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Say hello to the YouTube Divorce:

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Deputies asked Brian Sterner to get up out of his wheelchair to be searched. He told them he couldn’t, as he is a quadriplegic. So a cop picks up the back of Sterner’s chair and dumps him to the gound.

Doug Towne, blind himself and an advocate for disabled individuals says he didn’t have to actually see the shocking video to understand what happened.

Towne says police and other public officials around the country need better education for dealing with those with disabilities.

The Hillsborough County deputy involved, Charlotte Marshall-Jones, did not return a call to her home Tuesday night. It is unclear why she decided to force Sterner out of his chair.

The video is prompting outrage and an investigation by the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office but advocates say the entire incident may have gone unreported had it not been caught on tape.

“I think people should be concerned about this. I think they should be concerned about the other hundreds of cases that we hear about that there is no film.”

Because of the video, the deputy who tilted Sterner out of his chair has now been suspended without pay. Three other supervisors are also suspended. Sheriff’s officials say some of those involved could face termination.

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On the video, the officer, Salvatore Rivieri, puts the boy in a headlock, pushes him to the ground, questions his upbringing, threatens to “smack” him and repeatedly accuses the youngster of showing disrespect because the youth refers to the officer as “man” and “dude.”

At one point, Rivieri, a 17-year veteran of the force, says:

“Obviously, your parents don’t put a foot in your butt quite enough, because you don’t understand the meaning of respect. First of all, you better learn how to speak. I’m not ‘man.’ I’m not ‘dude,’ I am Officer Rivieri. The sooner you learn that, the longer you are going to live in this world. Because you go around doing this kind of stuff and somebody is going to kill you.”

Sterling Clifford, a spokesman for the Baltimore Police Department and the mayor’s office, said authorities have begun an internal-affairs investigation.

“The entire incident raised red flags for all of the members of the command staff who watched the video,” Clifford said.

He said yesterday afternoon that Mayor Sheila Dixon had not seen the video, which appears to have been shot last summer, but that its contents had been described to her and that she was “very displeased.”

“We have invested a lot of time and energy in having better relations between the community and the police,” Clifford said. “The bad behavior of one police officer can jeopardize a lot of hard work.”

Clifford said Rivieri’s suspension entails a transfer to administrative duties with pay.

Reached at home Sunday, Rivieri said he was not aware that the incident had been recorded or posted to a public Web site. He acknowledged having encounters with skateboarders at the Inner Harbor last summer and told a reporter that he would review the video on YouTube.

“These kids, they’ve got nothing better to do,” Rivieri said.

Yesterday, after being suspended, Rivieri said, “I have no comment. Thank you.”

Attempts to e-mail the person who posted the video were unsuccessful. Police said they do not know the identity of the youth involved or who shot the video.

Clifford said the department has tried to e-mail, through YouTube, the person who posted the video and is contacting area schools in an attempt to find the boy.

Skateboarding is not permitted in the Inner Harbor.

Paul Blair, head of the police union, had not seen the video but cautioned that videos show only a slice of a story. He noted that it is impossible to know what happened before or after the camera was turned on.

The video came to the attention of the police after a Sun reporter e-mailed the link to the police Sunday morning seeking comment.

The video was posted on YouTube on Saturday but probably was made late last summer, according to the Police Department.

The 3 1/2 -minute video shows Rivieri walking toward a group of boys, one of whom is holding a skateboard. The boy says he did not hear an order that the officer had given him before the video starts.

“Take the earplugs out of your ears. Can you hear me now? Hey, I’m talking to you. Can you hear me?” Rivieri says.

Rivieri tells the boy he is not allowed to use his skateboard.

“OK, I didn’t hear you,” the boy says.

“Don’t get defensive with me,” Rivieri says. “You backed off me. I’m not your father. You hear me. I’m not your father. You give that attitude to your father. You give it to me and I’ll smack you.”

One boy says, “I don’t have a father.”

“Shut your mouth, I’m talking,” Rivieri says.

One boy repeatedly uses the word dude when addressing Rivieri, and the word becomes a point of contention.

“Sit down. I’m not a dude,” Rivieri says. He then pushes a boy to the ground and walks away with his skateboard.

“Dude, don’t take my skateboard. I didn’t do anything, dude,” the boy says.

Rivieri replies: “If you call me dude one more time. … Are you from the county or something?”

The officer’s tone becomes increasingly harsh.

The boy, who says on the video that he is 14, says he wants to call his mother, and later the officer asks to speak with her. It is unclear whether that conversation took place.

The person who made the video does not talk and is never identified, though at one point Rivieri addresses the person with the camera, saying, “You got that camera on? If I find myself on … ” The video cuts off before Rivieri finishes his sentence.

Clifford said the boy never made an official complaint to the Police Department and that Rivieri has no other citizen complaints in his file.

SOURCE:

• Baltimore Sun

The Post reported that the union fined him $81,572 for his actions in Seattle, the equivalent of two weeks’ salary for the cast, and that all 26 members of the cast brought charges against Quaid.

The performers said he “physically and verbally abused his fellow performers and that his oddball behavior forced the show to close,” the Post reported.

The union represents more than 45,000 actors and stage managers in the United States, according to its website.

Rumors about Quaid’s backstage behavior and that of his wife, Evi Quaid, circulated throughout the theater community during the 5th Avenue’s September stand of “Lone Star Love.” Citing illness, Quaid, who played the role of Falstaff, missed the final week of performances for the show, a musical adaptation of William Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor” that received lukewarm reviews.

5th Avenue Theatre artistic director David Armstrong said last fall that he took the unusual step of criticizing Quaid’s professionalism at the show’s final performance in Seattle.

“I wanted to acknowledge the [rest of the] company, who were a class act,” Armstrong said. “They worked very hard under very, very difficult conditions.”

A five-member hearing committee in Los Angeles issued Equity’s ruling, said Equity spokeswoman Maria Somma. Reached late Friday, she said the union would not release the ruling or comment on the nature of the complaints against Quaid in fairness to the actor, since the ruling can be appealed.

Reacting to Equity’s decision, Quaid said, “I am guilty of only one thing: Giving a performance that elicited a response so deeply felt by the actors and producers with little experience of my creative process that they actually think I am Falstaff.”

A planned run on Broadway of “Lone Star Love” was canceled after the rocky Seattle run. The New York Post also reported that on Jan. 25, after actors from the show filed the Equity charges against Quaid, Evi Quaid appeared at Equity’s offices in Los Angeles and demanded documents for the hearing.

A physical altercation resulted in four Equity workers getting temporary restraining orders against Evi Quaid, and Evi Quaid obtaining a restraining order against Equity, according to documents filed by the parties in California Superior Court.

Here are just some of the complaints filed against Quaid:

• 1. During performances, he smacked a fellow actor on the back of the head.

  2. Quaid warned another actor that if he made direct eye contact with the star, he would lose his job.

  3. Quaid’s “sexually inappropriate” comments included referring to an actress’ “gynecological instruments.”

  4. Along with his wife, Evi, Quaid tried to rewrite the script and eliminate characters.

  5. Quaid missed rehearsals. On stage, he improvised lines, song lyrics and movements.

SOURCE:

• The Seattle Times

I guess the cops in DC never read that part:

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