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Uncovering Bad Apple Cops In Pismo Beach with Nasty Nathanial and Brian Sumner
The following was co authored by CopBlock Network Contributors Nasty Nathanial and Brian David Sumner. Both of us spent Saturday night together filming the police in Pismo Beach and Santa Maria.
CopBlock Network Contributor Nasty Nathanial is constantly filming the police and auditing the government facilities in Central Coast California. He is often harassed, detained by government thugs claiming the right to identify him. Most recently, he was told by Pismo Beach Police Officer Adrian Souza that he wasn’t allowed to watch the police in the five cities area.
Every so often, Nathanial and I meet up to film the police. Sometimes, he drives up to Fresno and sometimes I head down to the Central Coast. This time, I was headed to Central Coast as Nathanial had just been detained for filming outside of a juvenile detention center and needed some backup for his next excursion. After dinner and a fun evening at a local Irish pub, we headed out to film the police.
February 4, 2017
Officer Adrian Souza
Pismo Beach Police Department,
1000 Bello Street, Pismo Beach, California 93449.
Phone: (805)773-7028.
E-mail: jmiller@pismobeach.org Attention: Chief Jake Miller
Pismo Beach is a small city in San Luis Obispo County, located on California’s beautiful Central Coast. The city attracts its fair share of tourists, who come there to enjoy the great Central Coast weather and scenic coastline. Pismo State Beach is actually one of only 14 beaches in the whole state where you can drive on the beach itself.
Unfortunately, the beautiful ocean escape is tainted by the Pismo Beach Police Department and their reputation for employing bad apples. The old saying goes “A few bad apples spoils the bunch” and that is probably not more appropriate when applied to the institution of law enforcement. Those who start out starry eyed and hoping to do good are soon jaded by an environment that harbors liars, thieves, cheats, and murderers.
Realizing their options are slim, they choose to either become just another bad apple or they choose to ignore those who are… Really, I’m not sure which is worse, pretending to be a hero while systematically victimizing people or remaining silent and turning a blind eye to the crimes being committed by those claiming to enforce the law.
- In February of 2003, Detective Corporal Robert Petetit was arrested for stealing drug money out of an evidence locker at the police station. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail after pleading guilty to stealing over $1500.
- In 2014, Officer Leslie Stout was fired after he got into a physical altercation with his girlfriend at a restaurant. During which he forced her into his patrol vehicle before driving off. Officer Stout was involved in another incident that year which involved a woman who called 911 complaining of a seizure. Instead of seeing to it that the woman got proper medical attention Officer Stout arrested her for allegedly being drunk in public.
- That same year, Officer Rebecca Raymond was let go after it was discovered that she was having a sexual relationship with her training officer.
- In the summer of 2015, former Pismo Beach Police Officer August “AJ” Santana was charged with perjury for falsifying police reports.
Just this past Saturday, I got to meet one of Pismo Beach Police Department’s bad apple cops in person. Officer Adrian Souza, Pismo Beach’s finest. This guy is a real piece of work. If ever there was a bad apple cop this guy is it. He was featured on CopBlock a few years ago after being filmed harassing homeless kids on independence day.
Pismo Police Officer Adrian Souza
As soon as we approached, Souza started shining his light in our face. He even referred to Nathanial by name when he made the claim that he wasn’t allowed to be watching the Pismo police. At the time it sounded like he said Nathanial wasn’t allowed to be outside. When we explained that we were just there to film, he claimed that the flashlight was protecting him and his partner. Considering he recognized Nathanial, neither of us were able to figure out what he was so afraid of; I think he knows he is an asshole and doesn’t want to be exposed again.
Souza radioed for backup, claiming we were obstructing his investigation by filming from across the street. Nothing could be further from the truth. We had no intention of even talking to these pigs, let alone interfering with their work. We were merely there for transparency’s sake. It wasn’t until Souza started to blind me with his light that I started to interact with him.
Souza is the sort of pig who gets off on his badge. He doesn’t take kindly to pesky copblockers and when you resist his orders he looks for ways to make you uncomfortable. In this case, he was using his flashlight to blind us and obstruct our cameras. He even went as far as to use the strobe feature. His behavior did nothing for his cause and only exposed him as the jackboot, he was instead of the professional he pretends to be.
After the supervisor arrived on the scene, I introduced myself and explained what we were doing. When I asked for the name of the officer who was shining his flashlight in my face, he said he didn’t know which officer I was talking about. When I asked if he knew who the officers were, he said yes. When I again asked for their names to file a complaint, he invited me to the department. He obviously had no intention of identifying his compatriots, so we started to make jokes about uncovering the bad apple cops and the thin blue line.
So, now Nathanial and I are watching the cops, while some cop watches us watch the cops. It was silly, but only became sillier when the supervising officer started creeping a motorcycle parked on the street; he was looking for a reason to ticket or tow it. The owner had his license plate deep under the rear end and the officer thought it was missing. A perfect example of how the police are always looking for anything that will turn someone into a criminal and allow them to make their life hard.
When the interaction was over, we again asked for the officer’s names. This time he obliged us rather quickly and offered the lady who had been pulled over a ride to a local hotel. We never figured out what she did wrong, but there are a number of arbitrary vehicle violations that could have resulted in this outcome. Hopefully, she was able to recover her vehicle in the morning with little to no hassle.
Part 2.( I went live on Facebook after the supervisor showed up)
Video Footage of Central Coast Bad Apple Cops
Uncovering Bad Apple Cops In Pismo Beach with Nasty Nathanial and Brian Sumner is a post from Cop Block – Badges Don’t Grant Extra Rights
Source: http://www.copblock.org/171232/uncovering-bad-apple-cops-pismo-beach-nasty-nathanial-brian-sumner/
