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Masslive: Police Chief Eric Gillis has released controversial video footage of a violent encounter between three officers and a man in police custody that prompted the firings of two veteran patrolmen and a sergeant in October. The June 19, 2016 footage depicts ousted officers John P. Moccio, Edward B. Connor and Anthony Grasso struggling with David Desjardins Jr., 27, who had been arrested at the Wahoo Tiki Bar at Six Flags New England. Police were called by park security after Desjardins became belligerent when a bartender shut him off, according to a report. The police narrative states Desjardins became combative with officers at the park and was pepper-sprayed several times.
A lawyer for the officers has argued Desjardins was the aggressor and police used appropriate force to subdue him. However, Gillis contends the three used excessive force and violated other departmental policies during the clash. The Republican filed a public records request for the video and other materials, and Gillis released the footage and an internal investigation report after Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni informed him he did not intend to pursue criminal charges against any of the officers.
Additionally, John D. Connor, an attorney for the officers, released still images of the video late Wednesday along with a statement calling for the release of the video.
Gulluni confirmed he met with Gillis on Friday.
“I did inform him verbally that the office, based on an investigation and review of the evidence, would not be pursuing criminal charges against any of the three officers,” Gulluni said in an interview Thursday afternoon. “Any further detail will come in the way of a formal written decision that will come in the near term.”
Gillis said that although his decision to fire the officers triggered considerable backlash, he is confident the terminations were justified.
“When I saw the video I was shocked by it. I knew that it was very serious and as the investigation proceeded it became more and more clear to me how serious it really was. As chief of police it’s my job to make sure that our officers conduct themselves appropriately at all times and deal with the people we come into contact with appropriately at all times.”
The video depicts a struggle in a holding cell with an apparently intoxicated Desjardins after officers led him from the booking area. John Connor has argued Desjardins threw “a vicious elbow strike” to one Grasso’s face and later put Grasso in a headlock. Edward Connor and Grasso wrestle Desjardins to a bench in the cell and Moccio strikes him several times with a baton.
If you haven’t watched the video, then do so and reach your own conclusion. But Turtleboy’s opinion this is an easy one – the cops did absolutely NOTHING wrong, and this guy deserved and earned that whoopin. Let’s go to the play by play.
As the cops are bringing him in, he is actively resisting the entire time. At one point he frees himself by trying to hit the officer with his elbow:
And it works:
As the officer’s try to restrain him, he then tries to punch one of them:
Then he grabs the cop by the back of the neck:
Despite the fact that there are two cops on him, he continues to resist and wrestle with the officer:
At any point he could’ve grabbed the officer’s gun and this could’ve had a much worse ending.
Soon afterwards he gets Officer Grasso in a headlock, he can’t breathe, and his three brothers in blue try to help him out:
When they can’t get him out of the headlock, that’s when Officer Moccio busts out the baton:
But Desjardins thinks he’s fucking Superman, so he continues to resist. That’s when Moccio starts gently tapping him in the calf:
Not the calf muscle!!! That’s where all the lactic acid is!!! I don’t know the first thing about takedowns, but after watching that I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that this is something cops are taught to do to get a suspect to release another person from a headlock.
But that doesn’t initially work either. Desjardins starts to kick his legs and continues to resist, so Moccio taps him a couple more times:
Yet Six Flags’ finest alcoholic finds a way to squirm his legs out again in an attempt to kick one of the officers:
But there was no stopping this nudnik, as he simply refused to give up, and kept kicking anyway:
In an attempt to stop him, Officer Moccio pushes his legs against the wall:
Finally they appear to have him restrained:
But then as they attempt to leave the cell, he’s like “psych,” that was just round 1 bitches:
As he attempts to go out for the sound of the bell, the cops clearly are telling him to sit his drunk ass back down:
But then he’s like, “nah, I came here to party – let’s dance”:
Then Officer Moccio is like, “I will shut that shit down”:
And tosses him into the corner of the bed:
You would think that would be the end of it. But this is a guy who came all the way to Agawam to do two things – ride the roller coaster and kick someone’s ass. Looks like he already went on the roller coaster:
As you can see, Officer Moccio lets him know, if you continue to stand up and fight us, I will fuck you up. Make a choice. Guess what dipshit McGee chose to do?
Foyt!!!
Officer Moccio was kind enough to miss him on purpose in order to get him to back off, but Numbnuts Ned wasn’t done yet:
So they pushed him back up against the wall:
Officer O’Connor then grabbed him by the face, and Desjardins uses his right arm to try to hit him, so Officer Grasso comes in to restrain that arm:
Finally they pin him down and put him in cuffs:
His legs are shackled
And he’s left to wake up to the most magnificent hangover ever:
Look, it’s really pretty simple – if you try to fight the cops then you deserve to get fucked up. Because you’re a fucking idiot and you deserve it. Hopefully they smash some sense into your thick skull so you stop wasting your time on earth as a degenerate chud factory. Plus, this isn’t exactly Rodney King. It’s 90 seconds of three cops restraining an out of control prisoner, with one of them lightly tapping his calf muscle with a baton. If you don’t think this guy deserved that pretty harmless “beating” then you’re everything that’s wrong with America right now. You instinctively side with the assholes who break laws, don’t follow orders, and think rules don’t apply to them. You embolden and encourage this type of behavior.
But alas there are many Facebook experts in police takedowns who think this video is problematic:
He was protecting himself? He could’ve protected himself by sitting down on the fucking bed. Instead he chose to fight the cops and he lost. Stop enabling assholes, asshole.
Hey moron, the “thug” using the baton was doing so for a specific, biological reason that cops learn in training:
And this:
I saw it twice so far on TV but saw enough to know what the officer with the baton “thought” he was doing. He was trying to use his baton to give “distraction” strikes and then he was attempting to give some nerve strikes. He also gave a few hits with the base of the handle in the side, near the kidney area. To some, it may have looked bad but the officer never used the baton in any way that could be considered Deadly Force, that is, force which is likely or intended to cause death or SERIOUS bodily injury. This officer was trying to get this prisoner to experience enough discomfort to stop resisting and fighting with the police. The baton can be used as an impact weapon, a blocking tool or a tool to gain control through leverage of an arm.
But this guy right here is an expert in how to take down an out of control drunken criminal:
I’m sure he’s very experienced. Definitely.
Translation – “A cop is banging my ex-girlfriend.”
You’re right. Three of them should have left the room and they should’ve fought one on one. Because that’s law and order works. Strong point Heath.
Your name is Dick Poole. You are an infamous Worcester loser. You have no friends, and you tell your coworkers at the hospital that you’re a nurse. But you’re not really a nurse. You’re just a chud.
Well Sarah, they’re not supposed to cuff him the first go around. Because that could be considered cruel and unusual to leave a man cuffed in a cell. But keep running your polepolisher about things you’re not even remotely familiar with. You’re doing great so far!!
He didn’t appear to be doing anything except standing in the cell. HAHAHHAHAHA!! First of all, they told him to sit. He chose to stand and raise his fist at them instead:
But yea, keep standing up for this shitstain sandwich.
He was savage? He lightly tapped him with the baton in the calf muscle, and then intentionally missed him several times in order to keep him at bay. If you think that was savage, then you’re just a huge pussy. There’s no other word to describe it.
Yea, they wanted to let him be in the cell. But fuckstick just couldn’t stop challenging them to a fight. Guess they should’ve given him a Teddy bear instead.
Good point. They should’ve allowed this guy to choke the first cop and keep him in a headlock. After all, there’s four of them. You’re allowed to hit cops as long as you’re outnumbered.
If that was one of your kids then it means you have completely failed as a parent. And if it was Turtleboy Jr. I would probably disown him as he would’ve brought great shame upon the family. But please, tell me more about what “discusts” you.
If you don’t like cops because you’ve had bad interactions with them, you should probably reevaluate why you constantly find yourself in those situations. Just sayin.
Being a cop is a thankless job. They deal with this shit every single day. And instead of supporting them we have millions of chucklefuckers with MacBooks who sit at home and wait for a video like this so they can share their expertise in criminal justice with the world.
Even if the cops didn’t follow protocol, the worst they should get is a slap on the wrist. But fired? That’s a big fucking deal. They invested their entire lives into becoming cops. Their kids and their mortgates and their pensions depend on this. They’ll never work again if they get fired for police brutality, which this is clearly not. You can’t take away someone’s livelihood because you think they might have crossed a line.
And what was the damage that was done? The guy is fine. Probably not the first time he woke up with mystery bumps and bruises after a long day of public buffoonery. Where is the Union? They should be immediately reinstated and given backpay. This is simply an overzealous, political police chief, trying to please a bunch of whiny social justice warrior dickbats, instead of standing up for his officers. How any Agawam cops can go on working for a moron like this is beyond me.
P.S. This Turtleboy is a white guy. Notice how I’m not standing up for the asshole drunkard, and yelling “white lives matter,” simply because we share the same skin pigmentation.
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28 Comment(s)
Baton when resisting yes… baton when someone insults your fragile fat bald ego no… dude’s lucky to not get charged… just work for a different department or private company… stop making excuses for not following procedure… they got him under control then started up again for no reason
I think we could have an intelligent conversation here and would value your thoughts on my own. Let me preface this as I work alongside police, support them wholeheartedly, and have no support for the drunk. However, in watching the video, in my opinion, this goes from totally legit to a bit too far.
The first bout seems fine. He tries to throw down so they grapple with him to pin him. There’s no gun to grab as you suggested but you want to keep the person in a safe position (where he can’t hurt himself/others) until the idiot sobers up. Even the baton bit looks like he is purposefully hitting specific muscle sets to take the fight out of him. That looks like a trained move. Totally legit in my opinion.
The second bout is where I feel the officer in the sunglasses oversteps things a bit. They could have just slammed the door and let the prisoner be a drunk idiot alone in his cell. Instead the officer throws him head first into the concrete wall. The fact that he missed it by a hair is sheer luck. That’s my biggest gripe. One more inch and that turns into a major head injury. It wasn’t a pin, it didn’t look like a planned move, it was just throwing a drunk against a concrete wall. The wind up also seems a bit extreme mostly because, again, they could have used that opportunity to just shut the door. After that, they grapple and restrain which seems totally OK.
Do I think all of them should have been fired, no. Do I think the officer with the sunglasses took things a bit too far and deserved some kind of reprimand, probably, but not unemployment. I also wonder if the Agawam Police have restraint chairs. That might have been a good option during the first grapple if available to the officers. What do you think? Thanks.
I think you are 110% right mswomER ,but you will be called an idiot by the idiots who comment here. Ignore them. I am not claiming to know every detail of what transpired. I’m just going on the video. If you notice, there is a 4th cop who knows full well what they were doing could lead to trouble. You could see it in his actions. The commenters all think they’re cops and all love the cops til THEIR asses get busted. LOL
Probably not, because he made a well thought out and reasonable viewpoint. There are things to always improve on. But you, calling for these guys to be fired… you never spent 23 years in LE. But fuck em, they were probably just doing this to play tough guys anyway, not to support thier families. On reason Chicago such a mess is because we have “reasonable” and clueless people like you with zero actual time in thier shoes second guessing every single split second force decisions that cops make for hours on end on your couch in a comfy chair. If cops can be fired for anything deemed by the internet police as “ugly” why should they do anything proactive to prevent crime? And who is going to take this job? No one sane or caplible There is no extra pay for working hard, the danger increases with the more you do both physically and financially. They will second guess everything they do and be afraid to use any force or do anything when necessary for fear of being fired and sued with no support. Cops should be fired and incarcerated when nessesary, there are bad cops, not as many as people think and good cops hate those guys more than anything. But until you have been in shit like this, give them the Benefit of doubt, because it’s a tough, often thankless job with a lot of bullshit that doesn’t always go perfectly or look pretty on camera.
That was a reasonable, thought out, and well expressed viewpoint. It’s hard to disagree with your arguments and conclusions, but it leaves me to ask one thing… what brought someone who can articulate a point so well to the comments section here? It’s 95% idiots with schoolyard insults. Nice to see though!
The cops should not be terminated for sure. They’re lucky the punk did not break their noses or cave-in their eye-sockets. Of course because of this the lawsuit starts guaranteed.
The fact that he wasn’t executed is the real crime here. Cops should be shooting to kill and asking questions later.
3 against 1, you don’t need a baton. I would have prefered seeing a good tasering.
First, @Paula, you’re an idiot. Clearly the drunk wasn’t a threat? Yet 4 men couldn’t easily subdue him. I’d like to see you go at it with just 2 men & see how you come out of it or wait, you call the cops if someone bumps you at a bar, am I right?
Secondly, there’s a wrongful termination suit coming with backpay and damages for these cops I’m guessing. Bye Chief.
First off Nai. This isn’t twitter. Kill the @. Second, ONE of those cops could have taken down a drunk. But they all pig piled him like 9 year old boys playing football. I didn’t say they weren’t in the right. I targeted to cop with the baton who was clearly so outraged he went back after him for standing up. He probably was beligerent and mouthy. Let it go. Tell him to shut the fuck up, lock him up, and go do something productive. Clearly someone thought it was excessive or they would be at work today. So hold your tongue before calling ME an idiot. And NO, I don’t call the cops when someone bumps into me at a bar. I don’t HAVE to.
Bullshit Bitch, if you have spent ANY time in LE, you would know that it’s not being tough guy telling him to sit before you turn you back and walk out of the room. He’s shown he clearly has violent tendencies and a listening deficiency towards cops. You should also know it’s never going to be a fair fight with cops, because 4 on 1 with a drunk idiot, you up your odds of not having an officer injuried, because one bad blow from that guy could end someone life or career against concrete. It’s also the reason police are allowed to use batons, spray and tasers against fists. You would also know that batons can be used for many different things, including pain compliance, and he is using it just as he was trained to use it. I don’t see them striking him in the face, like they could have done if they were on top of him to “be tough guys or teach him a lesson”. This isn’t pretty, but violence never is. There is always things that can be done better, just as this could have been done better or different in this case. Critiquing after is easy to the untrained eye, but being there in thier shoes, they probably tried to make the best split decisions to act they way they did at the time. I can see that things could have been done better, but don’t see anything that justifies firing. But I can tell you have never been in ANY situation like this just by your posts, or you wouldn’t be so critical.
The thing is..any one of those cops could have beat the livin’ shit out of this ass. The Officers have shown so much restraint. TBS, Keep shaming the assbag sno-flakes. Love IT!!
They got what they deserved.no need for a fucking baton in this case.
Agree Tyrone!
I fault the Police officers here. Why use a baton? A baseball bat would have ended this much quicker. Too many shitbags taking advantage of our Public Safety officials. Time to put and end to this resisting Police and blaming them for everything.
Nope. Sorry. Excessive. I watched it over and over. The drunk was clearly in no condition to be a threat. And the cop with the baton. Absolutely horrifying. He should be prosecuted. I get the headlock thing. He CANNOT do that to one of the cops, but the beating with the baton is out of control. He could have easily been subdued. Cops were just looking to play tough guy. Too bad there’s not footage of them exiting the room, huh? Laugh, laugh…chuckle chuckle…high five, right boys?
How long you spent in law enforcement? Since watched the video and you know what quilfies as excessive and are obviously and expert on police use of force. What would you have done different if you were in thier shoes?
23 years Jackoff.
You can level with us Pam, you were arrested for hooking at the entrance to 6 Flags, weren’t you? How much were you charging for a smoothy, since you don’t have teeth you have to gum a knob
Whatever she charges for a gummy, I’ll do for $5 cheaper.
If anyone else has respect for Police officers and the law, feel free to call the Agawam police and let your thoughts be known. These men should NOT lose their whole lives because they were doing the right thing and protecting innocent civilians from a criminal.
First of all if you don’t live in agawam you don’t know these cops… second they aren’t losing their whole lives they can easily join the private sector… I know a MA statey who was fired for filming women changing on multiple occasions and now he’s a private security head… third they were protecting a theme park that pays them large sums of money to direct traffic… they were protecting their wallets not civilians… this dude wasn’t dangerous and six flags has dozens of security personnel… also he started beating him when he threw an insult… if you’re fat and bald and your response to having your feelings hurt is a baton on a drunk guy you’re a pussy and you need a new job anyway…
Violence is never pretty and arm chair quarterbacking is easy. You want them to deal with the difficult, dirty shit you don’t want to do, then don’t knit pick how they do everything because wrangler a grown adult into custody is never pretty.
Where’s the outrage from Clive, Old Balls, and the BLM pukes?
They need to help us understand how white privilege kept this drunk from getting roughed up and the officers from getting fired!
Oh, yeah – they’re race baiting libs that abhor facts and reality.
This fine citizen didn’t even file a complaint with the Agawam PD about the incident. He must have sobered up and realized he was in the wrong. What the article fails to mention is that he had a six flags security guard, who was less that 27, closer to 17 than 27 in a head lock when the police arrived. He was also arrested with another fine drunken roller coaster fan who was trying to hang herself with her bathing suit and then running head first into the wall in the cell next to him. And on a side note, one of the experts on police brutality that was screen shorted in the article doesn’t like the APD because she spends most of the week bouncing around Agawam barrooms….
Well those details were not added. They should have been as part of good reporting. Were you there?
F*CK THAT POS… They should have Rodney King’d him then misplaced the tape. Don’t resist and there will not be an issue, Einstein…
Just a couple of points.
1 this guy was an obvious asshole to go to an amusement park to get liquored up
2 at anytime this dance could have ended but this guy simply sitting down
3 I don’t think a cop is banging Jesus Flores “Girlfriend”