Lubbock, TX — If ever you were in doubt about the special privilege awarded to those who are members of government or the corporate oligarchy, one need only look at the following two cases. While often times, the “justice” system will grant special privileges to those connected to it, it can also be used to severely punish those who dare cause injury to one of the connected.
Because police claim authority to extort people who don’t have the proper lights on their bicycle, Angel Hernandez, 36, was targeted for this ‘offense’ last March. Hernandez showed the officer that the light on his bicycle stopped working but this was not enough.
The officer then ran Hernandez through the system and noticed that he had an outstanding warrant for failing to appear in court for forgery so he moved to arrest him. Not wanting to be arrested, Hernandez took off running.
The chase ended in a struggle as the officer tasered Hernandez several times even asking a neighbor to step in and help him.
During the struggle Hernandez bit the officer on the arm several times to which the officer responded by repeatedly beating Hernandez in the head with his baton, severely injuring him.
The officer said Hernandez tried to grab his baton, which prompted the response. According to Hernandez, however, he only bit the officer because he was choking him.
Hernandez was subsequently charged with aggravated assault against a public servant, attempting to take a weapon from an officer and evading arrest. And, on January 24, he was convicted on all of the above charges. For biting an officer, over a stop that initiated as an act of extortion for improper bicycle lighting, Hernandez was sentenced to 30 years behind bars.
No one here is claiming Hernandez is innocent, nor are we saying he shouldn’t be in jail. He certainly deserves to be held accountable for his crimes. But 30 years? Hernandez will spend most of the rest of his life in a cage for biting a public servant who chased him.
This ridiculously harsh sentence raises several questions. First, if Hernandez had bitten a civilian who was trying to choke him out and kidnap him, would he have even been arrested? Second, if a police officer committed a similar crime, would they have been arrested?
The answer to the first question is simple. Had anyone but a police officer stopped Hernandez and tried to extort him over a bicycle light, he would have been justified in both running and defending himself.
The second answer is more complex, however, if we look at the violence doled out by police on a regular basis—often times to innocent, unarmed individuals—and their sheer lack of accountability, the answer to that question is a resounding no.
But we can take it a step further. One would think that in the land of the free crimes against society’s most vulnerable—children—are punished far more severely than a man biting a cop, right? Wrong. Child predators are often times given lesser sentences for heinous crimes against children that are far worse than biting an adult male during a struggle.
This sentencing disparity then becomes vastly greater when the offender wears a badge and a uniform. Case in point—former Monticello police officer Yermia “Jeremy” Solomon.
Solomon’s crime was much worse than what Hernandez did as his victim could not fight back. She was a child. In June of 2017, Solomon was arrested and charged with third-degree rape, a felony, and endangering the welfare of a child and official misconduct, both misdemeanors—for raping a child.
Solomon admitted to the act and late last year he was sentenced for his crimes. One would think that admitting to raping a child would carry a greater sentence than biting a police officer. However, one would be wrong.
Because Solomon was once a member of the privileged justice system, he was able to take a plea deal. For the rape of an innocent girl, Solomon was fined just $1,050 and given three years probation. He will never see the inside of a jail. Solomon is not alone. Police officers are routinely arrested for savage sexual misconduct and they almost always escape accountability.
In the land of the free, police officers who are sworn to protect can violate that oath and prey on the most innocent and vulnerable members of society, harming them in the most horrific ways, and not go to jail. In the meantime, someone bites a cop on the arm, claiming he did it in self-defense, and he goes to jail for 30 years. And we still have the audacity to call this a “justice” system.