Not surprisingly, parallels have been drawn to the Rodney King incident. The footage on this is pretty damning (see above link). It looks simple: the car thief flees from cops first by car, then by foot. When it looks like success isn’t in the cards, the perp stops running and clearly assumes a submissive, hands-elevated posture. The most proximal cop then rushes up and pushes him prostrate, immediately followed by a gang of other cops who seem to pile upon the guy like football players trying to bring down The Incredible Hulk. And then one of the cops brings out a flashlight and starts wapping the perp with it. It’s not clear in the video (which is being shot from a overhead helicopter) where the blows are being directed, but it looks like the head based on the guy’s position on the ground.
Usually I’m the kind of person who gives law enforcement the benefit of the doubt, even while thinking police brutality is very real and very wrong. That said, it looks like these cops (particularly the flashlight welding one) were using excessive force. None of the usual excuses, such as “It looked like he was about to pull out a weapon!” or “It was self-defense!”, can be trotted out this time. We see the event take place pretty much from start to finish, so there is no way these cops can credibly claim that actions took place off-camera that justify such violence. The guy’s hands were nowhere near his pockets, he was unarmed anyway, he had given up chase on his own volition, and it looks like he was in the process of getting cuffed when the flashlight-man decided to turn his head into a drum.
How do Dopers feel about this? Is this video evidence that police brutality remains a problem in LA? What should happen to the cops involved? Should we not make a lot of it because the perp was clearly “asking for it” by not only committing a crime but by also initially running away?
It does look awfully brutal in the video, however, the perp (I feel cool just typing that word) does get up and stand under his own power at the end, something I can’t imagine he could do if he took 11 (or even one or two) full on blows in the head with one of those flashlight/nightstick thingees. And according to NPR this afternoon, he didn’t sustain any major injuries, so I’m thinking that it wasn’t as bad as it appears. The cop still went overboard and should be punished, but I’d want to hear what the people on the ground saw before I’d be willing to say he should be charged with any crime.
Also I notice you use “Cops” in the plural the OP. Other then the one cop with the flashlight, I didnt see anything that would be excessive. The other cops tackle him and hold him down after he stops and puts his hands up, but that seems resonable given that he was running away and they dont want him to bolt again.
Also in defense of the Cop with the flashlight, I dont think he saw the guy stop and put his hands up as he was a good deal behind the first few cops that originally tackeled the man. Running up, adrenaline pumping, in the dark etc. and seeing several cops ontop of the perp, he may have assumed the man was resisting and tried to use force to subued him. Again though, the wailing on him with the night stick still looks excesive.
It looked excessive to me. I’ve only seen the clip once but after the guy stopped running and put his hands up I thought he was kneeling down when the cops swarmed him. I’ll have to see it again.
I just saw the clip in slow motion and it appears that another one of the cops deliberately kicked the guy in the head as he came running up. So it doesn’t look like “cops” is inaccurate. But I will grant that most of the men involved do not look like they were doing anything wrong.
With all due respect to excessive force (and this was a case of it), cops have an extremely large adrenaline rush during a chase. They have a similar rush when they are called to any case involving a weapon. Most people don’t know how they would act in such a situation, and people who want to become cops are often a special breed. I should know, my dad is one. They are, as a whole, confrontational. Timid people don’t apply, and if they do, they aren’t let into the academies at large. Many hours of training go into trying to prevent cops from getting “chase vision” which is a type of tunnel vision they experience during the adrenaline rush. Think of the scene in The Matrix where they ask Smith what he’s doing after the fact, and the other guy says “He doesn’t know”. The cops are going on instinct, and their instinct (at least one of them) was “this guy is bad and still a threat until subdued”. While I disagree with hitting him with a flashlight, especially while a Helo is flying above filming, I also think it a travesty if this person committed a serious crime but is somehow given less punishment because a cop roughed him up. It’s not the same as time served. My opinion only.
Honestly I could care less what the cops do to him because:
he is a criminal engaged in a violent act
he ran from police in a high speed chase, endangering God knows how many innocent people that could have been killed just because this jerk thought he could get away from the consequences of his actions.
He ran away from them once on foot, in this day and age, criminals use false surrenders to ambush police in chase situations on a not uncommon basis
For all those reasons I think the police were at least marginally justified in subduing him with as much force possible.
By the time the cops rounded this guy up they already would have had his record. He was a car theif and forger, both non-violent crimes. Nothing in his history (at least as reported by NBC) would lead them to expect violence from the man. His raising his hands and showing them submission should have made it even more clear that he wasn’t a threat. Adrenaline rush, tunnel vision, etc. notwithstanding, the officers are trained to exercise restraint. They didn’t. Even with a helicopter flying overhead. What do you suppose they would have done if they knew they were not being watched? How many cases like this occur out of the public view? I think the LAPD still has a serious problem with self control.
This is going to continue to happen until the LAPD stops coddling these thugs, prosecutes them and puts them in jail. Administrative leave with pay and a reprimand sends the message that this kind of behavior is acceptable and holds no serious consequences.
I saw the clip several times this morning and it appears that the one cop with the flashlight may have used excessive force. Some of the other cops on the scene probably should have reined him in a little, but this bust is no where near the Rodney King incident in terms of violence.
I can’t think of anything more un-American than to suggest that it is the duty of the police to exact punishment on anybody. Its not their fucking purpose in our society, period. Anyone who thinks it is needs to relocate to any number of third world shitholes where civil rights don’t exist.
Just ONCE I’d like to see a video like that end with the other cops arresting the beater. Grab him, throw him to the ground, take his weapon, cuff him, throw him in the back of his own cop car. Read him his rights and off he goes, to be prosecuted for illegal force.
Instead it’s the same every time - Maybe a little “Yo yo, don’t do that!”, maybe a little “Stop it, dumbass, there’s a news chopper right there!”, but never any genuine, on-the-spot action that might suggest the cops were looking to protect someone other than themselves.
I’m going from memory, but I’m pretty sure the guy that kicks the prep in the head is the same one that hits him with the flashlight, thus I still think this just the one cop is to blame and not the the whole group.
Thanks for your input in this thread, LC. I need to read these kind of views on a regular basis so that I can remind myself that not everyone holds police officers to the same high standards that I do. It looks like you feel that folks who break the law automatically deserve to be treated like rabid animals. I’m just wondering where you draw the line. Car theft? Tax evasion? Shop lifting? Speeding? If I get caught doing sixty on a thirty mph road and the cop decides to give me a few lumps to teach me a lesson, should I complain? According you, if I hadn’t chosen to Break The Law, there would have been no reason for the cop to beat me upside the head. Because I’m automatically an asshole.
The law is the law, right?
by Wintermut
How is stealing a car a violent act? Unless there was threat involved, it is no more violent than me pocketing a Snickers bar from the 7/11.
Yes, his actions spurned a chase, but if fleeing in a car is a violent act because of the risk to bystanders, so is chasing a car. Bystanders are at risk by speeding police cars as well. What does that have to do with beating an already subdued suspect?
He was one man going against at least five cops. He would have been a fool to have tried to “ambush” them at such close range, and the cops should have had the wherewithall to see that. And besides, the flashlight attack happened after the guy was on the ground and restrained. It wasn’t like he was standing up and making a whole lot of suspicious movements.
Sorry, can’t work through your logic here. Restraint is one thing. Inflicting unnecessary pain AFTER someone has been restrained is another.
While beating him was bad, I don’t think you can blame the cops as much as you are. Speeding shouldn’t get you beaten. Speeding, and then when the blue lights flash, driving away, and then jumping out of your car and running to still get away, possibly. Hitting him in the head while five other guys are on him, no. But what if he got hurt when the cop tackled him. Some people still say “EXCESSIVE FORCE”. The thing most cops learn is that not all reports are accurate. Just because dispatch says he isn’t violent goes in the face of the fact that He’s fucking running away . And saying that the cops chasing him adds to it is false. Cops are trained to drive fast, and they have immensely fewer accidents in chases than to the perps. And many places won’t chase anymore not due to safety, due to litigation. I’m waiting for the first suit against that locale for a criminal killing someone because the police didn’t chase him. As an aside, you have to run before someone can chase you. That’s why people don’t chase turtles.