Cop who punched woman at Puerto Rican Day parade is somehow found not guilty

I’m not calling this a conspiracy. I’m not calling this anything more than what it is: another case of a cop receiving the benefit of the doubt when perhaps they didn’t deserve it. When Philadelphia Police Lieutenant Jonathan Josey was caught on camera punching a defenseless woman in the face during the Puerto Rican Parade on 5th Street on September 30th, it was very difficult to fathom. Josey claimed that he was having beer thrown on him when he went over to this woman who isn’t holding a beer, and hit her directly in the face, knocking her to the ground. Apparently the judge agreed with him that it wasn’t on purpose, and gave him the benefit of the doubt by finding him not guilty. I’m calling bullshit.

The judge in the case stated that this was not a social media contest, and that the video did not prove that Josey intended to harm the woman he hit. I respectfully disagree with the judge’s logic on that. He goes over, obviously upset, and went high instead of low (where she would actually be hold a drink if she were actually holding one). He hit her in the face, and was never apologetic about it. All the character witnesses for Josey, all the people that Philadelphia Police brought in to say that Josey followed procedure…it doesn’t take away from the fact that Josey was given the benefit of the doubt on this. It seems to take a lot for a police officer to ever be found guilty of any wrong-doing. There are no winners in this case regardless of the outcome, but I happen to think in my own personal opinion that Josey did that on purpose, and I don’t really understand how making a violent move towards someone without: 1. Making sure it’s the right person first, and 2. Hitting someone in the face is following “proper procedure.” So, next time I’m at a sporting event and I get hit with food or beer, I’ll just randomly hit somebody. When I get arrested, I’ll just say that I was following procedure. Wait, that won’t work for me because I’m not a Philly cop.

Following the announcement of the verdict, Josey expressed happiness over the outcome, and then blamed those “monsters”  in the media for distorting the facts of the case. I’m all for criticizing the media when they deserve it, but this isn’t one of those times. It’s hard to justify or make sense of a uniformed police lieutenant who gets paid to maintain law and order on our streets walking over and hitting a defenseless woman in the face. Things like this are why the police in our city get so little respect: because there is a clear double standard where the police are always given the benefit of the doubt, no matter what. It’s not fair, and at a time when so many good things are happening in Philadelphia, this is just one of those things that like so many others, will continue to hold us back.