Officer James Mandarino is the cop in the video above beating the holy crap out of the defenseless citizen. He has been charged with official misconduct and aggravated battery, and was released on $50,000 bail and is on administrative leave from the Streamwood Police Department.
Below is the Rodney King beating video. I guess its a weird sort of progress when video of one cop beating the crap out of an unarmed and defenseless citizen results in criminal charges against the officer 18 years on from a video of a bunch of a cops beating the crap out of an unarmed and defenseless citizen doesn't.
The context of the situations is different, but the unjustified nature of what happened to the citizen isn't really very different at all. Two videos, same injustice, different results. Progress I guess, until you consider that the cop in the video above would face no sanction at all if there were not rock solid, incontrovertible video evidence. In Rodney's case, the video didn't do much.
