Source: Miami Herald / Getty
An online fundraising effort has begun to help a security guard in Los Angeles pay for medical care from injuries he sustained when police officers ambushed and brutally beat him in an attack last weekend that was recorded on video and posted to social media.
As of Thursday morning, a GoFundMe account had raised more than $16,000 to help Blake Anderson, who is seen on video being violently restrained and beaten while one cop, at one point, pulled out a gun and pressed it against his head outside of a hookah lounge where he was working on Saturday night.
MORE: Decades After Rodney King Beating, Culture Of Police Brutality Thriving In Los Angeles
The same cop, identified as Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) Officer Rodriguez, “repeatedly struck [Anderson] in the head with his firearm, punched him in the face … continuously slammed his head into the concrete, and stomped on his head,” Anderson’s sister said on the GoFundMe account she created. “All while his partner held Blake down.”
The violence also aggravated an eye injury Anderson had been recovering from, prompting doctors to say “the eye must be cosmetically removed, and a prosthetic eye should be inserted,” his sister said. Among the injuries Anderson sustained during the violent “ambush” are a dislocated shoulder and “several hematomas around his head,” his sister added.
The account provided by Anderson’s sister differed drastically from the police narrative.
According to a press release about the arrest, Anderson was armed, an allegation that served as the premise for the violent arrest.
Simply referring to it as “a use of force incident with an armed suspect in the city of Inglewood,” LASD said Anderson had a loaded, concealed gun and accused him of assaulting a police officer, for which he was charged.
People can be heard insisting “there is no gun” during the arrest.
LASD said “Anderson sustained minor injuries during the use of force” and appeared to deflect blame by noting he “had a previous traumatic injury which he sustained in an unrelated incident prior to contact with deputies.”
The video of the arrest is below and is graphic.
To be sure, LASD has not only been involved in its fair share of alleged police brutality but far too many of the cases have come against Black suspects.
Who could forget the time LASD officers Tasered a Black man who stopped them to ask for help? Or what about when LASD cops shot and killed bicyclist Dijon Kizzee following an alleged “bicycle code violation”?
It’s not just violence, either, as cruelty and heartlessness certainly factored when LASD took and shared graphic photos from the helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant and eight other people, including his teenage daughter, before orchestrating a massive coverup scandal that resulted in a $16 million judgment in favor of the NBA legend’s widow.
That is to speak nothing of the time now-former chief of staff for the Los Angeles County Sheriff was busted for sending racist text messages about “Blacks” and “Mexicans” being incarcerated.
It was in that context that Blake Anderson was violently arrested and brutally beaten by two LASD officers.
This is America.
SEE ALSO:
Viral Video Of Retired LA Cop Hurling The N-Word Shows Exactly Why Black Folk Don’t Trust The Police
