I have had a fever for most of the day, so when I woke up and checked my GMail, I thought I was hallucinating while reading something sent out via ASATA (Alliance of South Asians Taking Action). SALDEF (The Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund) just issued a press release regarding an incident which makes me sick; Kuldip Singh Nag, a Sikh American VETERAN was assaulted by the Joliet police, in front of his six-year old child and wife. His crime? Parking a van with expired tags in his driveway. What. The. Fuck.
I can’t find anything beyond a useless mention of Nag’s arrest on a “police blotter” type of article, so if any of you know of further developments, please let us know. The following is from SALDEF:
On Friday March 30, 2007 at around 3:00pm, Mr. Kuldip Singh Nag, a Sikh American who was awarded the Bronze Star for his service in the U.S. Navy during the first Gulf War, was at his home in Joliet, IL when a local police officer noticed that a van parked on Mr. Nag’s private property had expired registration tags. Upon being confronted with this, Mr. Nag’s wife, Vera Kaur Nag, informed the officer that the van is parked on their driveway and was inoperable.
Mr. Nag then came outside to answer the officer’s questions regarding the van. The Joliet police officer then demanded that Mr. Nag park the van inside his garage and not on the driveway, to which Mr. Nag responded to the officer that it was not possible and that regardless, the van is parked on his private property and he has a right to park it on his driveway.
At this moment, the officer pulled out his pepper spray and attacked Mr. Nag. As Mr. Nag screamed in agony, the officer removed his baton and violently struck Mr. Nag numerous times until he fell to the ground. While the assault ensued, the officer was reported by both Mr. and Mrs. Nag as saying, “You f****** Arab! You f***** immigrant, go back to you f****** country before I kill you!â€
Mr. Nag’s wife and six year-old child both witnessed the violent assault, which resulted in Mr. Nag immediately being admitted to the hospital where he stayed for five days due to complaints of intense pain and head trauma. Mr. Nag also received numerous bruises and a serious head injury which have caused him to go blind for several minutes at a time.
I join SALDEF in calling for an immediate investigation into this brutal crime. Kuldip Singh Nag served the very nation this xenophobic police officer screamed at him to leave and while a few of you may question my emphasis on his military service, I just think it adds an extra ungrateful, deplorable angle to an incident which is already appalling.
“This case seems to be a clear incident of police misconduct in Illinois,†said SALDEF Managing Director Kavneet Singh. “We are horrified at the anti-immigrant sentiment the officer allegedly used as he violently accosted Mr. Nag, and further that his six year old son was a witness to this violent assault. We call upon both Joliet and Illinois officials to investigate this incident and for the Illinois community to stand in solidarity with Mr. Nag.â€
Illinois desis, where you at? And will there ever be a point in my lifetime when someone doesn’t tell a South Asian American to go back to where they “fucking came from”?
UPDATE [By Ennis]: I spoke to somebody at SALDEF who said that Mr. Nag’s legal counsel can indeed verify that he is a Veteran.
Disgraceful! Where’s NAACP and ACLU when you need them?
Unlikely, thanks to the rise in “nationalism” courtesy 911. In fact, our future generations have to put up with the same crap (albeit and hopefully on a lesser scale) simply because of the fact that their forefathers did not arrive in the Mayflower.
wew!
The photograph — is that mr. Nag?
What a horrible event!! My heart goes out to Mr. Nag and his family.
It was part of the SALDEF press release, so I assume so until told otherwise.
This makes me want to beat somebody’s a$$. I wish someone had surreptitiously filmed this on their celly….
Wow.
stunned
Fucking motherfucking pig. These shitheads give the whole force a bad name.
The poor kid witnessed something that he will bear for the rest of his life. I am just so sorry for the Nags.
Whoa!!! Simul blog by Anna and Ennis
Has this made it into any news reports yet? I searched on Google and Kuldip Singh Nag doesn;t turn up anything
i think that’s more sick than the violence and the racial slur. the kid just grew up 10 years in those few minutes. realizing how it really is in the real world. and how it is going to be.
This is just horrible… a crime of pure, evil bigotry. The uniformed perpetrator must be severely punished. How could such a psycho become a police officer? (Or was it an impostor??)
It’s a cop:
SALDEF connected him to local counsel, and will be helping him fight the case.
Some officers don’t want to hear any argument, especially from a non-white. I hope Mr. Nag sues their pants off.
Only if you live to be 204.
First he has to defend himself in court – he was arrested on charges of aggravated battery.
Why did the cop take out pepper spray? Did the press release say anything about it Anna?
Voice your opinion directly to the Joliet Police department here
I don’t get it. Some details are missing. How can they charge him from aggravated battery, when the cop hit him?
Also, I believe cops are supposed to give warnings before they resort to physical violence. Did the cop give any such warnings? Are they claiming that Kuldip Singh Nag assaulted the cop?
Kuldip Nag , 49, of 3574 Buck Ave. was arrested by Joliet police and booked into the county jail Tuesday on a charge of aggravated battery
I’m confused. How did Nag get arrested for aggravated battery? (The link did not have details).
this is the very predictable symptom of the illness plaguing the American polity: thinking that racial profiling is an acceptable and necessary security instrument of the state.
i’ll not speak for the caliber of beat cops in Joliet but most cops operate under the probable cause doctrine–apparently this guy thought being a swarthy male constituted PC.
When a cop hits and arrests somebody, they will claim that the other person attacked first, and then press charges. It’s not uncommon to see a report from somebody saying that they were hit by the police while doing nothing, and at the same time for that person to be charged with some violent felony.
The majority of the press release is quoted in my post, I wish I had more information. I’m frustrated by this too, which is why I wrote:
Anytime you commit battery against a cop its automatically “aggravated battery,” a more serious charge.
That it’s battery and not assault means that Mr. Nag must have allegedly not merely threatened the cop or made him believe he was in physical danger, but have actually (allegedly) struck him.
We really need more details.
Hopefully they’ll come out soon. But I imagine the newspapers saw no reason not to believe the cop until now.
Just remember the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.
To answer all your questions about aggravated battery
So if Mr. Nag approached the officer / said something in a manner that was perceived as a threat, I assume it counts as aggravated battery.
I am have no legal knowledge, but the law experts here should be able to tell us if his wife and kid could act as witnesses in court.
When a cop hits and arrests somebody, they will claim that the other person attacked first, and then press charges.
Yes, that’s fairly typical treatment for assault by police officers. I was just wondering if there were additional details that were not in the original post.
So if Mr. Nag approached the officer / said something in a manner that was perceived as a threat, I assume it counts as aggravated battery.
No, that’s only assault. Battery means the cop (allegedly) got physically attacked.
Could be what Ennis is saying; there are bad cops out there, maybe the cop escalated.
That is absolutely disgusting. I found the “F***** Arab” bit to be especially dispicable; it would be horrific enough if Mr. Nag were an Arab, but the fact that this Nazi can’t even get his ethnicity right makes it even worse in my eyes. Hate crimes are apalling enough, but when you commit them against somebody in the wrong group….how ignorant can you get? What the hell is this country coming to? This SS shit is absolutely sickening. The Nag family and desis all over the country have my sympathy. This is absolutely terrible.
I’m very near Joliet — what is the best course of action to show support? Send a letter to the police force, or an email via the link provided in #15? Send a card or letter of support to Nag and his family? Get a group of people together and stand outside the police station with signs?
Let me know, because I’ve got an organizational brain and can get things done. Thanks.
Here is the press release from the saldef site. Incident occurred on March 30th (!)
http://www.saldef.org/content.aspx?a=1682
who took the picture? Did Mrs. Nag have the foresight?
…i linked from my ScienceBlogs blog. i encourage anyone with a blog to link, as this might be able to break out of the brown blogosphere….
He’s a vet, so if you want it to break out of the brown blogs perhaps contacting the vet sites would be a good idea, too….they can mobilize like no-one’s business.
Not just a vet, a decorated one at that. MD, any ideas as to what might be a good blog to forward this on to? I don’t know the vet blogs …
I agree. before this, there’s never been a single incident of police brutality against anyone. The evil ooga booga demon must have taken over this upstanding member of society, who so valiently threw away his chance of true financial success to serve and protect.
Let me check around and send some exploratory e-mails first. Also, and please forgive me for this, but what else to we know about this incident? It sounds really horrible, but I’m always loathe to jump on band-wagons before I know more specifics.
MD – I don’t know anything more about it than that, but I can put you in touch with somebody at SALDEF if you like (email me). I can also direct you to his legal counsel.
My attitude is that asking for a fair and thorough investigation is never a bad thing, so giving an incident some publicity is a safe thing to ask for, even if the event later turns out to be different.
Hey, I’ll look for that e-mail. He should contact the local veterans organizations in Illinois.
Tried to search blogs dedicated to track police brutalities but couldn’t find one. Anybody aware of such blogs? We could get them highlight the incident.
In a way, the 6 year old was given a gift, A taste of what the lies beneath the superficial, doily mounted, sugar coated version of America we see on a daily basis.
I wonder if some of the skills of targeted aggression that earned Mr Nag his Bronze Star played any role in what happened. I haven’t the faintest doubt that the cop is a first-class asshole, but it’s additionally possible that our Sikh brother wasn’t in the mood for any bullshit.
If someone came up to my driveway and started spewing xenophobic venom, I know for sure I’d be aggravated. Did Mr Nag open have an opportunity to open up the proverbial can of whoop-ass?
A sickening incident, by any standards. At the very least, it should get the cop fired and fined. Looking forward to more details.
Not sure about one devoted only to police brutalities, but there’s a large number of human rights blogs listed here.
🙁
We don’t know the whole story yet, but it would be foolhardy for a 49 year old to attack an armed officer who, from the photo, looks at least 20 years younger. Furthermore, Nag was a navy vet, not in the marines or the infantry. Unless he was in the SEALS, he’s unlikely to have had extensive experience in hand to hand combat. Simply because he’s a decorated veteran doesn’t mean that he was any more likely to get aggro with a cop than you or I.
f*cking disgusting. makes me sick.
True. No libel intended.
Then again, you have no idea how likely I am to get aggro with a cop.
🙂
If Mr Nag assaulted the cop like he claims, there would have been some sort of marks left. Not necessarily a bruise, but SOMETHING?
ugh.. why is always suburban backwater cops who seem jump at chances to live out their macho fantasies? Seriously, it’s like they kneel by their beds at night at chanting crap about thin blue lines, predetors, three strikes, pedophiles, gangs, drugs, keys of coke, and of course, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism….just to be able to face another morning of expired registrations and treed cats.
(oh, wait…whassup NYPD?! holla!!)
society needs to demand for public servants to be given racial sensitivity training prior to taking positions with power. ignorant assholes like this should never be given the opportunity to act as such.
society needs to demand for public servants to be given racial sensitivity training prior to taking positions with power
My understanding is that police forces all over the country provide extensive training in racial/religious sensitivity. I won’t castigate all of society, or even the Joliet police force, for the actions of one cop.
why is always suburban backwater cops who seem jump at chances to live out their macho fantasies?
I don’t think this sort of thing is limited to “suburban backwater cops.” Happens in bigger (allegedly more diverse) places fairly frequently too.
Quid custodit ipsos custodes? -Juventus In other words, who will guard the guardians?
Yes, Hema. Hence the NYPD shoutout.