Bogota, New Jersey, police officer Regina Tasca responded to a call about a young man who was being erratic. She was supposed to transport him to the hospital. Two of her fellow officers, though, thought they were more supposed to jump on him and kick him in the head and shit — you know, the law! Tasca jumped in and managed to pry the officers off the young man. What do you suppose has happened since? A commendation, maybe? Definitely a commendation right? Haha no of course not. She has been suspended from duty for being “psychologically unfit.”
The black-and-white tape captures it all–a mother, Tara, screaming for police to stop punching her son on their front lawn. She had called to have her emotionally disturbed son Kyle taken to the hospital. Bogota police responded while waiting for the ambulance. Tasca was the sole officer on the road that day, so she called for back-up according to protocol. Ridgefield Park police then sent two officers. Tasca had just completed her state-mandated training for working with emotionally disturbed citizens.
Tasca described what we see on the videotape: “The Ridgefield Park officer automatically charges and takes him down to the ground. I was quite shocked. As he’s doing that, another Ridgefield Park officer flies to the scene in his car, jumps out and starts punching him in the head.”
What happened next? Is it baffling to many?
What happened next is so baffling to so many.
Tasca’s voice began to waiver as she recounted the meeting with her superior officer:
“The next thing I know he asks me to turn over my weapon and be sent for a fitness for duty exam,” she said.
Bogota PD, after hearing Tasca’s story, believes she is psychologically incompetent to be a police officer, and she is being sent for testing. The Ridgefield Park Police officers seen tackling and punching an emotionally disturbed man waiting for an ambulance are never questioned. never interviewed by an Internal Affairs Investigator, and are still working the streets today.
Bogota Police chose to suspend Tasca, an 11-year veteran with numerous commendations.
We are waiting on the outcome of Tasca’s show trial. Oh, but did we mention that in addition to being a lady cop, Regina Tasca is also gay? That might not be helping.
Tasca spells it out: “I’m the only female–the first female ever–and the first and only gay female also.” When asked if she feels targeted because of her sex and her sexual orientation, she doesn’t hesitate in here answer: “Yes.”
Therefore, it is probably best if Bogota, New Jersey, fires Regina Tasca twice. [WPIX, via Reason]
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Fuck, what's our news source this morning?
Unfortunately, Reality.
Some say that depression is not an illness, it is just the condition of being rational and aware. But it is unpleasant, so I take drugs, in order to warp my perceptions into thinking things are not so bad. But the gubmint says I have to take these particular drugs that make fucking harder to do, and which don't go so far as to make me see that working overtime just to buy more material shit is not the way to satisfaction in life. On the other hand, there are other drugs, which do an even better job of making me unnaturally happy, but they are illegal, probably because they make fucking more fun, and also lead to a rejection of many aspects of our wealth and materialism-obsessed culture. I.e., I would not pay as much in taxes.
Shorter Prommie:
I don't need life, I get high on drugs!
Some say that depression is… just the condition of being rational and aware. But it is unpleasant, so I take drugs
Well reading your entire ramble here just made me smile a little, whether or not that was its original intent, it is alleviating the tedium of this morning's posts.
As a fellow member of The Depressed, and Unemployed for two fucking years, I share your craving for better drugs.
Tasca had just completed her state-mandated training for working with emotionally disturbed citizens.
Or as I like to call it, dealing with her coworkers.
This is why we love you!
Love ya back!
Sounds like she was part of a special Tasca Foce.
Whereas the Ridgefield cops had just slept through most of a training program on how to deal with "Death By Cop" crazies and were eager to test it out.
She wanted to treat an ill human being with compassion
She should have become a nun.
No, wait, that won't work anymore either.
I don't know…not wanting to beat up a sick person sounds kinda fishy to me too…
You do realize that this is New Jersey? The term "psychologically unfit" has a different meaning in the Garden State.
It depends on your exit, I hear.
It's all the oil refinery fumes from near the Turnpike. We know the effects on fish. Just look to New Jersey for oil's effect on people.
In Joisey, it means putting marinara on your ziti instead of meat sauce…
Will there be any nice stories today?
Something about a kitten or puppy being safely reunited with their family would be nice.
Yeah… their Indonesian family…
Maybe there will be one with 25% less horror, but I'm not optimistic.
Agreed. Something like news that the Secret Service anally probed Ted Nugent with a Water-Pik would do quite nicely, for starters.
"Agreed. Something like news that the Secret Service anally probed Ted Nugent with a
Water-Pikfire hose would do quite nicely, for starters."(fixed)
Do you know who else from New Jersey is "psychologically unfit" for office?
All of them, Katie
That guy who is also physically unfit for office?
Sammiches?
Christine Todd Whitman?
Jon Stewart?
(Well, for office in Jersey anyway)
Jimmy Hoffa?
Stop! Just stop!
(I need more coffee, Wonkette is not helping my migraine this morning.)
Try an ice cube between your eyebrows for about 30 seconds… it should help at least for a little while.
You sure that's not Bogota, Colombia?
No hookers or blow.
No good hookers and blow.
My error
Its Ba Go Ta, NJ and Bo Ga Ta, Columbia.
I used to live about six miles west and go through a section of Bogota to get to work. I always geared up because one intersection was the worst ticket trap in all of Bergen County.
Why isn't Dick Codey getting on this? Seriously?
Codey’s Senate district does not include Bergen County. Seriously, I just talked to one of his former staff people earlier this evening and the speculation of whether he will run for Governor is rampant. But no-one seems ready to quote whether he will. A few months ago Fairleigh Ridiculous University’s polling group found that “Democrats and unaffiliated voters thinking about who they might like to have run against Christie in 2013 hardly have their minds made up. Offered a choice of six prominent Democrats, nearly half have no preference (46%), but about one in five prefer (18%) former Gov. Richard Codey and a similar proportion (19%) prefer Newark Mayor Cory Booker. Rep. Frank Pallone, Senate President Steve Sweeney, and Senator Barbara Buono each pull 5%. Assemblyman Lou Greenwald polls 1%.” FDU GOVERNOR'S POLL . I chatted up Pallone earlier for some issues and drifted into the Governor’s race and got no inkling about his interest and I haven’t really thought about Pallone as Governor. I was talking up Cory Booker to a few people who looked interested as with the recent events a lot of people are looking at him as more than just a politician. He is now being seen as a very competent politician with charisma and a pretty face. But his departure from the old Newark machine may cost him. With Barbara Bono pulling only 5% that sounds like it is quite down from last year at this time.
Find Codey’s book, “Me, Governor?” if you have a fair interest in NJ Politics, it’s hilarious.
From "Alice's Restaurant" :
"You want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women,
kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug?"
Keeeiiid …
I am running out of snark for this morning…too many depressing stories. Don't we have any Newt or Palin stories to cheer us up?
Yes, surely some other creature has bitten Newtie by now. Please!
"Not wanting to curb stomp some emotionally disturbed kid and/or taser the shit out of him and/or pepper spray him into a coma" = "being psychologically incompetent to be a police officer."
I gotta say, between the massive spike in apparently acceptable police brutality, the all-but-ignored-now use of torture (as long as we're torturing Those People), and drones flying overhead with the ability to kill any citizen without due process, I sure am proud to be an American.
**bangs head on desk**
Looks like it's your move, Sara Connor …
And with world gummints slowly taking over the intertubes, it's beginning to look a bit like Skynet.
At least the gun laws are in my favor.
Unless President-Unit MittBott2000 gets to change that…
Can we get some good news today? Maybe something hilariously dumb Mittens did, or more tales of Newt Gingrich bouncing checks?
This is just…really bumming me out :(
It's early yet but all Mitt has managed to do so far is piss off a local PA bakery.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/19/romney-c…
Yeah "CookieGate" was somewhat disappointing when I clicked on the TPM link for it.
There weren't even any oblique "War on Women" references, or casual acts of animal cruelty.
Evidence is mounting that Mittens has missed his calling as a mediocre Insult Comic.
For me to poop on!
This is a lot to start April 19th with, dear Editriestes. I'm still cranky from having endured April 18 with a Ken Layne-advocated Buy Nothing Day observance — which I violated by putting gas in my truck.
Ken who?
Well obviously she's psychologically unfit to be a police officer; it sounds like she has compassion, rendering her a bad cop, they are are supposed to be vicious sadists who enjoy beating people for no reason.
This story reminds me of a psychiatrist friend who described the ever so thin line that separates (some) cops from those they arrest.
The line is the badge; that makes whatever the cops do perfectly legal. These days that even includes rape, or shooting unarmed innocent men armed with a wallet.
It's unsafe to be: female, gay, mentally ill, a Black man, a Vietnamese woman, Gulf seafood…the Powers That Be are taking down errbody. I'm thinking that my living-in-a-cave idea is a winner. Then again, I'm Black and female, so I KNOW my happy ass is on the chopping block.
As a straight white male, I'm safe, but only until I try to speak out on behalf of any of the above groups. I'm sure being a grad student is worth at least two demerits, too.
Needs more Ice-T, and I'm not talking about the refreshing beverage that will also get you an ass whooping.
She is psychologically incompetent to be a police officer. So true; she has a shred of human dignity.
^^This. I used to trust and believe in the police. Not no mo!
Wait, which one was the "emotionally disturbed" man? Because it seems like there was more than one.
Ok, time for something much less depressing. HEY EVERYBODY! Lorne Michael's has offered to let Mitt Romney host SNL! Imagine what a pot of hilarity that will be!! !http://www.examiner.com/white-house-press-in-national/mitt-romney-is-considering-an-offer-to-host-saturday-night-live-video
Jesus fuck, Walnuts waited until the weekend before the election for that throw-in-the-towel gesture!
I fixed your linky, also.
http://www.examiner.com/white-house-press-in-nati…
Lorne Michaels, the blind squirrel that finds an acorn every seven years.
As long as there's not another goddamn "Gillie" sketch.
That could produce a Lame capable of swallowing the planet.
Let the humanization begin!
On the bright side, today is the seventeenth anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing.
yay?
That was White Christian Republican Terrorism, so doesn't matter: see also recent Abortion Doctor killings, not a peep from MSM.
These officers are the type that probably have a "girlie" calendar in their locker room.
Tasca's gay. Her fellow officers probably think she'd agree with it.
You know I actually saw one of those today. I was waiting (for hours) having my car worked on and had to use the restroom. There it was, for all the customers to see. The best part was the advertisement for a local CPA at the bottom, with the caption "Stop looking at this calendar, you should be getting your taxes done."
These pigs make their own special "girlie calenders" with forensic examination photos from child sexual abuse investigations.
she is psychologically incompetent to be a police officer
She didn't crush bugs and torture pets growing up…
Every kid crushes bugs. Grownups, too. It's the pet torturing that is the real tipoff.
Starbucks (starbugs?) crushing bugs , grinding them up and putting them in your coffee for colour is also a tipoff (that things have gone terribly wrong).
Meh, better than chemicals…
I thought I had a complete set of reasons not to drink that crap and you gave me one more–thank you!
Am I the only adult in the (civilized?) US who's never bought *anything* at StarPhuckers?
She has no small pee-pee issues.
You know what's missing from this thrilling cop drama?
Donuts is what.
It's kinda early for the Governor to weigh in don't you think?
That's the Mitt Romney connection in all this. Bain Capital, along with others, bought Dunkin donuts, looted it, sold off franchises and dumped it on the market.
Did Krispy Kreme just go bankrupt on its own, or did he help with that, too?
I don’t recall Krispy Kreme going bankrupt. They had an accounting scandal and one of the owners of a large group of franchises went bankrupt and it was discovered they were ‘top’ loading to produce the illusion of higher growth. But like a Ponzi scheme that can’t be done every quarter. Dunkin Donuts may still be owned by the Bain Capital, Carlyle, Thomas Partners group that bought it during or close to the end of Romney’s tenure.
I didn't realize it was a group of franchises.All of a sudden I heard people in Tucson complaining “no more Krispy Kreme,” so I thought it was everywhere.(Yes, I should be smart enough to know that as Arizona goes, so the nation doesn't necessarily go — thank God.)I don't even like KK, too greasy; I prefer the driest cake donut Dunkin' makes.For dunkin', of course.
PigNewton ran out of money so their sales plummeted!
Donutcopter!
I'm pretty sure this will end poorly for the city.
I hope it makes the city bleed from its anus.
When did we give the sole responsibility for mental health issues to fucking cops?
Needs moar baton blows.
I need more arsenic for my coffee this morning…
Sometimes I hate this fucking world.
The world is GREAAAT!
It's the people I could do without… present company excluded.
She should have said she was "Lenny Dykstra" (get it, "Dykstra") and held a knife to her colleague's throat. Then everything would have been fine.
You know who's birthday was today?
My little brother's?
Birthday? Um, the Olsen twins? I heard that Ted Nugent claims that he fucked them before they were famous.
Tied up like little cornish hens?
Ewwww.
It was an awful period in American Album Cover History, sorry I mentioned it.
Weeg's?
Dick Sargent?
Actually, three of my ex's, come to think of it.
You were married to Hitler?
Beating the hell out of innocent people is one of the major perks of being a police officer. I can't believe they didn't taser him a few times while they were at it, perhaps they were old school cops.
Silly gay-dy, policing's for dudes!
BuhGOATuh, NJ, is in Bergen county, which is a Very Special Place. It's one of the most conservative areas of NJ, with many localities consistently voting Republican. It's not shocking that these cops are too stupid and crazy to act right.
PS: Why does my P-ness keep bobbing up and down? It's quite dizzying.
You see, when a man and a woman love each other very much…
The cops what done the beatin' was from the neighboring community of Ridgefield Park. This is the area which has that strong tradition of high school football player-gang-rape, too, isn't it?
It's a bit north and east of Glen Ridge.
I found FloMax works wonders from intermittent P-ing
Really now, who wants to work alongside an openly empathy-positive cop?
It's fine with me if they want to show empathy in their home, but why do they have to put it out there for everyone to see?
See also, 'throat ramming.'
Yeah – it might be *contagious*!!!!!
Could someone say a nice thing about a lady person? Just for a second? I feel sad and kind of a like an emotionally disturbed person being punched in the head by a cop for having a hoohah today.
I hear ya, Fakakta, I want to go home and lock myself in my apartment, fetal position, wine, etc.
I'll do you one better and say something nice about you, Lady Person. You are fun to hang out with!
I'd fist this twice, if I could
I feel the exact same way about you CK!
I like lady-persons, they are soft and smell nice and their hoohahs are the special-est things in the world!
I like putting my head on their lumps.
Either head. Doesn't matter.
I think so too. And I DO smell like chanel mademoiselle AND I am going to stick my butt out a little extra today while I work out, just because I want the nice guy persons I know there to smile at me and not be scary and mean or rapey and punchy, just to restore some of my faith. This morning has made me think about battling sexes way too much.
Himanshu Suri's on the case.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIvfl3ME-bw
Of course she is unfit to do her job… she hadn't even started the beating yet… fuck, start thumping lady.
Someone needs to get the ear of our ex-acting Governor Dick Codey, from what I know, he would likely support some changes in the way police respond to mental health calls. He has been a champion for mental health issues, he has family experience with mental illness, I am serious here, anyone know him?
He's locked in a loony-bin located miles beneath Gov. FatBastard's office!
Hmm. According to the Feds who have just put the smackdown on Seattle police, she is clearly unfit to be a Seattle cop based on Seattle cop practices.
I get the impression that beating the shit out of anyone as soon as they arrive on the scene is pretty much the way these brave dumbass Ridgefield Park officers react to everything. Invite them to dinner and the first thing they do is take their plate, hold it down and commence beating the shit out of it.
Suddenly I get this image of Peter Griffin at a barbecue with a giant chicken.
You are basically describing the Seaside police force. The sad thing is, they have yet to perform their routine procedure on the cast of Jersey Shore. All you hypocritical libtards would probably be cheering, if that was the story. And the cast of Jersey Shore are "special," you know what I mean, short-bus special, so it would be just as heinous, morally.
As he’s doing that, another Ridgefield Park officer flies to the scene in his car,
Don't mess with the Ridgefield Park cops–they have flying cars.
On the plus side, at least her male colleagues didn't find time for a little corrective rape during their breaks from beating down the mentally ill guy. Looking for silver linings is depressing this morning.
Whores are cheaper, too. Thats why I can't understand why that secret service agent refused to pay the bill. It was totally a bargain!
This sort of training is vital and underused by police who tend to think of their safety first (i.e. physical domination of the subject) and only much later about whether the person is struggling because they mentally can't process what is going on. The fact that it led her to see the beatdown as inappropriate should have been hailed as a testament to training – but of course she got fired.
BTW, what happened to that kid is a personal nightmare of just about every parent of a child with a developmental or emotional disability I know. Too many times the police have no clue what they are dealing with and the results are often tragic. So if nothing else, Tasca will have friends in the DD and ED community for life.
Bogota? Isn't that place full of drug cartels? You pretty much need to beat the shit out first and ask questions later in places like that.
The nearest town/city to me is Las Vegas Nevada. Po-po on citizen violence is so bad there, they have a special section in the local paper about it. Said local paper is NOT a member of the so-called liberal, lamestream media, either.
I have a good reason to be scared to fucking death by this story, what with being a parent and all.
Here's another little bit of Bergen County news. Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan's son arrested for drug use.
Just the other day Republican Donovan fired seven of the nine Bergen County Utility Commissioners, but it was only a coincidence that they were Democrats.
Part and parcel with the militarization of our Police "Services". Next they will have to make videos of urinating on dead suspects or displaying body parts to rate news coverage. This is a really sad, disheartening story.
Let's see, she's gay, she's compassionate, she's a woman, she's smart. None of these things qualify her as a police officer, obviously. At least she's white. She's got that goin' for her.
But, but cops are heroes because 9/11.
I think women in uniforms are hot, especially police officers. She could mirandize me any day.
I likes a woman in a tool belt, meself. Bonus points if she has a red pickup. Hawwwwwtttt!
You just described about 40% of the plot to the movie "Bound".
I guess they deal with speeders by shooting out their tires.
"Regina Tasca"? Sounds ethnic!
In New Jersey it's not. "John Smith" would be ethnic in New Jersey.
Well, this was certainly baffling to me.
That's good. If it made sense to you, then you could worry.
I fucking hate the police. And no, they have never protected me from anything, so I won't "wish they were around if they weren't," so fuck 'em.
If you want to share your anger and outrage with the Bogota City Council and Mayor, either call the phone number or send an email to the address below…this is an idiotic move and will open them up for not only ridicule, but lawsuits…if I were a local lawyer I would offer my services free of charge…
201-342-1736
http://www.bogotaonline.org/contact-us/
By the way moderators…those are PUBLIC contacts, not personal.
This is not fucking funny. My son has emotional delays, he too had a fit and it took three police officers to get him under control. He was 9 years old at the time. This is my fucking nightmare everybody. Isn't that funny? Hahaha!
Being in NJ Dunkin Donuts is pervasive and far outnumbers their leading competitor Starbucks. Our ‘hospitality’ person on our local Dem political operation almost always goes to Dunkin Donuts for our events and our visits to seniors and hospitals. I keep reminding her that Dunkin Donuts are ‘Republican’ donuts because of the Bain and Carlyle connections. But put one of their cherry or blueberry cake donuts in front of me and I’ll inhale it whole.
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