Cop Gets $5 Million After Fellow Officers Mistook Him for a Protester and ‘Beat Him Like Rodney King'

 The trial for 3 St. Louis cops who beat one amongst their own officers during an operation begins on, hoping to bring justice to many badge-toting thugs.

The three officers in question—Dustin Boone, Steven Korte, and Christopher Myers—were a part of what was called a “civil disobedience team” to bound on violence at protests. Their tactics, however, involved beating up innocent protesters for filming them and this was discovered after they beat a fellow cop, Luther Hall, who was undercover as a protester.

In December 2011, St. Louis peace officer Jason Stockley violated department policy when he grabbed his personal AK-47, premeditated, then murdered Anthony Lamar Smith. the look of the murder and also the actual murder was captured on the officer’s dashcam. In spite of the overwhelming amount of evidence against him, a St. Louis judge in 2017 found Stockley innocent of first-degree murder within the 2011 shooting death of Smith. Months of protests ensued immediately.

During the protests, undercover cops were placed throughout the gang so as to catch those who were attempting to instigate violence or destroy property. Police violence was so over the highest, that four officers allegedly grabbed one among their own, a 22-year veteran of the department who was working undercover. Last month, Hall received a $5 million settlement from his lawsuit alleging that his colleagues slammed him down twice so beat him with batons.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Hall’s suit says one officer who participated in the beating, Joseph Marcantano, has since been promoted to sergeant, showing that “misconduct isn't only protected but rewarded by the town and Department.”

Marcantano’s privilege has apparently extended into the criminal realm, as he's not unproved along with his fellow officers and he's still employed with the department.

After the initial incident, officers Dustin Boone, Bailey Colletta, Randy Hays, and Christopher Myers all faced federal charges of civil rights violation, obstruction of justice, and lying to federal investigators.

In 2019, Colletta pleaded guilty to at least one federal charge and has admitted to lying to the FBI and a jury about the character of Hall’s arrest, while the opposite three officers have pleaded innocent and are headed to trial. In her plea, Colletta said other officers tackled Hall as he was following her orders and dropped to his knees.

The officers are accused of attacking their fellow officer without reason, throwing him to the bottom, savagely beating him—causing serious bodily injury—and then destroying his camera.

Hall described his beating by these cops as a “free for all” and told other cops at the department that he was beaten “like Rodney King,” consistent with court documents released earlier this year.

During the protests, story after a story surfaced of officers using unnecessary force, beating protesters, and making false arrests. This was in spite of the actual fact that the protests ran relatively smoothly and were far less violent than those last summer after the death of George Floyd.

Despite the peaceful nature of the protests, law enforcement officials were seen on video completing extremely disturbing acts. One such act involved trampling an elderly woman. Another act involved police chanting “whose streets? Our streets!” as they surrounded protesters—otherwise referred to as ‘kettling’— and started a brutal assault with the aerosol bombs and police batons.

Hall was also one among these stories, however, his story was suppressed because the officers who beat him covered up what happened and lied to investigators.

Hall wasn't violent during the protests and merely carrying a Nikon camera attempting to photograph the protests when police approached.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

At an intersection, police SUVs pulled up and a female officer ordered Hall to urge to the bottom.

As he was about to his knees, Hall was picked up twice and slammed to the bottom, face first, Boehlje wrote. His nose and lip were already bleeding when he was repeatedly kicked and hit with closed fists and sticks, Boehlje wrote.

Hall’s hands were ahead of him on the bottom, and although officers were telling him to place his hands behind his back, they were also standing on his arms, Boehlje wrote.

“Hall described it as a ‘free for all,’” the affidavit says.

Hall’s cellphone screen had been shattered from what Hall thought was a baton. After he was handcuffed, he watched as an official took out his Nikon battery and threw the camera to the bottom, breaking it, Boehlje wrote.

The affidavit suggests there is also a video of a minimum of a part of the incident, as Hall’s cellphone was “actively recording” as he surrendered.

During the arrest, Hall failed to want to blow his cover so he didn't inform police he was undercover until he got into headquarters. He told someone at headquarters that those officers “beat the (expletive) out of him like Rodney King.”

When investigators seized the cellphones of the officers, they found texts of them discussing the beating, essentially admitting to any or all of it.

Before the officers were dispatched to the protest, they stated their “disdain” for the protesters and expressed “excitement about using unjustified force against them and going undetected while doing so.”

After the beating, Hays told Boone with regard to at least one of the officers smashing Hall’s camera and beating him that “the ass whooping may be explained. The camera thing can’t and that we weren’t an element of that.”

Boone then replies to Hays saying that Hall “could’ve announced himself any time. And he wasn’t complying. The camera thing is simply ignorant, nothing we all haven’t done and if it had been a protester it wouldn’t be an issue the least bit.”

Reread that above text and let that sink in. These officers are describing a situation within which they will walk up to an innocent person, beat the hell out of them, smash their camera, then flee with it. But, because their victim was a cop and not a protester, they won’t “get away with it.”

Below could be a screenshot of some of the texts exchanged by these cops who were quite literally begging to “f**k people up.”

protest

For now, these violent criminals stand charged and that is judged by a jury of their peers over the subsequent fortnight.

Due to the egregious nature of those officers’ actions and their subsequent indictments, the St. Louis Circuit Attorney has dropped 91 cases with which these officers were involved.

Hopefully, their case plays out differently than the one amongst Jason Stockley, and justice is really served. Because their victim was a lawman, there's the next chance that will happen.