In the weeks since the riots, we’ve heard police officials say that most Baltimore police officers are good cops who wouldn’t resort to brutality. The Huffington Post’s Sebastian Murdock found a police officer who went a step further by speaking out when he witnessed brutality. After speaking up, it appears Joe Crystal ended up being the victim of abuse.
Crystal ended up leaving the force and moving to Florida after facing heat within the department for telling authorities that he saw two officers abuse a man who was arrested for drugs. The facts presented in the article leave a lot of holes that lawyers could probably pick through. But Clark isn’t suing over the incident itself. He’s suing over how he was treated by fellow police officers after being labelled a rat.
According to the report, Crystal went to many brass to tell them how he was being treated, including the police union president.
“I remember saying to him: ‘Are we fucking cops, or are we in a gang? Which one is it? You can’t have it both ways,’” he tells Murdock.
