Indian visiting grandson in Alabama, attacked by police, paralyzed

[Free Karma]

Grandfather visiting Alabama from India stopped by police while taking walk, left partly paralyzed | AL.com

Madison police last week roughed up a 57-year-old Indian citizen who was walking on the sidewalk outside his son's home, leaving the older man temporarily paralyzed and hospitalized with fused vertebrae. "He was just walking on the sidewalk as he does all the time," said his son, Chirag Patel, this morning. "They put him to the ground."

No crime had been committed. Madison Police on Monday issued a statement saying the department had suspended the officer and were investigating the use of force in this case. The police statement wished the man a "speedy recovery." Chirag Patel, an engineer for one of the many government contractors in Huntsville, said he had just bought a one-way ticket for his father, bringing him from the small Indian town of Pij to his new home in fast-growing suburbs of Madison. He said his father, Sureshbhai Patel, was to help his wife care for their new baby, a 17-month-old son, so he could pursue his masters degree in electrical engineering at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. "This is a good neighborhood. I didn't expect anything to happen," said Chirag Patel, who recently bought the new house on Hardiman Place Lane.

Madison police issued a statement on Monday saying they received a call early Friday about a man looking in garages among the brick homes just south of the city's new high school. "The caller, who lives in the neighborhood did not recognize the subject and thought him to be suspicious," reads the statement released by police.

Hank Sherrod, attorney for the family, this morning said the man was not walking on other people's property nor looking in garages. "This is broad daylight, walking down the street. There is nothing suspicious about Mr. Patel other than he has brown skin," said Sherrod. But Sureshbhai Patel does not speak English, this being only his second trip to the United States. He had arrived less than two weeks ago.

The statement by Madison police refers to a "communication barrier." Chirag Patel said his father speaks only Gujarati, and some Hindi. Sherrod says the Sureshbhai Patel told the police officers "no English" and repeated his son's house number. The police statement says the officer attempted to frisk the man. "The subject began putting his hands in his pockets," reads the police statement. "Officers attempted to pat the subject down and he attempted to pull away. The subject was forced to the ground, which resulted in injury."
Sherrod said he spoke with Sureshbhai Patel at Huntsville Hospital this morning. He said there were two officers present and that Patel was patted down and did not pull away. Sherrod said one officer then pulled Patel's arm up behind him and slung him face first into the ground. He said Patel could not say what happened after that.

"This is just one of those things that doesn't need to happen," said Sherrod, saying the police escalated to violence without cause and left Patel lying bleeding from his face, paralyzed and in need of paramedics. "That officer doesn't need to be on the streets."

Sureshbhai Patel was taken by ambulance to Madison Hospital. Hospital staff called his son at work at 9:42 a.m. on Friday. Chriag Patel found his father at the hospital unable to move his legs and with limited motion in his arms.

From there, due to swelling in the spine, Sureshbhai was transferred to Huntsville Hospital for surgery to fuse two vertebrae. He remains hospitalized. Chirag said his father can now move his right leg a little bit, but the left remains paralyzed. He said his father can raise both arms, but cannot make a tight grip.

He said his father had no health problems prior to this incident. Chirag Patel hopes his father will regain full motion, but he said he was told this would involve lengthy therapy. He is uncertain when his father will be able to leave the hospital.

Sherrod, a civil rights attorney from Florence, has recently handled several cases involving law enforcement in Madison County. He said the Patel family will sue, but has not yet filed. Capt. John Stringer, spokesman for Madison Police, said there are both audio and video recordings of the stop. But he said those recordings were evidence in the internal affairs investigation, and would not be released to the public at this time. Madison Police have also refused to identify the officers involved in the stop.

Madison, a booming bedroom community, is home to about 46,000 residents just outside Huntsville. While largely white and affluent, with a per capita income almost double the state average, the young city is also home to many foreign-born professionals. One in 10 residents speak something other than English in the home, and 8 percent of residents were born in another country.

Chirag Patel said he came to the United States about 10 years ago to study engineering, and later married a U.S. Citizen. He gained full U.S. citizenship in 2012. He said his father, as an immediate family member, has since been approved as a permanent resident of the United States, meaning Sureshbhai Patel could stay in the country as long as he likes.

Patel said his father leased farmland in India and the family is not wealthy. He said he was proud of his new home in Madison. "It is a dream for me because I came from a very poor family and I worked so hard here," said Patel. He said he chose Madison in large part because of the schools and the opportunities for his son. "I'm very devastated that I might have made a big mistake," said Patel.

I found this, on Reddit:
Indian citizen stopped by Madison police for walking on sidewalk, left partly paralyzed : news

I am an acquaintance of Chirag, the man's son. What Madison police did was reprehensible, and the only crime this man was guilty of is walking while brown. He was enamored with the beauty and cleanliness of his son's neighborhood, and it was his habit to take walks through it for his health and good spirits. When police couldn't bridge the language barrier and he tried to lead them to Chirag's house, they tackled him to the ground, smashing his spine and breaking several vertebrae. Once they realized that he had been seriously injured (he could no longer sit upright), they cleaned the grime and dirt off of him as best as they could, then sent him off to the hospital. None of them thought to try to find his son. It wasn't until later that the hospital got in contact with Chirag and told him about his father's condition.
Now they're trying to say that he was in people's driveways, looking in people's garages. He was walking along the sidewalk, looking all over the place. How do you not walk through someone's driveway when it intersects the sidewalk? Do you expect people walking by to keep their heads turned away if you leave your garage open? This whole affair stinks to high heaven, and all of us who know Chirag are hoping with all our might that the linebacker-sized man who tackled Chirag's petite father to the ground gets punished for his negligence/animosity/whatever it was. A man so quick to resort to violence has no place as a public servant.

Edit: Thanks so much for all the visibility, everyone. Chirag doesn't know I've posted this (or if he does, he hasn't mentioned it), but I know he'd be happy to see that the country he had such faith in isn't nearly as terrible as it might have seemed on Friday. I do want to mention one other sad side-effect of this whole affair. Chirag had been working to get his mother to the States too, but now she's too terrified to come. She thinks that if they're willing to paralyze her husband for going for a walk, who knows what they'd do to her? Up until now, she was just as excited as Mr. Patel was about coming to America to meet her grandchild and help the couple with their new baby. Now she doesn't dare. What a great day to be an American.

Obama should make sure minorities and other races are protected, otherwise the Idea of America is in danger.

 

[thethinker]

Very unfortunate incident. Hopes he gets all better soon.

And Mr. Patel should sue the daylight out of that redneck racist cops.

 

[PredictablyMalicious]

American cops can get away with murder easily. They are drunk on power and often trigger happy lunatics.

 

[Ray]

I wonder why the Human Rights organisations that are ready to how human rights violation in non Western countries, are remarkably silent when it comes to Western countries human rights abuses.

 

[ladder]

I wonder why the Human Rights organisations that are ready to how human rights violation in non Western countries, are remarkably silent when it comes to Western countries human rights abuses.

You need to gang up like Fergusion for HR org. to take notice. Until then their heads are fixated towards 3rd world countries.

 

[DingDong]

I wonder why the Human Rights organisations that are ready to how human rights violation in non Western countries, are remarkably silent when it comes to Western countries human rights abuses.

Indians are generally docile (servile) in nature, that is how they get so "well-integrated" in their adopted lands. Indian Media is not reporting it.

 

[sorcerer]

Didnt OBAMA just said something about tolerance and living peacefully when he came over to INdia!!!
Wow!!

May be his nose is too long to see whats happening just under his own nose..

Americans...making an ass out of themselves since July 4, 1776

 

[bhramos]

 

[salute]

Indians are generally docile (servile) in nature, that is how they get so "well-integrated" in their adopted lands.

racist remark.

 

[cobra commando]

[tweet]565720414597689344[/tweet]
[tweet]565720714968588288[/tweet]
[tweet]565721050030157824[/tweet]

 

[Dark Sorrow]

We have to take in account that Indians do have a habit to poke nose into other mans business. This trait is even severe for Gujarati. In India people bare with the annoying habit but in US its simply not acceptable. You can exercise your right to 2nd amendment against speciousness person in your property.

The complaint clearly states :

they received a call early Friday about a man looking in garages among the brick homes just south of the city's new high school. The caller, who lives in the neighborhood did not recognize the subject and thought him to be suspicious.

Mr Patel does not have any business of walking their.
If he wanted to just walk he should have gone to part or some sport facility.

From legal stand point police officer war right and followed the protocol. Mr. Patel will get nominal compensation.

The best explanation Mr. Patel has come up with is :

He was enamored with the beauty and cleanliness of his son's neighborhood, and it was his habit to take walks through it for his health and good spirits.

 

[thethinker]

OT but in US it must be fun to report anyone to cops on grounds of "suspicious" activity.

Twitch.TV Gamer Joshua Peters's House Invaded By Armed Police After 'Swatting' Attack

A video gamer had his house raided by armed police as 60,000 people watched on the internet.

Joshua Peters, who uses the name Koopatroopa787 on Twitch, makes a living live-streaming his sessions of Clash of Clans and Runescape Online.

But a session on Thursday was interrupted first with confusion, and then with terror, after 10 armed police from the St Cloud Police Department in Minnesota entered his house after reports a gunman had killed his roommate at the property.

What they found instead was a very confused, scared man and his family, who were the victims of a potentially deadly prank call.

 

[Razor]

We have to take in account that Indians do have a habit to poke nose into other mans business. This trait is even severe for Gujarati. In India people bare with the annoying habit but in US its simply not acceptable. You can exercise your right to 2nd amendment against speciousness person in your property.

The complaint clearly states :


Mr Patel does not have any business of walking their.
If he wanted to just walk he should have gone to part or some sport facility.

From legal stand point police officer war right and followed the protocol. Mr. Patel will get nominal compensation.

The best explanation Mr. Patel has come up with is :

How do you know that Mr. Patel and the " man looking in garages" in the received complaint, are the same?

WHY did you make that assumption?

Also what does "looking in garages" mean?
Does it mean being physically present in a garage or just looking into a garage?

If X was physically present in Y's garage then Y can ask X to leave and if X doesn't comply, then Y can use force IF X is an assailant else he'll have to call the police to remove X.
That is how I understand the "stand-your-ground" law.

Anyway, merely looking into garages is not a crime.

 

[Razor]

OT but in US it must be fun to report anyone to cops on grounds of "suspicious" activity.

Twitch.TV Gamer Joshua Peters's House Invaded By Armed Police After 'Swatting' Attack

A video gamer had his house raided by armed police as 60,000 people watched on the internet.

Joshua Peters, who uses the name Koopatroopa787 on Twitch, makes a living live-streaming his sessions of Clash of Clans and Runescape Online.

But a session on Thursday was interrupted first with confusion, and then with terror, after 10 armed police from the St Cloud Police Department in Minnesota entered his house after reports a gunman had killed his roommate at the property.

What they found instead was a very confused, scared man and his family, who were the victims of a potentially deadly prank call.

Supposedly it's called swatting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ziLjOPCQwg

 

[ladder]

Now, who is going to lecture Obama about the intolerance and gun culture in USA.

 

[Dark Sorrow]

How do you know that Mr. Patel and the " man looking in garages" in the received complaint, are the same?

I didn't but police do.

WHY did you make that assumption?

The caller, who lives in the neighbourhood did not recognize the subject and thought him to be suspicious.

Also what does "looking in garages" mean?

That he was looking in garages of other peoples house.

Does it mean being physically present in a garage or just looking into a garage?

If X was physically present in Y's garage then Y can ask X to leave and if X doesn't comply, then Y can use force IF X is an assailant else he'll have to call the police to remove X.
That is how I understand the "stand-your-ground" law.

The article clearly states that the caller, who lives in the neighbourhood did not recognize the subject and thought him to be suspicious and so the caller reported to the cops. This is the standard approach in US.
Cops don't need a reason to ask your ID or ask you what are you doing at that particular location.

Anyway, merely looking into garages is not a crime.

To see this from law enforcement's perspective how do you know he was merely looking into garages and not casing homes for burglary.

 

[Razor]

I didn't but police do.

You are the one who said in the earlier post, that Mr. Patel does not have any right of walking there. That means you said it.
Now I m asking you again: How did you know that the person described in the phone complaint is Mr. Patel, it could very well have been someone else.

The caller, who lives in the neighbourhood did not recognize the subject and thought him to be suspicious.

If the caller did not recognize the suspect, then how do you or anybody else know it was Mr. Patel.

That he was looking in garages of other peoples house.

You need to be clear.
I can look into a garage standing on public property also. It is not a crime.

The article clearly states that the caller, who lives in the neighbourhood did not recognize the subject and thought him to be suspicious and so the caller reported to the cops. This is the standard approach in US.
Cops don't need a reason to ask your ID or ask you what are you doing at that particular location.

Educate yourself.
Cops do need a reason to ask your ID.
And unless the person is a threat or is being detained, the person need not reveal his ID.
Go watch videos on Youtube. There are hundreds of videos were people carrying fully loaded firearms walk freely on roads; when police ask them ID, they refuse and walk away. The police can't do shit.

To see this from law enforcement's perspective how do you know he was merely looking into garages and not casing homes for burglary.

I'll ask the question in reverse: How do you know he was not merely looking?

A professional force doesn't just go around intimidating people who seem suspicious.

 

[cobra commando]

Family of Indian paralysed in police action in U.S. will file lawsuit - The Hindu

 

[cobra commando]

[tweet]565822591395319808[/tweet]

 

[Dark Sorrow]

You are the one who said in the earlier post, that Mr. Patel does not have any right of walking there. That means you said it.

If he wanted to walk he should have walked in park. Wandering around on street is not acceptable in US.

Now I m asking you again: How did you know that the person described in the phone complaint is Mr. Patel, it could very well have been someone else.

How did you know that the person described in the phone complaint wasn't Mr. Patel. The police tried to find out and he behaved suspiciously by putting hand in his pocket during police attempt to frisk him.
If the caller did not recognize the suspect, then how do you or anybody else know it was Mr. Patel.

You need to be clear.
I can look into a garage standing on public property also. It is not a crime.

In US if you are staring in other person's garage and the person calls cops then the cops can question you about your activities.
I have seen people calling cops for parked vans an this is a man looking.

Educate yourself.
Cops do need a reason to ask your ID.
And unless the person is a threat or is being detained, the person need not reveal his ID.
Go watch videos on Youtube. There are hundreds of videos were people carrying fully loaded firearms walk freely on roads; when police ask them ID, they refuse and walk away. The police can't do shit.

Sir, instead making comments in thin air based on You Tube I request you this. Link.
Yes police can ask for ID and you can't refuse them else you can be arrested.

I'll ask the question in reverse: How do you know he was not merely looking?

A professional force doesn't just go around intimidating people who seem suspicious.

They didn't hence they were asking but Mr. Patel failed to follow protocol when he began putting his hands in his pockets. The police statement clearly states "Officers attempted to pat the subject down and he attempted to pull away. The subject was forced to the ground, which resulted in injury".

Sir, I advice you study emergency protocols in US before commenting.