The Michigan State Police has opened an investigation into the beating of a black driver by white police officers in Inkster.
Inkster police stopped Floyd Dent back in January, but some of the police dash-cam video of Dent's arrest and beating went viral this week.
State police Lieutenant Mike Shaw says the Inkster police chief asked them to step in on Monday.
“We have a detective looking at the videotape that everyone has seen, speaking to the parties involved, both officers and the individual that was arrested, and maybe anybody else that may have witnessed this as well to try to get a total picture of what happened that night,” says Shaw.
“First of all, I think we’re going to go right to the heart of the issue or the elephant in the room so to speak: This is not a black or white issue. This is a wrong or right issue.
“What we’re looking at is, did the officers involved or the suspect involved, did they do what they were supposed to do? Or did they violate the law?
“And these investigations take time because you don’t want to just pencil whip something together in a day or so and send it to a prosecutor where they don’t have the information.
“So what we’re telling people is, yes, the video is hard to watch. I think anybody that’s seen it believes it’s hard to watch something like that happen.
But you have to take the whole circumstances into account of what actually happened. And remember, a lot of the times, the whole video from the whole event is not being shown on TV. So people are only seeing only cuts and pieces from the defense coming across or the news media as well. So that’s not the whole tape of the incident.”
