an effort Smith states was designed to protect staffers.”
“Minutes later, nurses found Christie’s breathing labored, and they moved him to a downstairs shower to decontaminate him.”
“Christie needed to go to the hospital, and they called 911 at 2:11 p.m.
Two days later, Christie was pronounced dead.”
What’s your point?
I agree. What is your point??
I take it you’re a cop?
@Hmeyers2, You have shit for brains if you think the treatment prior to death was justified. Or you are just a dirty troll. The man was arrested for TRESPASSING at a North Fort Myers motel. F’in TRESPASSING.
Snippet from article: “She called authorities and pleaded with them to take her husband to a hospital and be given his medications. Instead, he was taken to jail for disorderly intoxication.
Her lawsuit alleges he was pepper sprayed 10 times over a 48-hour period, at times while in a restraint chair.”
#6–HMyers==so where is this “balance” you speak of? Pepper spray is “supposed to be used” as an alternative to using a billy club or a gun–less lethal. It is AXIOMATICALLY not supposed to be used to force compliance.
You should be pepper sprayed in the face until your body looks like it has been dipped in yellow paint until you restore your own balance.
Bootjacks–what ya gonna do with them?
You are claiming the photo is authentic. I have no knowledge of whether or the photo was tweaked in photoshop to increase the yellow.
You are not watch a balanced video, you are watching the attorney for the deceased present his propaganda for his side of the story.
A blurb on television is not submitting evidence under oath, the attorney can give the television station an altered photo.
Btw … let’s say for a moment that the photo isn’t altered. How do you know the yellow is not iodine or some other substance used by the hospital?
Instead, you rush to judgment, act like a goob and believe what the lawyer tells you when he is not in a courtroom while is allowed to present a biased and perhaps somewhat imaginary account of events with no rebuttal.
Notice it is Fox News too (a local station). And not CNN.
Not really the home of investigative journalism.
I’d assume that the “hospital” would’ve removed him from the chair and removed that thing from his face, if he had labored breathing.
I’m no doctor though, then again I’m not an idiot either.
Iodine!?
#9–HMyers==good on you. What you say is of course totally correct. Now, let’s take your hypothetical musings seriously? Suppose for us that the picture is not altered and the guy was pepper sprayed to death?
What say you now? Will you accept even hypothetically that police can act oppressively?
My follow up question is: “Why don’t you assume this rather than the alternate when pepper spray use was not indicated AT ALL!” or do you think it should be used “for compliance?”
Bobbo responds: But I saw it on TV!! The lawyer has gotta be telling the truth!!
On a more serious note … this obviously why we have courts and judges.
It is easy to take a photo and stack the deck and do a very one-sided presentation.
Remember: There is a profit motive here. The guy spinning this yarn needs to collect a paycheck and do the best he can for client.
His is not accountable to the rules of a courtroom when on TV.
No one is under oath.
The “perp” was tied to a chair naked, then pepper sprayed. The statement was given by an eye witness who was working at the station house. The witness is not the deceased lawyer.
Do yourself a favor and try reading. Stop talking about the boob tube. You sound like a psychopath with zero empathy for any living beings. Maybe your a top executive in some lofty tower, that would explain your detachment.
Hah, hah. I assume cross posting. Sorry to dissapoint HMyers. No–I took you up on your “merits” or lack thereof. I agree with you==these reports received with due skepticism form but a hypothetical. Most people accept these at face value until/unless conflicting evidence is submitted. Others will have a knee jerk fascists response that it is all lies.
Yes, we are all revealed by the assumptions we are living with and willing to champion.
So–HMyers==answer the bedrock issue that is not denied in any telling of this case unless it is fabricated out of whole cloth from start to end: is the use of pepper spray appropriate by the police on a confined prisoner for the purpose of securing compliance?
We’ll wait for your thoughtful response.
Now, I do have to assume HMyers is just avoiding the question he is not bold enough to simply lie his way through.
Good Jackboot.
“My follow up question is: “Why don’t you assume this rather than the alternate when pepper spray use was not indicated AT ALL!” ”
I don’t know the facts and circumstances here.
But I’m sure not going to take a lawyer’s word for it. That is what he says.
That photo could be from the hospital, the coroner’s office or from who knows where. Or as I speculated, could even be photoshopped a bit to increase the yellow (sending a photo to a TV station is not act under the penalty of perjury like submitting evidence to a courtroom).
The lawyer is not out there to present unbiased factual account of what happened, and he can legally lie through his teeth on TV.
So what can you do? You can split the population any way you want, but if the bottom 20% are getting bullied, mistreated, screwed… even if they organize and protest, the middle 75% will do nothing because they are at least getting by with “enough” because they bow to their 10% overlords. The occupy movement got nothing but jeers from the “middle class” because they have “enough”. Speaking up will get you nowhere. So what is left?? You all know what it is but aren’t allowed to even utter the words. That’s why nothing will ever change in this system, except by getting worse IMO. Happy new year.
Erm… make that 70% for the hypothetical middle class. Adds to 100% then, heh, heh.
#17–HMyers==you are just making yourself look stupid and jackbooted and Republican Ditto Head for a reason right?
But what is that reason? Where do you get your talking points?
I have already 3 times granted you everything you are now endlessly babbling.
Answer the question posed.
What????—Can’t even see the question?
Well, what a good jackboot you are. Read and reread until you spot it: just before the question mark.
Here it is again just to highlight your special devotion to all things authoritarian:
“Do you support the use of pepper spray by the police on a confined person for the purposes of securing compliance?”
“Do you support the use of pepper spray by the police on a confined person for the purposes of securing compliance?”
“Do you support the use of pepper spray by the police on a confined person for the purposes of securing compliance?”
“Do you support the use of pepper spray by the police on a confined person for the purposes of securing compliance?”
“Do you support the use of pepper spray by the police on a confined person for the purposes of securing compliance?”
Sorry for the repetition—just trying to get ahead of you.
GO!!!!!!
Bobbo … did you note the word “alleged use of pepper spray while he was confined”. This is what the attorney is claiming.
Indoor use of pepper spray by a law enforcement officer would be rather silly. In a confined space the officer might as well spray himself too. The range of pepper spray devices is 10-20 foot.
This whole idea is preposterous.
By the way … how do you feel about getting your news from the The Daily Paul … you know … like Ron Paul.
Go ahead and click the link to the article Dvorak supplied you and see for yourself. I find this amusing for you.
http://myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/investigates/photo-shows-pepper-sprayed-prisoner-12142011
You find this amusing. So… you are a true psychopath.
#20–HMyers==my, you are revealing yourself as a fuddy duddy. What is it about a hypothetical leaves you slowly twisting in the wind?
The hypothetical is answered within its own fact pattern. The fewer the facts, the more intelligence required or demonstrated to give a reasonable response.
Why don’t you give an answer to the hypothetical?
Here it is again: “Do you support the use of pepper spray by the police on a confined person for the purposes of securing compliance?”
Simple question. Even a yes or no would be responsive. Extra credit for giving reasons.
Can you do it HMyers?
Why not? Still trying to stamp out that little bit of decency within yourself you don’t want to stir up?
Ha, ha.
Silly hooman. Suppresses his own humanity for reasons that cannot be expressed.
Sad little Jack Boot.
bobbo, Ignore the psychopathic troll. Your wasting your time, he’s just baiting everyone on DU.
I don’t believe in hypotheticals, Bobbo. Not in a matters of law.
I liked how the attorney in the video was restraining himself from bursting into laughter when he described the deceased criminal as “he was a tourist, he was a guest, he was a vacationer”.
I will definitely hire this weasel of an attorney should I ever be in need of one.
It was fun arguing with you Bobbo, always a pleasure.
But alas, once again you have been sounded defeated. Not by me, but by the tremendous power of logic I represent.
I will now allow you to come to terms with your experiences here and reflect on them so that you can learn and evolve.
HMyers==let no one say bobbo is not a legend in his own mind. Let me help you out a bit with hypotheticals you don’t like. Its really quite easy. Give the bait answer that is being set up and then go back to what caused the hypothetical to be asked in the first case.
As in:
“Of course it is axi0matically wrong for police to use pepper spray on a person in custody to secure compliance. THAT is so obvious I have to wonder why you think it is worthy of a hypothetical.==But back on point: you have to be a complete tard to even start a discussion based on what a defense attorney says.”
Quite simple. Wrong-but simple. Wrong, but miles ahead of shitting in your pants in public.
Yea!–my croissants are looking just about perfect this morning. Should go well with my midday break for quiche.
Ha, ha.
“Do you support the use of pepper spray by the police on a confined person for the purposes of securing compliance?”
No.
The police have shields, helmets, body armor, handcuffs, and shackles to use for the purposes of securing compliance.
That is in addition to the fact that the person is already confined.
This is completely appalling.
We the fight the war on terror in Afghanistan. We fight the war on terror in Iraq. When will be begin fighting the war on terror here?
Why? The TSA has already done a fine job terrorizing the flying populace.
So some cops muscled into their territory, they’ll get a pass and some DA will get paid to disappear all of this as an ongoing investigation.
We took Democracy to Iraq. Looks like we exported ALL of it.
Rights in the U.S. have been trashed. We’ll have to do more than just ask for them back.
At least they won’t hate us because we’re free and prosperous anymore.
Well, on the bright side – they won’t have to put a rub on him when they cremate him. The pepper was probably plenty.
Why this isn’t getting more attention in the media is outright !@#$!#@$!@ These pieces of sht cops should be trial and hung dammit.
If is clearly a direct result of the Bush/Cheney policy of “do whatever it takes to get a confession”. So torture by pepper spray, tazer gun, water boarding, thumbscrews, forced viewing of a Tom Cruise movie, …. are all now part of the semi-legal bag of tricks that local police enjoy. Welcome to Dick Cheney’s America.
How anyone can be so full of hatred as to Blame Bush and Cheney for something so heinous is beyond human comprehension. When politics leads to hatred, the kind of hatred that blinds you to the real problem of an out of control police department, it detracts from all of humanity.
Just because Glenn E. is an idiot with an agenda doesn’t mean what he says is true.
Welcome to Dick Cheney’s darker side America
This is Obama’s fault just because he’s a Democrat.
Troll much?
This is Obama’s fault because US Attorney General Holder, who Obama appointed, is asleep on the job.
The Dept of Justice should have sent the FBI to Florida to clean up this horrendous travesty they call a justice system.
Instead, nothing. snore zzzzzzzz
Obama is just a Bush/Cheney shill. So the rights of civilians are of no matter. Same old same old. Hadn’t you noticed?
If he has family tort law can still be applied. That picture and the death certificate is more than enough to leave that police department standing on air over an abyss.
Uh, no. The DA will side with the cops, the judge will side with the cops. Welcome to America, if you’re not a cop or a first-degree relative of a cop you’re pretty much screwed.
All Hail the Cops
Put Up Your Sticker Showing Fealty to the Men With All the Weapons in Your Town
And if they win their case where does the money come from?
And if they win their case does that mean any heads roll at the PD?
I’m not surprised. Police these days can pretty much get away with anything. If anyone tries to prosecute, it turns into finger-pointing, shrugged shoulders, and lost documents. Would you tell YOUR kids to trust a cop these days ? Hardly.
To serve and protect citizens is the only legitimate purpose of government
What these cops are doing is merely serving summonses and protecting their giant pensions
Now to be clear, when cops murder and torture, it doesn’t fall in those categories, the torture is just for fun
Good old boys having a little prank, thats all