Speaking of “thugs”.

Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

Photo of Matthew Belardine from Scottsdale PD

Per KPHO comes this report of three arrests in downtown Scottsdale, including of two men who accosted Ferguson decision protesters, which led to a brawl.

Two people arrested for fighting in front of the Wasted Grain bar were not part of the protest group, said Scottsdale police Sgt. Ben Hoster. The pair had approached the protesters and started yelling obscenities at them, Hoster said. The two men then began fighting with the protesters and they were quickly arrested, he said.

They are identified as Samuel Lee Busic, 26, of Phoenix. He was charged with assault. Matthew Belardine, 27, of Ohio. He was charged with disorderly conduct.

A very alert Facebook friend with a long memory pointed out that Busic and Belardine were both volunteer football coaches at Steubenville High School and that Belardine was convicted and served jail time for his role in providing the conditions in which a 16 year old girl was raped and the attack was filmed and passed around social media.

Belardine was the only adult present at an August 2012 party held at his home and attended by both players, Ma’lik Richmond and Trenton Mays, and the victim, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine’s office said. Belardine pleaded no contest to serving alcohol to a minor and making a false statement, charges that carried a six-month maximum sentence each.

“It’s very unfortunate the events that transpired that night, you know, with the girl and everything,” Belardine said in court. He said he believed he made “the right decisions,” but “I didn’t make the decisions quick enough.”

He said he learned “a very good lesson — that no matter what, you should always tell the truth.”

In addition to the jail time, Belardine was ordered to serve 40 hours of community service and pay $1,000 in fines. Dan Tierney, a spokesman for the Ohio attorney general’s office, tells CNN Belardine was ordered to report to jail on Friday.

Wow, what a thug. Impressive people you have on your side there, Darren Wilson and St. Louis Police.

St. Louis, Missouri (November 30, 2014) – The St. Louis Police Officers Association is profoundly disappointed with the members of the St. Louis Rams football team who chose to ignore the mountains of evidence released from the St. Louis County Grand Jury this week and engage in a display that police officers around the nation found tasteless, offensive and inflammatory.
Five members of the Rams entered the field today exhibiting the “hands-up-don’t-shoot” pose that has been adopted by protestors who accused Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson of murdering Michael Brown. The gesture has become synonymous with assertions that Michael Brown was innocent of any wrongdoing and attempting to surrender peacefully when Wilson, according to some now-discredited witnesses, gunned him down in cold blood.

SLPOA Business Manager Jeff Roorda said, “now that the evidence is in and Officer Wilson’s account has been verified by physical and ballistic evidence as well as eye-witness testimony, which led the grand jury to conclude that no probable cause existed that Wilson engaged in any wrongdoing, it is unthinkable that hometown athletes would so publicly perpetuate a narrative that has been disproven over-and-over again.”

Roorda was incensed that the Rams and the NFL would tolerate such behavior and called it remarkably hypocritical. “All week long, the Rams and the NFL were on the phone with the St. Louis Police Department asking for assurances that the players and the fans would be kept safe from the violent protesters who had rioted, looted, and burned buildings in Ferguson. Our officers have been working 12 hour shifts for over a week, they had days off including Thanksgiving cancelled so that they could defend this community from those on the streets that perpetuate this myth that Michael Brown was executed by a brother police officer and then, as the players and their fans sit safely in their dome under the watchful protection of hundreds of St. Louis’s finest, they take to the turf to call a now-exonerated officer a murderer, that is way out-of-bounds, to put it in football parlance,” Roorda said.

The SLPOA is calling for the players involved to be disciplined and for the Rams and the NFL to deliver a very public apology. Roorda said he planned to speak to the NFL and the Rams to voice his organization’s displeasure tomorrow. He also plans to reach out to other police organizations in St. Louis and around the country to enlist their input on what the appropriate response from law enforcement should be. Roorda warned, “I know that there are those that will say that these players are simply exercising their First Amendment rights. Well I’ve got news for people who think that way, cops have first amendment rights too, and we plan to exercise ours. I’d remind the NFL and their players that it is not the violent thugs burning down buildings that buy their advertiser’s products. It’s cops and the good people of St. Louis and other NFL towns that do. Somebody needs to throw a flag on this play. If it’s not the NFL and the Rams, then it’ll be cops and their supporters.”

Couple of things: Do all the people who believe that the Darren Wilson grand jury “no true bill” finding was objective, ironclad truth straight from the hand of God believe the same thing about the OJ Simpson jury verdict? My guess is no. Also, have Roorda and his organization ever thought about what the NFL would be like if all the black players decided to strike in protest of the shooting of Mike Brown and the travesty of the grand jury proceedings, along with the utterly cavalier attitude demonstrated by Darren Wilson’s supporters to their community’s pain? Where would your precious football be then, Jeff Roorda?

This reaction by the police association is vastly out of proportion to what the players did (it’s not like they were chanting “fuck the police!” or anything like that) and demanding that the NFL punish the players and apologize over it is precisely the kind of inciting behavior that Wilson supporters swear they aren’t engaging in. Speaking of which, if the cops in St. Louis are that concerned with restoring peace and ensuring their own safety then maybe they ought to focus on the people screaming the N word all over the internet and making death threats. Or this lady.