>> We're gonna show you an instance of absolute horrendous police misconduct and
violence. We're gonna show you a video, but I wanna let you know ahead of time
that it is graphic. So with that said, feel free to click away here is what happened.
That video that you just saw that we acquired from the Lake Worth Police Department shows a
Lakeworth police officer, Jonathan Granado striking Dustin Bates with his vehicle.
And a lawsuit was filed just yesterday against this former police officer accusing him
of running Dustin over back in November of 2020. Now, as you can imagine, that's gonna do a lot
of damage to a person. That's what any reasonable person would expect, if you're a cop and you don't
wanna have to chase after anyone, then what do you care I guess you just run them down.
But anyway, that caused Dustin Bates to suffer three fractured ribs, a broken right leg and a
fractured spine. Bates was later charged with evading arrest and drug possession but the
charges were dismissed in August at prosecutorial discretion. Granado resigned from the department
in December of last year, so he actually hung around for about one year after that event.
During a press conference just yesterday, Lake Worth Police Chief JT and I'm not even gonna try
said the Grenado tried to break but his vehicle slid on the wet grass and struck bates at about 45
MPH. Granado had previously been suspended from the force for unsafe operation of his vehicle.
That's just context, feel free to think that that's relevant or not,
that he had already done things like this.
Anyway, they said the video of the Bates incident showed him that Granado used poor judgment. Well,
yes clearly, now look, is it impossible that he hit his brakes, I don't know, I try.
I tried to be reasonable to an extent that I often will give way too much credence to arguments made
in fundamental bad faith. But I can say you were aimed at him, you certainly didn't seem to think
that the worst possible outcome, the outcome that must be avoided at all costs was not hitting him.
That didn't seem to be your thought process,
even if you had been able to hit the brakes and stopped, did you need to be in line to strike him?
Could you have not have gone ahead of him, could you have not have pursued him on foot
afterwards? The evidence seems to indicate the intent to strike this person.
As people are saying in the chat, the fact that you drove off the road in the first place,
the fact that you lead your target. I understand the concept of target fixation, but there's a
lot here that would make me think it didn't seem like you were actively trying to avoid this guy.
And it is by the way hardly the first instance, the first video,
we've shown you of cops running people down with their vehicles, slamming them into other objects
with their vehicles and those sorts of things. Well, he now has health problems for the rest
of his life. You don't easily bounce back from broken ribs and a fractured spine and all that.
He said, I was just trying to get out of the way of the patrol car and now I'm in pain
every day. And by the way, let's file this along with so many other instances where
what if we didn't have the video? What if you had just read a headline
that Dustin Bates was struck by a vehicle and that's it.
He was evading arrest, he was struck, I tried to stop, there would be no consideration of
the evidence. There would be no looking at it and trying to get into the mind and figure out nobody,
none of that. You would just probably believe, or most people would believe what the cops said.
So again, thank God, we at least have the videotape, even if the response from the cops
is incredibly defensive and they still say that he was trying to slow down
and all of that. So look, it is obviously a dangerous world out there
and there's no consideration of the stakes, not from cops.
There is an assumption that other people are inherently, incredibly threatening,
deadly threats. That's what they represent at all times, whereas in this case,
this is a guy who is evading arrest was apparently wanted for drug possession. He was not fleeing
a mass shooting that he had just committed, he was not wanted for terroristic threats or
I don't know, whatever input, whatever you want, it's drugs.
So again, what if it just wasn't illegal? What if we didn't set up this seeming
plausible entry into running someone down with your car? There's a lot of places where the
system has failed people like Dustin Bates, I think this is an example of several of them.