Meanwhile, in a serious crackdown on violent crime....

The DC Metro Police have made sure we're all safe from thin men in wheelchairs. Thank God for that. Here's the story from the Post:

In a statement issued Sunday, Metro said the man was spotted Thursday by Metro officers patrolling at the U Street NW Metro station. The statement said the man declined to leave the area and refused to have a citation issued to him, whereupon he was told that he would be arrested.

In that statement Metro said the man resisted arrest, resulting in a fall from his wheelchair. The man was charged with assault on a police officer and drinking in public, Metro said.

Well, that's one perspective. I don't know...I might decline to leave an area if I hang out there often. You see people hanging out around the Dupont Circle Metro all the time. What turns this from everyday police harassment to police brutality is what happens next, despite Metro's obnoxious and ridiculous claim that the man "fell from his wheelchair."

Here's the video from You Tube. The man "fell" from his wheelchair if Metro defines "fell" as "forcibly picked up then shoved to the ground," which isn't exactly the standard definition:



I've talked before about how poisonous the comments sections of most internet media outlets are. This article's comments are no different, with many people -- notably those who self-identify as Virginians (although I have trouble taking seriously the moniker "VATrailerTrash" as an honest self-description) -- acting as though the guy in the wheelchair deserved this treatment or was a symptom of the District's rule by Democrats (apparently because assault on a wheelchair-bound intoxicated man would be a badge of honor if Republicans were in charge?? No, it doesn't make sense to me, either).

The Post of course tiptoes around the evidence in describing the video this way:

At one point in the video, the officers appear to be lifting the man from the wheelchair, and shortly afterward, the officers and the man are prone on the sidewalk. The video shows blood near the man’s head.

Um, it's a continuous motion...there's no "shortly afterward." There's also no "appear," unless you think the whole thing was a staged Pro-Wrestling Affair, with the Metro Police and the man in a wheelchair acting out some street drama. Let's at least report what the video says, and if you are so chickenshit scared of the cops ticketing your double-parked cars on 15th Street, then preface the entire thing with "the video appears to show" -- don't sprinkle the weasel words throughout the description.

It remains to be seen if anyone will give a rat's ass about this thuggery. If nothing else, advocates for the handicapped ought to be putting the heat on the scumbags from Metro. Maybe Jim Graham should take note.