# Controversial encounters between law-enforcement and civilians - the omnibus thread **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 10, 2014, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942 "2014-10-10T07:35:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 347
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/6921 "2015-11-02T20:02:16Z")
“I don’t know” would suffice. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Kumquat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gary\_Kumquat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Kumquat)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/6922 "2015-11-02T20:06:08Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Sigh. Watch the videos again. Especially the second one, where the action is slowed down so that low-IQ people can see her hitting the officer in the face. Sorry you missed that. You really are fucking clueless about actual fighting, aren’t you? I mean, I know you’re going to bluster on about teaching Taekwondo, and what a hardcase you really are, and how it’s everyone else who’s wrong. But you do realise, right, that we’ve all seen the video, all seen the bit you claim is her hitting him, and we all know that you’re just out and out wrong. Seriously, the only way you can misconstrue someone’s arm flailing out when they’re being pulled backwards by their neck as a hit is if you know precisely zero about actually hitting people. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/6923 "2015-11-02T20:07:21Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Cute, but one does not “fight” an illness in the same way one would fight a _person_. You said fight “something”, fight “it”. Make up your mind. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/6924 "2015-11-02T20:12:17Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > You said fight “something”, fight “it”. Make up your mind. Fine. I would not advocate attempting to best a terminal illness in a martial contest if one does not believe one is capable of beating up that illness to the point that it submits to one. Is that pedantic enough for your purposes? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/6925 "2015-11-02T20:17:31Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Fine. I would not advocate attempting to best a terminal illness in a martial contest if one does not believe one is capable of beating up that illness to the point that it submits to one. > > Is that pedantic enough for your purposes? So you won’t advocate it, but will you _oppose_ it if someone else decides not to fight a terminal illness after concluding the effort is pointless? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/6926 "2015-11-02T20:24:40Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > So you won’t advocate it, but will you _oppose_ it if someone else decides not to fight a terminal illness after concluding the effort is pointless? One does not “fight” an illness at all except in a poetic sense, so this isn’t even a useful analogy. And it’s not germane to the topic of this thread anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/6927 "2015-11-02T20:27:56Z")
Make up your mind, Smapti. You’re weaving so much that if you were driving, a cop would pull you over and then maybe pre-emptively start shooting just for his own safety, to which he has the inalienable right and only Hitler would say otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/6928 "2015-11-02T20:35:42Z")
> [@xenophon41](#): > > Although I’ve observed that almost every interaction with **Clothahump** is ultimately pointless, I think the attitude expressed in this paragraph is fairly typical of the authoritarian view of public service, and deserves some discussion. So I’m going to try a response, not to **Clothy** individually, but to this point of view in general. > > . . . . Excellent post, xenophon41. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/6929 "2015-11-02T20:37:05Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Make up your mind, Smapti. You’re weaving so much that if you were driving, a cop would pull you over and then maybe pre-emptively start shooting just for his own safety, to which he has the inalienable right and only Hitler would say otherwise. People have the right to defend themselves from a perceived threat. This includes law enforcement officers. The duty of a law enforcement officer to enforce the law trumps an individual’s right to self-defense. A law enforcement officer who is engaged in criminal activity is not in any way privileged because of their status as a law enforcement officer. It is in general a bad idea to try to physically resist someone who is incapable of overpowering you except when failing to do so might be seen as evidence that you consented to the action being forced on you. None of this has _anything_ to do with my beliefs about terminal illness. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/6930 "2015-11-02T21:00:14Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > People have the right to defend themselves from a perceived threat. This includes law enforcement officers. People have a right to defend themselves against perceived threads from law enforcers? Well, in that case… _cops will die!@!!!~!_ ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/6931 "2015-11-02T21:06:27Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Your question is meaningless. You might as well ask, what if purple monkeys were flying around the room while it all happened. > > He didn’t apply deadly force. You can what-if this all you want, but I’ll go by the video. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I’ll take this as a cowardly dodge, since that slam seemed forceful enough to do serious damage or kill, with bad luck and a bad angle. But it’s so clear to **Clothahump**. The girl didn’t die, so it couldn’t have been deadly force. By that reasoning, it’s like if a cop shoots someone in Baltimore and Shock Trauma saves their life, hey! it wasn’t deadly force. Too bad for the guy in Sioux Falls in the same situation–might take a while to get to a non-trauma hospital where he then dies or dies along the way. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/6932 "2015-11-02T21:09:36Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > How long would that have taken? To what further extent would the educational process have been disrupted? Would we not now be arguing about how the cops held up an entire classroom for 45 minutes because they needed a two-on-one advantage to deal with one little girl? There was no disruption so there was no need in the first place to call in the thug. The girl was sitting quietly at her desk, not causing any disruption. Her failure to comply with the teacher’s direction to hand over the phone or leave should have and could have been taken care of outside of class at a later time, i.e. counselling, defaulters/detention, suspension, or some combination thereof. There was never any need to call in Officer Slam, let alone assault and injure the child. Taking a military response of ‘comply or be injured’ was both immoral and ineffective. It’s a pity that you are not capable of understanding that holding authority does not give carte blanche to brutalize. [http://abcnews.go.com/US/sc-student-brutalized-school-resource-officer-lawyer/story?id=34774228](http://abcnews.go.com/US/sc-student-brutalized-school-resource-officer-lawyer/story?id=34774228) > [@](#): > > “She is hurt and literally, this is someone who is physically in pain because of what she endured, as she literally flew across the classroom,” attorney Todd Rutherford said. > > He said the girl’s arm is in a cast, she has a rug burn on her forehead and has pain in her neck and back. She was hospitalized Monday night and saw a doctor today, he said. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/6933 "2015-11-02T21:40:32Z")
I’d hate to see what **Clothahump** might think would be a reasonable response to a spitball. Half of my sixth-grade class would have ended up in the Intensive Care Unit. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/6934 "2015-11-02T21:46:27Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I’d hate to see what **Clothahump** might think would be a reasonable response to a spitball. Half of my sixth-grade class would have ended up in the Intensive Care Unit. Serves the little bastards right. You could put an eye out. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/6935 "2015-11-02T21:47:30Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > There was no disruption so there was no need in the first place to call in the thug. Wait, I thought the cop was white. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/6936 "2015-11-02T22:12:40Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > Serves the little bastards right. You could put an eye out. One of my classmates lost an eye in an eraser fight. Unfortunately, he was already blind from birth in the other eye. A series of operations recovered some sight in his original blind eye, such that by grade 10 he was able to get a driver’s license, and would drive along by feeling the gravel shoulder of the road. None of us could figure out how he passed the vision test for the license, and more importantly, none of us ever rode in his car and always insisted that he ride with us when we were going out. Time have changed, for back then the teachers beaned us with chalk. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/6937 "2015-11-02T22:21:11Z")
I went to parochial school for 12 years, and from seventh grade on we were taught by the Christian Brothers. Corporal punishment was standard, and some of us got paddled and slapped around regularly. But I never saw a student treated nearly as violently (and dangerously) as in this incident. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/6938 "2015-11-02T22:37:41Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I went to parochial school for 12 years, and from seventh grade on we were taught by the Christian Brothers. Corporal punishment was standard, and some of us got paddled and slapped around regularly. But I never saw a student treated nearly as violently (and dangerously) as in this incident. You have my sympathies. At least you weren’t at Mount Cashel in Newfoundland, where Fields would have been right at home. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/6939 "2015-11-02T22:55:09Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I went to parochial school for 12 years, and from seventh grade on we were taught by the Christian Brothers. Corporal punishment was standard, and some of us got paddled and slapped around regularly. But I never saw a student treated nearly as violently (and dangerously) as in this incident. In my school it was caning by stiff upper lip types. Nothing like what that nut-case did to the girl. ---
**Author:** ![Hooleehootoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/eada6e/32.png) [@Hooleehootoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hooleehootoo)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/6940 "2015-11-02T23:40:19Z")
[A new police-involved shooting.](http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/crime/article42229305.html) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942.md?page=346) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942.md?page=348)