In the past few years, there has been a disturbing increase in the number of reports of police misconduct, abuses of power and displays of violence—sometimes fatal—against minorities. Ilia Cole, a police officer in Brentwood, Maryland, will now find his own name on the list with those other disgraced public servants, because of the way he humiliated a man after writing a parking ticket.
According to the Washington Post, a grand jury indicted Cole this week, charging him with second-degree assault, misconduct in office, and “related charges.” The jury’s verdict was based on an incident that occurred in mid-February, when Cole stopped at a Maryland residence to issue a citation to an as-yet-unidentified man who was seen sitting in a parked vehicle with an open can of beer. The man and two of his friends were sitting in the van, waiting for one of their roommates to move his car so they could pull into the garage.
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Unfortunately, Officer Cole arrived before their friend opened the garage door. In a statement, the Prince George’s County State’s Attorney’s Office said that the policeman “ordered the victim and the other two passengers, all of whom were Spanish-speaking immigrants and understood limited English, out of the vehicle and eventually issued a parking violation and a citation for an open container.”
Although the man who’d been seen in the driver’s seat hadn’t taken one sip of his beer, Cole ordered him to pour it out. When the man refused—possibly because he didn’t understand what the officer was asking—Cole opened another can of beer, grabbed the man by the collar, and poured the beer down his shirt. He then took their remaining cans, opened them, and dumped them into the street. Although Cole’s body camera was on for the initial traffic stop, it was turned off before he assaulted the man and emptied the beer cans.
Brentwood Police Chief Robert Althoff confirmed to the Post that Cole’s “police powers have been suspended.” Althoff is also the person who sent the details of this incident to the state’s attorney, shortly after the police department launched its own investigation.
“That is not who we are,” Althoff said.
