We broke down the now infamous police beat-down video yesterday morning on the site but since then a little more information has leaked out that we just had to pass on.
It turns out ole Officer Dustin “Let go of my feet!” Ries has a pretty short beat you with his club and mace you fuse.
We’ve all seen his latest beating/macing in its beautiful YouTube glory, but STLToday learned that Ries has had at least two other run-ins that ended with him beating someone with his baton and macing them. The first happened in 2004:
A 2005 civil suit in St. Louis alleged that Ries struck a man on the head with his baton and sprayed him with pepper spray in an on-duty traffic stop on North Grand Boulevard in September 2004. Records show that case was dismissed; it was unclear Tuesday whether a settlement was reached.
Sound familiar? Ok, don’t go all guessing how the next one goes. You’ll spoil it for the rest of us:
A 2008 federal suit alleged that Ries assaulted two men with his police baton and pepper spray while he was working off-duty at the Big Bang piano bar on Laclede’s Landing in April 2006. Al Johnson, a Clayton attorney for the plaintiffs, said his clients were initially charged with assault but the charges were later dropped.
The lesson in all of this? Maybe the St. Louis Police Department should do us all a solid and replace Ries’ baton with some sort of Nerf version. That way, he can use it all the time, to point at or hit things he wants for instance, and we’ll all think it’s cute rather than dangerously excessive.
via STLToday, who, to their credit, has done some really nice work on this story.