It’s a staple of every cop show on TV.
Alleged perp is cuffed from behind, escorted to an awaiting patrol car.
The cop will place his hand on the perps head, and guide him into the back seat. Is this something that is taught in the academy or, is it all for show to any onlookers. I can’t see why the police would care about the poor perp bumping his head on the car door frame. Does the cop think that this is the first time the perp has ever gotten into the back seat of a car? I just tried this in my two cars. I held my wrists together behind my back and easily slid into the back seat…no bumping my head. If a guy has been arrested and cuffed, he did something against society…I say, bump away.
Hmm… I’d amend that to he allegedly did something against society, not that I think that warrants careless treatment either way.
I’m guessing it’s just another safety procedure – imagine, also, you might be dealing with someone who is upset/not paying attention. It’s one thing to climb into a vehicle on a normal day and another thing entirely when you’re angry or overemotional. I’d bet grabbing the arrestee’s head has the double value of asserting dominance/control while preventing him or her from injury.
I would guess that it’s also to avoid lawsuits later where the plaintiff claims the cops “forced” the perp’s head into the car, intentionally causing a massive bump that only an icepack and $10 million can fix.
Well, there were my two explanations.
That answers that.
It’s almost entirely a liability and “due care” issue. If the cops can show that they routinely guide a person’s head as they get into the car as a regular business practice, they’ll have a pretty good defense if a perp tries to sue them for a concussion.
Something else that doesn’t get shown all that often on the cop shows is that the police will take a bunch of photographs of any visible injuries to show that the perp was already injured before being put into the car, cell or other holding area. This lets them say “Your Honor, we have photographs taken by the arresting officer and by the jail intake officer showing that the plaintiff already had bruises on their face before they were arrested so the claimed injuries could not have happened while the plaintiff was in our custody.”
Was on a jury a number of years ago where the defense claimed that the defendant had his head bumped while being put into the police car. Seemed irrelevant to us at the time, charged as we were only with finding whether the defendant was guilty or not. But seemed like a (clumsy) attempt to get us to sympathize with the defendant.
The prosecutor ignored the whole claim, not mentioning it at all. A good strategy, under the circumstances.
Sometimes people are arrested who aren’t mentally stable. They may have committed a crime (or not), but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be protected from harm, even when the harm comes from themselves. Under the influence, without their medication, upset, clumsy… there are all kinds of reasons someone might need assistance with getting into a police car.
Plus, I doubt that a police officer wants to go through the hassle of defending “police brutality!” claims every time someone bonks their melon.
You ever try to get into the back seat of a car with your hands behind you like they were in cuffs?
Not easy. Your center of gravity is in all the wrong places. You will probably bang the shit out of your head if someone is not holding it out of the way.
[aside]A number of years ago the CHP used some Mustangs and Camaros. The joke among officers was that if you had to transport a prisoner in one, you would automatically have to add resisting arrest as soon as you tried to put them in the back seat. 
[/aside]
Or we could just cut to the chase and shoot them on sight. :rolleyes:
In what jurisdiction do you live, and do you have 11 friends who believe as you do?
If so, I would LOVE to be a DA there.
Psst! It wasn’t SHAKES who said that-he was merely quoting the OP.
To agree with Rick. I got arrested once when I was fourteen. As soon as I was put in the back of the cop car I was aware of why they did that. I’m quite sure if the cop didn’t guide my head into the car, I would have bumped it on the door frame.
I still find it odd though, that they don’t put a seat belt on the ‘passengers.’ For the same reason that I would have bumped my head getting into the car, I wouldn’t have had a chance in hell of bracing myself should the cruiser have been in an accident.
I know I know, it would also be a great time for the arrestee to attack the cop and I suppose that’s why they don’t do it.
ETA if I had bumped my head on the door frame I wouldn’t have been able to catch myself when I would have fallen the other way.
My nephew the cop tells me of the word ‘waffle’ …used as a verb.
His patrol car has a wire mesh divider between the front seat and back seat, to protect the officers from the perp.
On one occasion, they were transporting an unruly perp and, as you say, the seat belt wasn’t used. One hard braking created a 'waffle ’ on the guys face, and peace ensued. Ya gotta wonder about a cops sense of humor. 
My apologies to SHAKES. 
As Rick and Joey have said, it is harder than it looks to sit down in the backseat without the use of your hands. How do I know? Ah, the teenager years…
I’ve been in the back of a police wagon (longitudinal stainless steel seats), I was alone, uncuffed, and the cops drove conservatively. Yet it was all I could do to brace myself against the walls and ceiling to avoid being banged about. I’m not sure how six drunk, cuffed guys would go, and although the cops were nothing but professional with me, I’ve heard stories of arrestees who give attitude being subjected to the “sudden lane changing treatment”.
One of my friends in high school was the son of the director of public safety (aka, campus police chief) at a major university. He described as relatively common procedure exactly this sort of technique (minus the wire mesh divider and waffle effect) for inducing better behavior from arrestees. Given that a large proportion of those in the back seat of campus police cars were drunk frat kids, I suspect they had more occasion than other police departments to use it.