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Loading ...Trial begins for cops accused of beating gay man
12.08.2008 3:03pm EST
(Chicago, Illinois) Jury selection began in a federal lawsuit against two Chicago police officers accused of beating a gay man.
Alexander Ruppert claims that officers Vincent Torres and Kent Pemberton beat him and denied him his civil rights solely because of his sexuality in a 2006 altercation.Ruppert, 37, says he was beaten nearly unconscious while the cops hurled anti-gay remarks at him and then placed him in a holding cell for two days without food or water.
The lawsuit also names the City of Chicago as a defendant.
The lawsuit claims Ruppert was removed by the two officers from the Uptown Lounge following a disturbance and placed in a squad car.
He was not initially charged with any offense and was not handcuffed, court papers say.
The suit says that Ruppert then was driven to deserted area behind a theater where he was beaten while the officers called him a “faggot” and other derogatory remarks.
The cops allegedly stopped the beating when Ruppert told them he had AIDS.
Ruppert was then taken to an area hospital where he received 16 stitches for injuries to his face and head.
The lawsuit says that following the hospital visit, he was taken to the Foster Avenue police station and held for 48 hours without food or water. The court papers say that Ruppert was forced to drink from a toilet.
He was charged with resisting arrest and aggravated battery against a police officer, and held for a week in the Cook County Jail, until he could make a $50,000 bond.
The felony charges were dropped after Ruppert agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge.
It has been said that we (gays)are missing a spokes person to tell their story my thought is because usually they are killed not just beaten sounds like we just found a good spokesperson to show what society does to us since our fight isnt the same as the civil rights movement of blacks because we arent being killed,beaten,starved etc.
Chicago’s got its own brute squad and has for decades. It’s basically a state sanctioned gang…and yadda yadda, good cops, blah blah blah.
The only way that this is gonna change is by the city losing serious money and these piggies going to the rape rooms. That’s not too likely, though. Especially if the victim’s been convicted of a misdemeanor and is an HIV positive gay man. They’ll just lie there way out of it, and it’ll come down to a he said they said.
You don’t hunt with blow dryer, and you don’t get justice from the system rigged to deny it to you.
if anyone wants proof of how far we’ve come to equality, this is it…
A top Chicago cop commander, Jon Burge, tortured scores of African American men during the 1980s and early 90s when Richard M. Daley was States Attorney. Burge is finally being brought to justice on Federal charges, no thanks to the Daley Administration which continues to fight release of information on brutal cops. Daley continues to deploy cops to interfere with political protest with which he disagrees.
Naturally, there is a memorial to cops killed while on duty. Where is the memorial to the hundreds of people killed by cops– workers, immigrants, Latinos and Blacks as well as gays?
This has been going on for too long in this town. Gay men and especially young gay men have been the targets of homophobic cops with power and guns. It’s time this criminal underbelly of ‘to serve and protect’ was revealed.
Filthy pigs.
From personal experience – Chicago cops are SCUM – plain and simple!
For those of us who are old enough to
remember (I demonstrated against the
Vietnam war in 1968 while my then
unknown life partner of 31 years was
fighting there) the Chicago police
have a long history of abuse to people
whom they don’t agree with, i.e. blacks, jews, hispanics, gays etc. One would think by now that they should have had re-training into the 21st century. Guess not?