Two lllinois cops arrested after videotaped beating surfaces (raw video)


Two Illinois cops were arrested Wednesday for beating a man in an incident that was caught on a dashboard cam.

Photography is Not a Crime is one of the few sites that has the raw video showing the entire chase.

Peoria police officers Andrew Smith and Gerald Suelter were each charged with four counts of official misconduct and single counts of battery, mob action and aggravated battery. Mob action. That’s not one you hear very often.

The incident, which occurred last year, took place after police chased suspect Bryce Scott for several blocks through city streets.

At one point, Scott stopped and thrust his hands out the window. A group of officers approach him with two of them pulling him out of the car. Scott appeared to fall onto his knees on the pavement next to his car, which was outside the camera frame.

Suddenly he starts screaming as if being tasered continuously.

After a few seconds, an oversized cop with a bulletproof vest later identfied as Smith comes out of nowhere and jumps into the melee, appearing to stomp on the suspect at least 20 times.

This is how Assistant State Attorney Steve Pattelli described the incident:

Suelter allegedly “approached and drew his electronic Taser … Suelter removed the air cartridge from his Taser and began to repeatedly stun the driver,” Pattelli said.

By the time Smith arrived, Scott had been pulled from the SUV and was on the pavement with five other officers above him,” Pattelli said.

“When Smith arrived, he began to kick and stomp the driver at least 20 times, at one point repositioning himself for leverage,” Pattelli said.

The two officers are facing five years in prison. Meanwhile, Scott is in jail on an unrelated heroin charge.

Via Blue Must Be True.

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Comments

Anonymous
Anonymous

pussies!

Anonymous
Anonymous

Huh… Interesting that the other cops watch while those two commit blatant crimes.

Sure, someone will say, that they were excited and revved up from having to chase the guy through stop signs and neighborhoods, but that should NEVER be the excuse for doing exactly what your job is to protect against.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Where’s wife of cop and Jones on this one?

Here i can be like them:

Carlos! we don’t know the whole story, this man was obviously a threat to these fine upstanding officers, and these trumped up charges will be dropped when all of the police involved testify to the same incident occuring. You obviously have a problem with police, to dig up videos like this of 4 outstanding men in uniform doing their jobs.

How was that?

Crap i might have compassion fatigue at this point.

Anonymous
Anonymous

I am amazed that they even charged the cops with anything. Usually it takes video of actual foot-hitting-the-suspect (overwhelming & undeniable evidence)to get a cop charged with anything.

Kudos to those in charge!

Anonymous
Anonymous

ya gotta like the new and creative use of the tazer…boy it didnt take them long to learn how to abuse their new fucking toy did it?

Anonymous
Anonymous

It’s hard to say what happened because the heroin dealer goes out of sight. When the big guy shows up all he sees is other officers struggling with an unhandcuffed suspect and helps take him into custody. The kicks were probably to the arms and legs, distraction techniques. I say arms and legs because I saw the heroin dealer’s mugshot and he definitely wasn’t kicked in the head.

Anonymous
Anonymous

If you have the mugshot, send it to me and I’ll post it.

Anonymous
Anonymous

I just thought that I’d bring up that the man who was arrested hasn’t had a trial, and so he is innocent until proven guilty. Seems those cops believed they had the power of jury as well as their regular duty’s.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Carlos, I can’t find it, I saw it on a different website

Scott, now that you mention I think your right, he might not be guilty, maybe his gas pedal was stuck

Anonymous
Anonymous

Jones, I’m not saying he probably isn’t, but you can’t really say he is obviously a drug kingpin just cause he ran from cops. He could have been a bit drunk, or maybe he was just stupid. I’m just saying, we can’t make out suspects to be guilty when there hasn’t been a trial yet. That can ruin peoples lives. Just saying.

Another point, shouldn’t those other officers who did nothing have an internal affairs investigation for incompetence?

Anonymous
Anonymous

Jones,

He should be charged with fleeing an officer and all the other charges that pertain to his crimes but he stuck his hands out the window and that one cop even had hold of his wrist, so the beating that ensued after the stop was completely unnecessary.

And that one cop who runs up, shoves the other cop out the way and starts stomping on him should be put in jail.

I know that’s not the first time he’s done that. Just the first time it got caught on camera.

He is no different than the thug who assaults somebody by stomping on his head multiple times.

And any cop who condones his behavior is just as guilty.

Anonymous
Anonymous

The guy is in the Peoria County Jail on unrelated felony drug charges of possession and delivery of heroin.

This is so ridiculous, if I worked their I wouldn’t do a damn thing. I would sit in my car for 8 hours a day reading a book. When I had to do something I would do the least amount possible.

As far as the other officer being investigated that would be no. The only guy who possibly did anything wrong is the guy with the tazer but we can’t see why he tazered him because they are out of the picture. The guy could have started resisting again and he would be justified to tazer him.

Anonymous
Anonymous

So if you can’t execute an arrest without beating the guy, then you won’t make any arrests?

Anonymous
Anonymous

Carlos, when that guy showed up they were struggling to get the guy handcuffed, he saw a guy fighting with the police, he didn’t see what led up to the fight, you can’t blame him for his reaction.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Carlos, there is no doubt in my mind these guys will get off. At the very most they will get a simple a/b charge but they will get their jobs back. If they have a jury trial they will get off for sure. When I see crap like this it makes me so happy I’m retired.

Anonymous
Anonymous

That’s bullshit, Jones.

I’m sick of this attitude where cops are given the green light to bash your head in just because they’re pissed at you.

I had downloaded the video and I’m able to look at it frame by frame on Final Cut, the program I use to edit video.

There were five cops at the scene before that stomp-happy cop runs up. Two cops pulled him out of the car.

You can clearly see one cop had both hands on the suspect’s right wrist. You can also see his left arm is extended as if the other cop, who is mostly out of the frame, is holding his wrist.

Up to now, this is proper procedure and they executed it well. They pull him out and he falls on his knees.

You can actually sees frame by frame even though it happens to fast in the video.

Then the third cop moves in and bends down with something in his hand, most likely a taser gun.

When he bends down with his arms outstretched, the man begins to scream. He was not screaming before that.

So at this point, he have a man who arms are controlled by two cops. Just say he was struggling, which is why the third cop had to tase him.

But the cop bends down and does it again and the man continues screaming.

Meanwhile, the two officers are watching this until one of them bends down, perhaps pepper spraying him or maybe just holding his head down.

And at this point, the taser cop moves out of the frame and judging by the suspect’s screams, we can assume he is continuing to tase him.

And finally the sixth cop runs up and gets involved by stomping on the guy continuously.

He doesn’t stop to see what’s going on. He just shoves that little cop out the way and starts stomping on him.

It almost reminds me of those pile-ons we used to have as kids when we played football. And there was always somebody who ran in after the play was over and flopped on top of the pile, just to be part of it.

But this video was no kids’ game.

The suspect was skinny. His arms were already contained. If four cops could not have handcuffed him at this point, perhaps they need to hit the weight room or go back to the police academy.

But the truth is, they had him in control. His screams are not those of a man who was winning this fight. Those screams are not even of a man who is putting up a fight.

Those screams are of a man who is pleading with the cops to stop torturing him.

But to hear you justify it as a natural reaction is telling me that all we should expect from cops is animal-instinct aggressiveness without actually using their brains.

That’s the same way they reacted in my arrest when they bashed my head against the pavement even though I was in handcuffs.

It’s the same reaction we saw from that BART cop, which many people are trying to justify.

Like animals. Like the dog who snaps at you because you try to take his food. Or like the shark who attacks the swimmer because he feels threatened.

It’s bullshit. We should demand more from our cops than just a bunch of gorilla-minded thugs who shoot first and ask questions later.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Carlos, when they go to the ground he is completely out of the picture so to say at this point, we have a man who arms are controlled by two cops is either a lie or an assumption.

The third cop was holding a tazer, that is why the guy starts screaming because that hurts. He was totally justified in using the tazer if the guy was resisting.

As far as this guy being skinny, talk to me after you’ve fought with a little guy high on drugs.

I guess it all comes down to if the guy was resisting or not. I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt to the cops who just risked there lives chasing down a heroin dealing, girlfriend beating piece of shit who likes to speed through neighborhoods while running through stops signs and having no regard for anybody’s safety including his own.

Anonymous
Anonymous

I think that’s the problem. Too many people give the “benefit of the doubt” to cops and they abuse this power.

I’m saw what I saw and I heard what I didn’t see.

And I’ve experienced it myself and I’ve seen it way too many times since documenting these incidents since my arrest.

You ask yourself why so many people distrust cops?

It’s because of incidents like this. This is not an isolated incident. Give it a couple of days and another will pop up.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Just before the big guy shows up you can see the other cop grabbing his gun. He obviously saw this heroin dealer doing something wrong.

BTW, from your last post “Up to now, this is proper procedure and they executed it well”.

Personally I would have ordered him out at gunpoint, you never know what he has in the car, or if there is more than just him.

Anonymous
Anonymous

You ask yourself why so many people distrust cops?

I never asked myself that, in my career I found most of the people like the police. The people who don’t like the police are usually criminals. I knew the answer to that question before I even became a cop.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Things have changed, Jones, now that everybody has a digital video camera and the internet.

Now we’re able to see where before we had to rely only on police accounts.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Then how did you end up getting convicted?

Anonymous
Anonymous

Well for one, it wasn’t caught on video.

But i got acquitted of refusing a lawful order and disorderly conduct even though i was convicted of resisting arrest without violence.

The judge allowed the State to enter improper character evidence which swayed.

And the appeal judges might feel differently than the jury.

Anonymous
Anonymous

It’s amazing how Jones and other police shills simultaneously say “you can’t judge what happened on a video without seeing the context of what happened before it. The video isn’t the full story”, yet, AT THE SAME TIME, say “the cop arrived at the scene, and may not have known what was going on, and saw someone resisting, so he joined in”.

In other words, we the people cannot make a judgment that the police are wrong when watching a video — yet an officer can make the exact same judgment, and stomp on you 20 times — because he’s an officer.

Wow. So snap judgments by us are bad, but snap judgments by an officer that result in injuries aren’t. Amazing hypocrisy.

Anonymous
Anonymous

The facts this officer had when he allegedly stomped on this guy were as follows. The suspect just beat up his girlfriend, the suspect just led the police on a high speed chase putting numerous lives in danger, other officers were now struggling to take the suspect into custody. I really wouldn’t call that a snap judgment.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Jones, you’re right again. The big cop knew exactly what was going on when he showed up, that guy was resisting. Push that little cop out of the way and start kicking to distract the guy so they can get some cuffs on him and have him in control.

Just keep kicking the guy till he can’t move. Of course the cops know not to kick the guy in the face. That shows in mug shots.

Ah, the guy is a drug dealer, he deserves what he got, right again.

Ah, the guy is a girlfriend beater, he deserves what he got.

Jones you convicted the guy of like 10 crimes and he’s not even arrested yet. So why not punish him before we even get the arrest paper work filled out. It’s quicker that way and he’s sure to get that punishment, after all he might be found not guilty and not punished.

I’ll wait to hear all the evidence at trail but if I was the big cop I’d be concerned about going to jail.

Anonymous
Anonymous

He wasn’t punishing him he was helping take him into custody. Tell me Duane, where did the big cop kick the drug dealer. Did he kick him in the head, foot, leg, arm, back, hand, you saw the tape so you should be able to tell me.

If he was kicking him in the head I would agree with you, if he was kicking him after he was handcuffed I would agree with you but we don’t see that in the video, all we see is him making stomping motions and depending on where he was stomping and what the suspect was doing at the time will determine whether his actions were justified or not.

You can assume the worst, that the ofc was stomping on a handcuffed man who wasn’t resisting.

I can assume the ofc was stomping on an unhandcuffed man that was resisting. The tape doesn’t show who is right.

As far as going to jail, I would be worried if I was him to but I do think a jury would find him not guilty, unless of course the prosecution finds 12 cop hating photographers.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Ah, the guy is a girlfriend beater, he deserves what he got

According to your previous post you were arrested for a similar crime so I guess it’s no big deal to you but some people do look down on that.

Anonymous
Anonymous

The point was we don’t know if the guy actually beat his girlfriend or not, we just know that it was alledged.

BTW I’ve also had a bunch of friends charged with domestic violence that didn’t commit any violence. Here in NJ we have attorneys that teach woman how to fabricate the charge if they want the guy out of the house.

In NJ if you are a single guy and own a house or rent an apartment. You allow a woman to live with you. She accuses you of domestic violence. Guess what happens. You get to move out to some hotel while she lives in your place. You still get to pay all the costs of keeping the place up. This can go on for as long as 120 days and sometimes longer before she has to actually move out. But this is off the topic.

Now back on this subject. So you just leave the guy without handcuffs so you can beat on him and claim he’s not under control? I was stomping on his fingers to distract him. I was kicking him in the leg to distract him as he was screaming in pain and had submitted. Ok, give him a couple of more shots before we decide to cuff him, he’s not controlled yet.

I wonder why the officer was charged with mob action?

Anonymous
Anonymous

Oh, you were falsely arrested? How is the lawsuit coming along, are you suing the police and the girl that falsely accused you or just the police?

Anonymous
Anonymous

Suing the girl wouldn’t stop false arrests in the same way suing the police might, nor would the girl likely have as much money. I’d include her on it.

Ever sue a civilian and have them declare bankruptcy? I know a murderer (who got away with it) who had the victims family sue him, then declared bankruptcy, and continues making $60K/yr at his job. Wowie.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Jones,

Actually I couldn’t sue the police in that instance and the girl didn’t have any money to sue about. The judge dismissed the charges and ordered the arrest expunged from my records. It was years ago.

But guess what. I did have the occasion to meet that officer in the street a while later. I was part of a pack of 3 cars that were going 15 mph over the speed limit. We all got pulled over. When he saw he had me he let the other cars leave and gave me 4 tickets. Yes, an attempt at a RSCL. I took the tickets. Went to court. The judge tossed them all out after I told my story.

This guy is no longer a police officer and he didn’t retire from the force. Guess what they found out. He had a tiny penis and he was beat up in high school. He was wearing the uniform to get respect and was always doing things he didn’t have the power to do. He also failed the psych test.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Why couldn’t you sue the police in that instance. You can sue anybody for anything. The fact that she had no money doesn’t mean you can’t sue her. If she really lied to get you arrested you would have sued her. Sounds to me like you knew you were wrong so you let it go.

Sounds like you hang with a good crowd, lots of friends who have been arrested, dating a loser girl with no money, no wonder you don’t like the police.

Your honor I was going 15 mph over the speed limit but this cop arrested me a while ago when I beat up my girlfriend so I think he has it out for me.

Well then, case dismissed have a good day. Is that how your court case went? Your stories are almost believable.

Anonymous
Anonymous

If only the world had more psychics like Jones who amazingly know how the world works without any facts, we could just shed the justice system entirely and just beat those who are guilty right away.

You can’t sue anybody for anything, Jones. Go take a law course.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Sure you can, you might not win but you can try.

Besides, I wouldn’t call falsely accusing somebody of an assault and getting them arrested nothing. He could have sued her, maybe they got back together and that is why he didn’t sue her, I don’t know, but she had him falsely imprisoned and he doesn’t sue her, there is more to this story.

Anonymous
Anonymous

In case you’ve never talked to a lawyer while considering suing someone like I have (3 month contract for an addition to my house that took 3 years) — They say it’s not worth it unless you can get $20,000 out of it. And if you lose, you’re out thousands.

With a people like you populating the world, Jones, how could he win such a lawsuit? You already judged him guilty. Why would the judge do any different? Your logic is infallible, remember?

Anonymous
Anonymous

It’s not the money it’s the principal, besides false arrest would surely get you $20,000.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Only if you win. You see, it’s one thing to prove someone guilty. If you can’t, they get acquitted. But you know that doesn’t mean someone is innocent. To win a false arrest lawsuit, you’d have to prove yourself innocent. Which isn’t always possible. Say my wife falls down the stairs and gets a black eye. There’s no way I could prove it WASN’T me, and there’s no way the state could prove it WAS me. I’d hopefully be found innocent of domestic violence (though not if the jury were made up of a bunch of Joneses), but there’s no way in hell I could win a lawsuit, because I couldn’t PROVE she fell down the stairs to prove my innocence.

In order to win a lawsuit, you have to prove the point you are suing about.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Most of the time you can sue anyone for anything. But before you get involved in suing you have to ask yourself is it worth it, can you win and if you win can you collect. If the answer to any of those questions is no then you have to ask yourself if you just intend to try to annoy the person you’re suing. If that’s your intent then you have to decide if you’re willing to pay to annoy someone using the court system or if there is a more fruitful way to do it. I’ve settled many things but have never sued anyone in my life. I’ve been sued once when I was the middle car of three in an accident and the rear car pushed my car into the front car, but other then that I’ve never personally been sued nor has any entity I’ve worked for been sued because of my actions.

Against the woman involved I couldn’t and didn’t want to collect. So why bother. As far the police are concerned they were acting on what someone claimed. So while the cop did have an attitude (and a small dick) and some behavioural problems (got beat up in high school) he didn’t actually do anything wrong that the police department could be sued for. He kind of behaved like Jones is in this blog, your girlfriend claimed you hit her so that must be what happened, guilty.

What happened in traffic court that day was that I had 4 tickets not one. If he’d only given me one ticket I would have never gotten out of it because it wouldn’t have been so blatantly obvious what he did. It was the same judge as the last time so he remembered me and what happened. I said that the tickets were obviously retribution and punishment for my case getting dismissed the last time. I didn’t say anything about how fast I was or wasn’t going. That I got pulled over with 3 other cars and they were released without getting any tickets, only I was cited.

The previous time the only person that didn’t want the charge to go away was the cop because he had already convicted me in his brain. The girl wanted it to go away, her attorney wanted it to go away, the prosecutor wanted it to go away because he was satisfied that nothing happened, the woman’s whatever it was group that worked with battered woman wanted it to go away, everybody with any kind of interest in the case wanted it to disappear except the cop.

I told the cop before the traffic court got going what I was going to do and gave him a chance to work out a deal with me. He didn’t want to so he lost a second time.

This isn’t the topic but this kind of crap with domestic violence happens all the time in NJ because of how the law got changed about 20 years ago. If you’re getting a divorce and the wife wants you out of the house and you don’t move out on her schedule you are getting charged with some kind of domestic violence offence so she can have the court move you out for her. Guess what, police officers that are getting divorces get charged all the time also. What happens to them is way worse however. They also lose their jobs because once they are charged they can’t own or carry a gun anymore.

Jones I like cops. I just don’t like “bad” cops.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Just discovered this blog and glad to have done so.

I’m surprised any of you continue to let this Jones guy get to you. His act is so obviously just that; I’d think he’d be easy to laugh off and ignore.

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