TN's Man's Torture By Police Caught On Audio Tape

[NATO AIR]

If you can bear listening to it, it is a disgusting time capsule moment for the destructive force the misguided war on drugs has become in our society, infecting not only honorable law enforcement figures with extremist methods but also the courts, the prisons and our entire society.

These jokers tortured this dumb bastard for up to two hours, according to the FBI, which assembled a case so damning against these bozos (gotta be thanks to the audio tape of the torture session which was recorded by the suspect's wife) that they're pleading guilty to serious federal charges.

Did this suspect kill anyone, rape anyone or even seriously hurt anyone? No, he's a dumbass who's illiterate and sells drugs to support his meager lifestyle. Yet they tortured him like he was some cutthroat murderer.

Please keep in mind Radley Balko is the guy behind the effort to free the MS man who is on death row for shooting a police officer who burst his house in the dead of the night, with no warrant.

http://www.theagitator.com/archives/026505.php#026505

April 24, 2006 Torture and the Drug War

In February of last year, I told you about Lester Eugene Siler, a Tennessee man who was literally tortured by five sheriff's deputies in Campbell County, Tennessee who suspected him of selling drugs. The only reason we know Siler was tortured is because his wife had the good sense to start a recording device about halfway through the ordeal.

The audio is now available online (read the transcript here). Drug war outrages lend themselves to overuse of superlatives. But I gotta say, this may be the most horrifying 40 minutes of audio I've ever heard.

The police are attempting to get the illiterate man to sign an admission of guilt without telling him what it says. They beat him, over and over, hook electrodes up to testicles and shock him, threaten to kill him, and threaten to go after his family. Early news accounts reported that the torture continued well beyond the end of the recording. After the tape ran out, the same deputies apparently repeatedly submerged the guy's head in a fish tank and a bath tub, threatening to drown him unless he confessed.

This guy at worst was a small-time drug dealer. He had no history of violence. Right now, we're having a national debate about torturing terror suspects with designs on killing everyone in this country (longtime readers might remember I'm a bit conflicted on this issue). But an incident like this (and you're delusional if you think it was isolated), in which a U.S. citizen who had inflicted no direct harm on anyone was nearly beaten to death, has been barely mentioned outside of Tennessee.

We've inculcated in cops the idea that the government preventing people from putting items from a banned list of substances into their bodies is so necessary and urgent, enforcing those laws with tactics like these is in many cases viewed as entirely appropriate.

This was the rare incident where someone in the home was able to record and save evidence of the abuse on the sly. Think there aren't hundres more cases where circumstances didn't pan out so neatly?

It's worth keeping in mind when you read about a case in which a suspect claims his confession was beaten out of him, and police, to a man, keep to a remarkably tight story stating otherwise (as they did in Siler's case, before the audio came out).
Posted by Radley Balko on April 24, 2006 | TrackBack

 

[LOki]

Sickening.

 

[Nienna]

I couldn't handle listening to it... I know, I'm a pansy. I can't handle torture. But, if this is the case, it was just plain out of hand.

 

[MissileMan]

If this tape is real, the cops who perpetrated this assault need to be turned loose naked with their wrists shackled to their ankles in the general population of a maximum security prison. Even that might be to light.

I forgot...you would also spray paint the word COP in big bold letters right in the middle of their backs.

 

[5stringJeff]

Indeed. There is no room for torture in American jails.

 

[007]

I have no love for drug pushers. But three damn cops beating and torturing a bound man all need THEIR asses kicked, and that's just what'll happen to them if they get sent to prison for this.