Hooleehootoo, have you ever been in an actual high school, surrounded by actual high school students? It seems you have not, because otherwise you would know that making poor decisions, acting out, and staging petty rebellions occur, not once in a blue moon, but over and over again, all day, every day. Kids refusing to change their seat, or spit out their gum, or put down the comic book, etc. are routine to the point of boredom for teachers and administrators. It isn’t just my track record, it’s the track record of every school I’ve ever seen. Kids will be kids. It’s up to us to be the adults.
The idea that allowing one child to defy authority even temporarily is the beginning of a slippery slope into loss of control and student anarchy requiring the hiring of all sorts of additional staff and equipment is just ridiculous. No school so far has had to add extra classrooms, purchase restraints, or any of the rest of your over-the-top mischaracterizations in response to their students being, and acting like, children. Again, slowly now for emphasis – this is routine. Schools are just chock full of – duhh – children, and therefore are staffed by people trained to deal with them. You know, like teachers. Cops just don’t have that kind of training, they’re trained to deal with criminals.
So here we have the result of attempting to criminalize childish behavior. As anyone who removes their “cops can do no wrong, respec’ my authorit-aye” blinders can see, criminalizing childish behavior leads to all kinds of unwanted consequences. Like manhandled kids, some of whom could be injured, and cops dismissed from their jobs.
I have been a substitute teacher of Middle School. It was stressful for me. Perhaps it was also stressful for the students when I reacted differently to behaviors that to other teachers would be considered “routine to the point of boredom”. When I consider what policies I would like to have my children learn under, and that I would be comfortable asking teachers to follow, yes, I think it is wonderful when an experienced teacher can handle discipline without complete disruption of the class. If you were to take many hours to talk down this Spring Valley HS student, I would consider it noble… providing you could do it on your own time, without stopping class for the well-behaving students. That’s a tall order.
All this fuss about the right to carry guns for self-protection, when in fact there should be a right for people, including kids in school where they are at risk of attack by violent nutters parading in the guise of authorities, to carry a cell/vid phone to provide evidence that can lead to charges against abusers.
No, asshole. I live in the real world, which is why my statement was correct.
You liberal twits that live in a utopian dreamworld full of rainbows and unicorn farts are a bunch of sheep. You saw a selectively edited video, guaranteed to make you swell up with oh-so-justified outrage, and HuffPo did it because they knew nobody would bother to question it. They also wrote the descriptions in such a way as to make it appear that it was the big, bad cop beating up on the poor, defenseless widduh teenage girl.
When the unedited video and story came out, it was totally different. This was a teenager looking for a fight. She disobeyed the teacher in the classroom, who called for help from the office. She disobeyed the person from the office, who then called in the police officer. She repeatedly disobeyed him and left him no choice but to compel her to obey him. She then hit the officer in the face.
The amount of force he used was quite reasonable. It was the teenager’s resistance that made it look excessive - had she not been pushing away from him, she would not have turned her desk over. And now the officer has been thrown under the bus for the incident, which was totally and completely the fault of the teenager. At that age, she knows the difference between right and wrong, and she knows that what she did was stupid and wrong. The only conclusion is that she did it deliberately.
IMNSHO, if the kid’s parents had brought her up to respect authority, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Parents need to discipline their children so that society doesn’t have to.
Where is the unedited video, and what timestamps in the video did all of these things happen?
Also, what do you mean by “left him no choice but to compel her to obey him”? Why and how was that his only remaining choice? What would have happened that would have been so terrible if he had done something else, like keep talking to her and trying to de-escalate?
Here are all three videos.The third clip shows an extended period before the physical encounter. Please indicate exactly where you believe the officer was “attacked” by the girl, or else provide a link to the other video which apparently only you have seen.
In the video, after the officer has already grabbed her around the neck, she flails about a bit and her hand might lightly have grazed his face. (It’s not clear if she actually made contact.) Is this what you are talking about?
Oh, Clothie, you really are something. But then, so’s a dung beetle. Point of fact, a dung beetle’s favorite habitat is also ‘something’. I’m not sure where you fall on this continuum, but I’m certain you’re in there someplace. The dung beetle at least doesn’t know he’s full of shit. Do you?
I get the frustration. I put myself in the teacher’s position and try to figure out what I would have done. Each time I do, I feel like punching the kid in the face. Probably a good thing I’m not a teacher. Or a cop. I don’t think any of the ‘correct’ responses would have felt satisfying. And I do not know what they are, really. How to get the kid to relent and still have some semblance of authority in the classroom? How do we not make the whole class about her tantrum and waste all of the class’s time?
Right up until the time the cop laid hands on her, she was clearly in the wrong. 100 % wrong. It was still not an excuse for violence. She had not been violent. She had not threatened anyone’s safety or property.
