Texas Cop Fired After Tasing 76-Yr-Old Wants Job Back, 'Nothing Unreasonable At All About Level Of Force'

Chris | InformationLiberation
Jan. 12, 2015

Former Texas police officer Nathanial Robinson, 23, who was just fired over tasing a 76-year-old man for driving with "expired tags" that were perfectly legal, is appealing to get his job back.

The Victoria Advocate reports:
Greg Cagle, a Texas Municipal Police Association lawyer hired to represent former Victoria police officer Nathanial Robinson, will present an appeal to the Victoria assistant city manager within the next two weeks.

"I thought it was important for people to know he didn't do anything that was a violation of policy or law," Cagle said. "There may be some issues of law we need to talk about, and tactics that I don't think were considered."

Robinson was fired Monday after an internal investigation into his conduct found he violated three department policies - conduct and performance, use of force and arrest without warrant - during a Dec. 11 traffic stop.

The Victoria District Attorney's office is examining a criminal investigation into the matter led by the Texas Rangers.

District Attorney Stephen Tyler said he plans to review the material and conduct a legal inquiry with the Rangers' help. Possible charges could be unlawful restraint, injury to the elderly and misconduct.

The officer's attorney said he plans to break down the arrest further for the assistant city attorney to show how the arrest, detention and stop were all constitutionally lawful.

"There's just not going to be anyone that has a problem from a constitutional perspective on this case," he said. "It came at a bad time in the country - the timing of it was bad, but clearly the stop was legal, the detention was lawful, the request for the guy to stand there was a lawful, legal request, and then his resistance was a basis for him to be arrested."

Dash camera video footage of the arrest and tasing of 76-year-old Pete Vasquez gained national attention and divided viewers' perceptions about whether the stop was legal or if excessive, criminal force was used.

The footage showed Robinson, a 23-year-old officer with 18 months of on-the-job experience, pull Vasquez over for an expired inspection sticker in December. The conversation between the officer and Vasquez wasn't audible, but the situation escalated quickly. The officer attempted to detain Vasquez, threw him to the ground and then tased him twice.

The footage didn't show what happened between the two on the ground.

Cagle said Vasquez kicked the officer, saying the level of resistance was a basis for the tasing and arrest.

"There's nothing unreasonable at all about that level of force," Cagle said. Vasquez "wasn't injured. He scratched his elbow and hurt his feelings, but those aren't injuries in the constitutional sense."

[...]"He wants his job back," Cagle said of Robinson. "He'd only been there 18 months and had no complaints, no disciplinary history. ... If you think he could have done it different or better, then that's a training issue. I think he deserves his job back, and that's what we're going to try to do."
It's always a "training issue."

That the officer went straight to violence over a petty dispute is merely a failure of "training."

God forbid he, as a relative rookie, actually double check the law to see whether he or his victim is in the right, there's "nothing unreasonable" about rushing to violently assault someone for questioning your entirely wrong actions.

Odds are Robinson knew, or learned quickly, he was in the wrong at the time, that's why he chose not to cite his victim for having committed any "crimes."

Hopefully, his appeal will be rejected and he will be brought up on charges for assault and false arrest.


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Chris runs the website InformationLiberation.com, you can read more of his writings here. Follow infolib on twitter here.













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