....before reading this story. A National Guard sergeant and OIF veteran was beaten severely by the Las Vegas Police simply because he questioned a TSA employee who tried to pull rank on him. Watch the videos and listen to the audio and judge for yourself.

If you choose to write to the LVPD (and I hope you will), please be polite but firm.  Here's my response.

I am stunned that the Las Vegas Police Department would defend the obviously despicable behavior of the officers that beat Sgt. England. It is beyond comprehension that a man can be tased three times simply because the officers didn't like his attitude or felt he shouldn't have questioned the TSA.

In watching the video, it's apparent that, rather than Sgt. England approaching the police in an aggressive manner, Sgt. England was attacked simply for questioning the TSA employee. Furthermore, breaking the ribs of an arrestee is an obvious excessive use of force.

Police officers have a duty to behave in an ethical, responsible and restrained manner no matter what the provocation is. Your officers failed their duty and should be reprimanded at a minimum, if not fired. If the LVPD fails to take appropriate action, you may rest assured that I will personally attempt to dissuade every person I know from ever visiting Las Vegas again.

This story will be posted on my blog and is already spreading across the internet.

Some things in life REQUIRE a response.  This is one of them.  (Hat tip to Sean.)

Crossposted at Media Lies

Tags: military Las Vegas police beating veteran

*** 2007.05.18 update (by Bill Faith):

Don't miss Doc in the Box's related post here. (H/T: Blackfive)

Contributed by antimedia on May 15, 2007 at 11:13 PM | Permalink

Comments

Posted by: Delta

Wow, wondering how it plays out, when did this happen, does anyone know? And what started it? No other info other than he missed his flight because of a bottle of Sprite that the TSA guy wanted him to give away. All I can make out in the fuzzy video is him with his arms crossed standing there, but no other video.

Posted by: Delta | May 16, 2007 12:51:38 AM

Posted by: antimedia

The incident occurred about two months ago. He apparently argued with a TSA employee about taking a Sprite through security. He pointed out that he was a Sgt. in the Army. The TSA guy then said he was a Lt. Sgt. England then asked to see his id card.

Later, after he realized he had missed his flight, he came back to ask the TSA guy why he had hassled him. They spoke briefly. Then he left, headed back toward his gate. Meanwhile, the TSA guy said something to the police, who then accosted England and attacked him without provocation, breaking three of his ribs in the process and tasing him three times.

Sgt. England was never arrested and has never been charged with any crime.

The LVPD claims their officers acted within their policy guidelines.

I guess that means they can beat innocent citizens whenever they feel like it.

Posted by: antimedia | May 16, 2007 12:28:17 PM

Posted by: Sean

Thanks for taking this up AM, you know me, happy go lucky guy but this story makes me boil. What's wrong with our country when we can let things like this happen? Sheesh! Thanks for the ping man.

Posted by: Sean | May 16, 2007 7:19:11 PM

Posted by: Julianna England

Hello Old War Dogs:) This is Julianna England, Sgt. Mark England's wife and I do not know anything about blogs:) I am personally wanting to find every single blog person who has written about the beating and tasing of my husband by enraged LVMPD officers and say thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am so overwhelmed by you foolwing this story and spreading the word to help us to make this story go national and see that these officers are fired and can never again harm another person! Please email me at my email address and tell me you received this! it would truly mean alot! Blessings,

Julianna England x0x

Posted by: Julianna England | May 16, 2007 9:05:59 PM

Posted by: Cavmedic68w20

Actually what happened was, I tried to take a soda I bought at a stand right outside the checkpoint through security, because everytime I've flown since the liguids ban, I've been allowed to do just that. I didn't think the 20 some year old TSA agent who told me I couldn't take it through knew what she was talking about, so I asked to speak with he supervisor.
When I got to him, I explained my understanding of the rule and how different airports and TSA checkpoints interpret the ruling. The supervisor and LVMPD officer Jennings asked who I was and to see my ID and boarding pass. I showed them my military ID and introduced myself as SGT Mark England. While officer Jennings took my boarding pass and ID into an enclosed area, the TSA supervisor than says to me... "I'm a LT in the Army and your conduct is not appropriate to the situation." I looked at him (he's 50 plus years old) and asked "You're a LT in the Army?" he says "Yes." and that's when I asked him 4 seperate times to see his military ID. Explaining to him the Army regulation about being out of uniform and producing proper ID. He continued to refuse and that's when I said... "With all due respect sir, that's F***ed up." Not loudly, no angrily. Just stating a matter of fact. As we in the Army are allowed to do when addressing a situation that is not right.
As for my beating, well, I tried to do everything officer Jennings asked me to do, when I tried to show him my boarding pass the 2nd time. I had placed it in my left front pocket along with a dollar bill and a claim ticket for a locker. I pulled the claim ticket out 1st, apologised and placed it in my right front pocket. I then pulled out the dollar bill, apologised again and tried to put it in my right front pocket, but officer Jennings grabbed it out of my hand and threw it on the ground. I then pulled out my boarding pass handed it to officer Jennings and then asked him if he would please pick up the dollar he threw on the ground. I guess this politeness his what pissed him off enough to pull out handcuffs, grab me and try to spin me around without telling me why I was being detained.
The rest is me blocking every full force baton swing I could, getting cut up, fractured ribs and 2 good blows to my head and three taser blasts.

Posted by: Cavmedic68w20 | May 20, 2007 11:33:53 AM

Posted by: antimedia

So Officer Jennings was involved in the initial incident. That explains a lot. He probably felt you needed a good asswhippin' for "talking back" to the TSA employee, and he was just the man for the job.

Interesting that Jennings asked to see your boarding pass after he had already seen it previously. To me that speaks of intent. He wanted to create an incident so he could "justify" beating you, and your fumbling for the pass was all the provocation he needed.

Posted by: antimedia | May 20, 2007 11:53:50 AM

Posted by: USMCJason

Sometimes the wise thing to do is just walk away. Obviously Sgt England couldn't do this. I don't feel that Sgt England had any authority to question the tsa security. If the soda had been tossed and Sgt England would have went on to catch his flight, this entire situation would have been avoided. Using a tour in Iraq to further this agenda is appalling and very unbecoming. My father is a retired MSgt and I would just about bet that he carries nothing to prove his rank.

Posted by: USMCJason | Jun 18, 2007 1:52:55 PM

Posted by: Julianna England

Wanted to give you all an update of the latest from Las Vegas Metro Police Dept....
get constant updates at www.myspace.com/boycottlasvegas
We received some very disturbing news this evening from Las Vegas Metro Police Dept.

Sheriff DOUG GILLESPIE & his Internal Affairs Lieutenant,
LT. MICHAEL DALLEY have informed us in writing (letter copy below) that the officer's who BEAT, TASED (3 TIMES), LAUGHED AT AND MIMICKED MY SOLDIER, have been completely EXONERATED and Lt. DALLEY went on further to say that what these officers did to my Soldier was QUOTE 'JUSTIFIED, LAWFUL & PROPER'.

How can these hierarchies of Las Vegas Metro Police Dept. watch the same videos we all have, listen to the same audio we all have, and come to this conclusion.

Please, I am asking you all to please look at these newscast/videos again, listen to the audio (links all posted below) and then read the letter from Sheriff Doug Gillespies' office and tell us what you think.

I am asking you to please stand with us and not accept this. We need your help to spread the word, please update anything you have helped us write about this with this new information. If you should need any other info, please email me and I will gladly provide it. We will also post this information in our blog area!
We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your unwavering support! Love you guys.

This is a complete outrage. Words cannot describe our disgust with this police dept.

Here are the newscast links~

Part One Interview w/SGT England

Part Two Interview w/SGT England

Here is the letter from Las Vegas Metro Police Dept.~

Judge for yourselves.....read the letter in the blog section at~

www.myspace.com/boycottlasvegas

Posted by: Julianna England | Jun 23, 2007 10:43:34 AM

Posted by: Jeff

Unbelievable, Sgt. England I appreciate the job that you do in the National Guard but you sure are making a big ruckus over something that you started and made worse. You are at fault! You disobeyed the liquid ban policy (I understand it's not really a big deal, i'm sure it happens many times a day but you should know better). You used foul language (again, not a huge deal). Now the problem, you were being taken into custody. The officer was attempting to handcuff you. You have absolutely no right to resist arrest whether you think it's lawful or unlwaful. You did resist arrest... actively because you said yourself you dipped your shoulder and backed away from the officer, a uniformed officer who was attempting to take you into custody. Now, we don't see exactly what happened during the arrest attempt, we only hear your story. Do you really expect people of a sound mind (not these police haters or your family) to believe you did absolutely nothing else to cause the officer to draw his baton and strike you. Why would this officer risk losing his career for just another non-complying idiot like yourself??? I'm sure in Las Vegas he faces people who are jerks all the time. Do you think he takes swings at everyone? Come on, give it a rest. You messed up. You are wrong. You are responsible for this. You were tased because you weren't complying with commands. You can bs people who haven't been tased into believing that you are not able to do anything after being tased. That is a bunch of huey. Look up video demonstrations of people being tased. People who aren't acting (you my friend are acting) will be able to get up after being tased. You could surely roll over and comply with officers so that they may handcuff you. Why would they take the chance coming up to you again if you already resisted once. They aren't going to fight with someone when they can have the upper hand and make them comply without going hands on again. I think brining your service in the national guard into this is a disgrace for all of us in the national guard. In fact what you are doing is using this as a disclaimer. You are saying you are not capable of acting in such a manner to deserve this treatment because you are a national guardsman... much like some criminals may put DARE stickers or Jesus stickers on their vehicles to deter any suspicion that they are criminals. Moral of the story... You made several mistakes. You whine about the police needing to be accountable when you are the one that needs to take accountability for all of your actions that caused this situation. Grow up. Learn from this and try not to bash our heroes on U.S. soil because it really makes you look like a moron.

Posted by: Jeff | Jun 25, 2007 6:22:56 AM

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Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Make sure you are sitting down....:

"Soldier Beaten by the Las Vegas Police" from Theodore's World
Sgt Mark T. England of the US Army National Guard was a medic getting ready to deploy forward with his unit when the March 10th incident happened at the McCarren International Airport in Las Vagas. Mark was tased 3... [Read More]

Tracked on May 19, 2007 1:37:10 AM