bigkahuna;723593 wrote:Like I said, they're not trained to use their weapons as a first resort.
The reason I "have all of the answers" is because my brother-in-law is a cop. My wife's dated a cop for 6 years, and we are friends with a lot of the people on the force in her home town.
If he would have come in and used brute force (bear hug, or how he did the girl at the end...), and had a struggle, then I wouldn't have a problem with laying the lumber.
Watch the video again, there is NO physical contact between the cop and the guy UNTIL he smacks him with the club. He doesn't grab him or anything. The cop comes in and the guy walks away from the situation, and the club comes out. It's like every other situation with cops, they show up, and you're all of a sudden cool and calm, until you get the shit beat out of you.
And I respect that. My best friend since we were 12 is a cop, I have 3 family friends who are sheriffs in my county and 2 more that are retired, including a former chief of police. And I guarantee you that if I showed this to any of them (and I have, to two of them) their response would be the same as mine. They agree that they way they treated the girl, especially at the end IS EXCESSIVE. However, my friend (the cop) put it this way..."If I come to the scene of a violent crime like an assult and the assult is still going on and I witness it, the offender(s) have exactly 10 seconds to comply with orders to cease their actions and get on the ground so they can be handcuffed and order can be restored before it has the potential to escalate...if they CHOOSE not to do that, they are choosing to resist a police officer...add in the fact that we [police] have no way to know if they are armed or carrying a weapon, since they chose not to lay down so they can be searched and handcuffed, we have to assume that they are dangerous, and with a large crowd around like that, there's no way in hell we would risk someone pulling out a weapon, especially a gun, and firing at myself, my partner, or even worse, shooting someone in that car or in the crowd. Can you imagine if they didn't subdue these two that quickly, and one of them pulled out a gun and shot somebody? Could you imagine the lawsuits and outcry from the public about police officers being present and NOT preventing that from happening? Basically, we regard their non-compliance and resistance to the arresting officer as reasonable cause to subdue them with non-lethal force, such as his club or the mace, so that they no longer pose a legitimate threat to us [police] and innocent bystanders. Of course, my recommendation to people who are ever involved in any altercation like this, is to do what the officer says if one approaches you. Had either one of them just listened the first time and went to the ground, this whole scene would have been avoided".
"It's like every other situation with cops, they show up, and you're all of a sudden cool and calm, until you get the shit beat out of you"
Well see, the problem with that is the cop didn't tell him to go stand off to the side and be all "cool and calm", he told him to get the fuck on the ground. And the dude didn't do it. Failing to comply with a cop's demand when he witness you committing a crime = resisting arrest. The exact same way that if a cop pulls you over tomorrow, and you get out of your car, and he orders you back into your car and you don't listen, you can be subdued. Same concept. You can't just not cooperate with the police when you break a law and expect nothing to come of it. If you aren't willing to cooperate that's fine, but that becomes just cause to subdue you by nonleathal means.