The Columbus, Ohio, police officer caught on tape stomping a subdued, handcuffed suspect’s head into the concrete will be reinstated at the police force after his firing was reversed on the grounds of no one giving a damn about black people.
In April 2017, Columbus police responded to a call of a weapon being fired and spotted Demarco Anderson leaving the scene. After the officers had restrained Anderson in handcuffs, Officer Zachary Rosen, to make sure the arrested man was not armed, decided to run through the four cops who were already handling Anderson and step on the detainee’s head so hard that it visibly bounced off of the street like a basketball.
When video of Rosen’s alleged assault began to spread, Columbus Public Safety Director Ned Pettus fired Rosen after Deputy Chief Thomas Quinlan found Rosen’s actions to be unreasonable. (Do I have to say “alleged”? Unless there was a roach on Anderson’s ear, we can see that his head being stomped on was an act of police brutality.)
Pettus’ decision overruled four lower-ranking supervisors in the Columbus Police Department who found Rosen’s use of force to be within policy. Police Chief Kim Jacobs recommended that the officer receive only a few days’ suspension and training on how to search for weapons on suspects. Rosen was apparently unaware that marching on someone’s cranium is a less-than-effective frisking technique.
But in a 27-page ruling on Monday, arbitrator Mitchell Goldberg declared that Rosen could return to work as a Columbus police officer. Goldberg decided that Rosen used more force than necessary, but there was no evidence showing that Rosen intended to injure Anderson, WOSU-FM reports, which could only mean one of two things:
- Arbitrator Mitchell Golberg is an idiot; or
- Just before hearing this case, someone stomped on arbitrator Michael Goldberg’s head and Goldberg thinks he’s fine.
Said Goldberg in his decision:
I find that the grievant’s past good work record, and his performance at the highest rewarded level, combined with his intelligence level, is persuasive evidence that he has the ability to adjust his actions to conform with policies and directives in the future as they relate to his use of force in bringing dangerous suspects under control.
You may be confused about how a video of Rosen committing a crime is excluded from his “past good work” and the fact that he was fired doesn’t undermine the gobbledygook about his intelligence level, and how he will most assuredly conform to policies in the future. Perhaps you don’t understand how—unless Rosen tripped and fell on Anderson’s head—he didn’t “intend to injure” him. But you’re not a legal scholar, and you’re forgetting the important legal precedent set in the historic Supreme Court case Police v. Every Black Person Ever, when the court issued a majority opinion that read in part:
“White people can do whatever they want.”
Yes, Goldberg excused the headstomper (which is different from a “hotstepper”) by explaining how Rosen was a very good police officer when he wasn’t doing the Electric Slide across black men’s skulls, and how he was pretty sure Rosen wouldn’t do it anymore because he only did it once, and that shouldn’t count.
Rosen will undergo intense training for not stomping on people’s noggins before returning to work to terrorize the citizens of Columbus. He will also receive a reduced punishment equivalent to three days of suspension without pay. He will eventually return to smashing faces in the same neighborhood his original incident took place.
Meanwhile, according to the Columbus Dispatch, Demarco Anderson, who apparently decided to attack the bottom of Zachary Rosen’s shoe with his face, still faces pending charges.