New Leave Policy

[Charles Stucker]

Police on Leave After Videotaped Student Beating - KTLA
Wow, what a great way to get a paid vacation; beat someone mercilessly.
Wait no, these were police, they had to have a reason to beat someone lying on the ground, whimpering in pain. It could never be that they are a bunch of brutal sadistic thugs with badges who get off by beating an innocent victim. The had to have a reason for being there, so they had an excuse, er I mean valid reason for beating that guy into submission.

 

[Mad Scientist]

You gotta' be stupid not to cooperate with the Police.

That being said, if the Police are found to be in violation of the law or a Police procedure then yes, they need to be punished and or fired.

I'll tell ya' this though: The Cops don't like Asians. My wife has received three speeding tickets in three years from the local Police and I'll bet it's just because she was DWA, Driving While Asian.

The fact that she was doing at least 15 over the speed limit and talking on her cell phone at the same time had nothing to do with it.

 

[WillowTree]

You gotta' be stupid not to cooperate with the Police.

That being said, if the Police are found to be in violation of the law or a Police procedure then yes, they need to be punished and or fired.

I'll tell ya' this though: The Cops don't like Asians. My wife has received three speeding tickets in three years from the local Police and I'll bet it's just because she was DWA, Driving While Asian.

The fact that she was doing at least 15 over the speed limit and talking on her cell phone at the same time had nothing to do with it.

 

[Charles Stucker]

You gotta' be stupid not to cooperate with the Police.

That being said, if the Police are found to be in violation of the law or a Police procedure then yes, they need to be punished and or fired.

I'll tell ya' this though: The Cops don't like Asians. My wife has received three speeding tickets in three years from the local Police and I'll bet it's just because she was DWA, Driving While Asian.

The fact that she was doing at least 15 over the speed limit and talking on her cell phone at the same time had nothing to do with it.

How much more could this guy have cooperated? Lie and whimper a little more pathetically?
Perhaps he was guilty of BWA - Breathing While Asian.
I know he was guilty of whimpering inappropriately in the presence of witnesses.

Or perhaps, the police believed they were unobserved and participated in a little gratuitous violence because they could. After all who would believe a "criminal" over them?

 

[Diuretic]

Just a thought that's not directly connected with this incident but I thought I'd toss it into the mix.

Police use force against members of the public all the time. It's just that most people outside of the incident don't get to see it. With the advent of inexpensive, effective and portable video cameras and now of course mobile/cell phones with video capability anyone on the scene can record the incident and via the internet can publicise it very easily. This means that what was previously only reported as a historical event (usually in court) is now able to be seen in its raw state.

The problem is of course that a videoclip can be viewed entirely out of context. And that can skew the judgement of the viewer.

When police use force it's never a good look, it's pretty ugly. Until the invention of OC spray the usual tactic in dealing with individuals when force had to be used was the pile-on or use of striking instruments. It was a pretty ugly look to any bystander who wasn't involved in it. OC spray had the potential to give police the ability to control someone without the threat of broken bones or damage to internal organs by the application of too much physical force.

Do police use too much force at times? Yes, of course they do. How much force is too much force? It depends on the circumstances. And that's where I come back to context. It's easy to get outraged when you watch a video of police using force. It takes a bit of self-control to think critically about it though.

 

[Charles Stucker]

Just a thought that's not directly connected with this incident but I thought I'd toss it into the mix.

The problem is of course that a videoclip can be viewed entirely out of context. And that can skew the judgement of the viewer.

The context here is a group of police seemingly tazered and beat a guy who looked pretty small and did nothing during the video but lay on the ground and whimper.
They did it in an enclosed space where they might be reasonably sure no passing witness could give testimony.
They did it in a place where one might reasonably expect to have no video surveillance.

It sure looks like the evidence supports a conclusion of "They beat the guy because no one was going to call them to task."
Which if the situation were reversed; an off duty police officer videotaped getting attacked in identical manner by a group of people, would result in felony charges on the group, not the person beaten.

Police are supposed to uphold the law and every time an excess is excused they are encouraged to greater excess. Until they reach a point where they fell immune to the restraints of civilization and become nothing more than thugs with badges. Historical precedents, Feudal Europe, Imperial Rome, Tokugawa Japan, indicate that this pattern is not unique to the United states, so ignoring it falls under the "bad idea" banner.

 

[Diuretic]

Just a thought that's not directly connected with this incident but I thought I'd toss it into the mix.

The problem is of course that a videoclip can be viewed entirely out of context. And that can skew the judgement of the viewer.

The context here is a group of police seemingly tazered and beat a guy who looked pretty small and did nothing during the video but lay on the ground and whimper.
They did it in an enclosed space where they might be reasonably sure no passing witness could give testimony.
They did it in a place where one might reasonably expect to have no video surveillance.

It sure looks like the evidence supports a conclusion of "They beat the guy because no one was going to call them to task."
Which if the situation were reversed; an off duty police officer videotaped getting attacked in identical manner by a group of people, would result in felony charges on the group, not the person beaten.

Police are supposed to uphold the law and every time an excess is excused they are encouraged to greater excess. Until they reach a point where they fell immune to the restraints of civilization and become nothing more than thugs with badges. Historical precedents, Feudal Europe, Imperial Rome, Tokugawa Japan, indicate that this pattern is not unique to the United states, so ignoring it falls under the "bad idea" banner.

The video of the incident is not very good. I've seen a clip where part is original and part enhanced and none of it was very clear at all. However it's evidence and it should be introduced into any case against the police officers in this matter. The physical location of the incident needs to be closely examined as well. If it's a jury matter then I would think the jury will have a site visit so they can judge for themselves what might have happened.

The reverse example is without ambiguity. The group beating up the off duty cop aren't doing so – to use the American phrase - “under the colour of authority.” Police are sanctioned by society to use force – that was implicit in my comments in previous posts. And I acknowledged that sometimes police do use unreasonable force, no question of that. The problem in any case involving allegations of unreasonable force by police is how to measure what's unreasonable. There's another issue as well and that's the lack of witnesses when it happens. A venal cop or cops – or non-venal cops who just happen to be in a venal mood – will generally not beat up a person where there are witnesses. As we've seen in various videos on the internet though, they sometimes forget the presence of cctv and are sprung. It's not a hard and fast rule but usually – and I caution that is a very general statement – cops who use force on someone in public in full view of witnesses are generally not punishing someone. The two incidents I think of right now is the NYCPD cop I think it was in Times Square who shoved the lad off his bicycle and the cop, was it in Seattle?, who launched at the kid who was running away (and apparently slowing down because he knew the game was up) and slammed him into a brick wall causing him severe injuries. Without looking into the minds of those cops they appeared to be brain-snaps. No excuse I hasten to add, but not a cold, calculating punishing beating in private. Whether the San Jose incident was just such a beating remains to be seen. I have to ask why though, if it was. This might seem a strange thing to say but a punishing beating is rarely given without a reason, as unreasonable as that reason may seem to someone not involved.

I certainly don't advocate ignoring the excessive use of force by police. Any community or society that tolerates that has a huge problem.

 

[Diuretic]

Just an afterthought. There's an excellent autobiography written by a former NYCPD Chief of Detectives from I think the early 1960s or so. The offhand accounts of punishment beatings in that book are instructive. In one incident the Chief - I think I have this right - rushed into an interrogation room and began beating the bloke seated at the table until the detectives pulled him off the bloke and urged the Chief to stop beating their witness.

It's been a few years since I read that book so my details could be wrong. I couldn't find it on Amazon but there was an interesting one by a bloke called Lardner, "The Crusader", that I might order for myself.