How is this relevant? The girl in the video was no where near a gun, for pete’s sake. People reaching for guns don’t tend to resort to biting, of all things.
Let me help yall out with a new batch of crazy cat questions.
"Has a cat ever lobbed a rocket grenade at you while doing the Harlem Shuffle to the tune of ‘Camptown Races’ "?
“Has a cat ever picked you up and thrown you bodily into a volcano?”
“Has a cat ever reached into your chest, yanked out your heart, and sewed you back up again?”
The answer to all these questions is no. I still don’t think the cop should have punched the girl, though.
Someone asked me what I think should happen to the cop, and I said I don’t know. That still stands. But I think this video should be shown to cops in training. It would be instructive for them to evaluate the officer’s conduct, and hammer out the finer distinctions between what are “normal” reactions and what are “acceptable” ones, as well discuss why his restraint technique may have precipitated what occured.
I’m tempted to start a poll in IMHO about this. Which would you rather fight hand-to-hand? A mad cat? Or the girl in the OP’s video? It would be interesting to see the responses.
No where near a gun? She was at most one to two feet away from his gun. She didn’t actually reach for it, but we only know that in hindsight. Most people don’t bite the officer arresting him - she did. I’d think that someone who’s panicked and stupid enough to bite a police officer might also try to do other stupid things, like grabbing his gun or otherwise attempting to injure him.
If you’re saying he shouldn’t have restrained her like that - what exactly would you have him do? Just release her and let her go? Even if he had a shoulder mike and could call for backup without letting her go, backup won’t arrive instantaneously and he’ll have to restrain her in the meantime. He actually did a pretty good job in trying to calmly talk to her and explain that he didn’t want to hurt her. It’s also pretty clear in the video that he purposely positioned himself in front of the camera so that he had evidence that he was following proper procedure.
Also, regarding reflexively withdrawing from painful stimuli - he withdrew his arm and then “reflexively” (in the colloquial sense) struck her to make sure she didn’t try to bite him again immediately, and I think that he didn’t hit her very hard. I think that even if it wasn’t a true “reflex”, it was a conditioned response by someone who is trained in restraining people and also likely trained in hand to hand combat. If someone is trying to hurt you, if you’re highly trained then you will [del]reflexively[/del] automatically try to prevent them from hurting you.
To those who said that a painful stimuli should cause you to withdraw and run away - that’s only an option if you can run away. If a dog bites you, it might be best to run away if possible, but if you’re in close quarters or can’t get away, it would definitely be appropriate to fight back. The officer restraining her did not have the option to leave the scene, and he didn’t really “fight back” (because if he did she’d have gotten a lot worse than that “punch”, but he did have to momentarily subdue her while he got out his pepper spray.
Which is worse - a light punch and pepper spray causing no significant injury, or a dislocated shoulder or broken wrist/arm?
I think that if it was a no-holds-barred affair, and if killing the opponent were allowed, I’d pick the girl in the OP. I’ve helped with feral cat rescue, and no way do I want to be cornered with one of them. Even the kittens. Same for an enraged domestic cat. They have too many weapons. I’m sure I would prevail eventually, but t a high price. If injuring her were not an issue, I believe I could cool out the video girl without sustaining too much damage.
On the other hand, a 15 pound Jack Russell beats the cat 95 times out of a hundred. Maybe even more often. And they don’t scare me at all. levdrakon, your link doesn’t do what you think it does.
So you think he punched her because he was afraid that she was going for his gun? I gotta wonder why he would make that leap, if that’s what he was thinking. Taking a gun is a move someone usually takes when they are launching an offense. A bite is a defense tactic used when you can’t use your arms. Most people reach for guns using their hands and arms. Not their teeth.
Not pull her arm up so high, maybe? It honestly looked like she was in pain, and that was part of the reason why she was flipping out. I’m not an expert on this, so I don’t know. Maybe the cop handled things perfectly. But maybe he didn’t. And maybe his mistakes contributed to a less than perfect ending. I think it would be instructive to show this video to a bunch of recruits and ask them to analyze it.
The cop could have “run away” too. He chose not to. Not saying he should have run away, but he wasn’t forced to do anything. His position was self-imposed.
“Not adult yet” isn’t the same as “broken”. They can make decisions and judgments; they might not reach the same conclusions as the average adult would in every case, but to say their decisions are wrong because of that requires us to elevate some ideal adult decision making process as the standard to which all other decisions are compared, when that ideal process doesn’t really even exist - everyone makes different decisions, based on their personal priorities and beliefs.
I had a couple incidents like that, sure. But you know what… I’ll probably do something stupid again someday. Most of us will, because turning 18, or 25, or wherever you want to draw the line, doesn’t make you perfect.
“If you defend youth rights, you must be a kid yourself” is one step away from “if you defend gay rights, you must be gay”. And as for raising kids, IMHO, anyone who starts agreeing with you after they have kids is simply putting their own desires as parents (making their lives easier and soothing their exaggerated worries) ahead of their own experience as minors. Like I said before, it’s very easy to justify it by telling yourself you had to deal with the same thing, forgetting just how bad it was when you were in that position; telling yourself you turned out OK, and ignoring how your life could’ve been better if you could’ve taken control of it a bit earlier.
Frankly, I don’t think it makes sense to criticize teenagers’ thought process because they’re full of hormones, and in the same breath praise parents’ thought process, which can be just as instinctual and irrational. Next time you hear someone describing how his outlook on life changed the moment he first looked into his newborn child’s eyes, imagine how you’d react to a 13 year old boy describing how his outlook on life changed the first time he opened a Playboy. “OMG so precious, must protect!” is the sequel to “OMG so exciting, must touch!”, and it’s from the same writers - it only gets more respect because they show it in a bigger theater.
I’m talking about domestic cats, yes. As someone who has gone hand to hand with both “young human primates” (that are built a lot like Olive Oyl, mind you) and angry cats, I will tell you that there is no contest. The cat is a scarier opponent.
Ouch. Sorry. The link still works for me. I’d copy the picture and host it on my photobucket account, but the photo is credited: New York Zoological Park so I’m not sure I should swipe it.
It basically show shows how chimp arms are skinny, but skinny shouldn’t be construed as weak and unable to do great damage.
I’m not saying he thought she would go for the gun, but I’d assume that given his police training he would not be assuming that she wouldn’t go for the gun. A police officer has to be cautious in all arrests and not put himself or bystanders in danger. Like the person earlier in the thread who said that the one time someone didn’t restrain a little old lady because he assumed she was harmless he got slashed on the face. The police officer can’t just say “well, she’s a scrawny teenager so I won’t restrain her because how likely is it that she’s dangerous.”
I’m not an expert either, but from the others in the thread who do have experience I got the sense that the office put her arm in a compromised position so that it would hurt if she resisted. It might be uncomfortable to be cuffed like that, but it doesn’t actually hurt or cause any injury unless you’re struggling and flailing around - which she was. He restrained her, but she was hurting herself.
“Yeah sarge, I let the suspect get away because they were resisting a little and I didn’t want to risk the outrage of the blogosphere.”
“…how bad it was when * was in that position…” Give me a break. My mother supported me, fed me, paid my tuition; in return I was expected to follow her rules. Was it the end of the world at 15 when I couldn’t stay out all night? Of course it was. Does that mean a 15-year old needs to be out all night? Not in the world I live in.
I don’t know where you are coming from on this, Mr.2001. Do you really believe it is wrong for a parent to restrict the “freedom” of a child/teenager? If a 12 year old gets mad at mommy and decides she doesn’t want to live there anymore, who is supposed to support the child? Or should 12 year olds be allowed to get full time jobs?
Most, if not all, of the girls I knew when I was in my early teens who didn’t have decent parental supervision ended up mothers themselves before they were 18. Is that a desirable outcome in your world?
you with the face, how could the police officer “just run away”? Are you seriously saying letting the girl go was an option? That’s just peachy - let’s send the message that if you bite the cops when you are being arrested you get to go free!
Well, what’s the point of talking about someone reacting as if they were trapped when that actually wasn’t the case? It’s disingenuous, and I have no qualms pointing that out to you.
Well, by that logic, the fact that a cat weighs 20lbs shouldn’t be construed to mean they easier to fight than a 100 lbs person.
Humans aren’t chimps anyway, so I don’t know where you’re going with this. That girl in the video could be snapped in half by a chimp 2/3rds her size. Chimps are a lot stronger than humans, and it has nothing to do with weight.
Let’s stipulate some rules. You cannot wear foot, hand, or eye protection. It is OK to kill your opponent.
Honestly, I would rather face the girl (but not a chimpanzee.) I am a 6’3" large man, with some martial arts training, who is basically on the downside of physically fit. Still, I believe I could overpower the girl, either by knocking her out, beating her into submission, or taking her down and strangling her. My hands fit around her neck. If I kick her hard she will go down. I might get kicked or punched or even bitten, but IMO she would be pretty quick work.
I would not begin to know how to approach an angry 20 lb. cat. Try putting your hands around its neck. She can claw and bite to the bone in a matter of seconds. If you punt her she’'ll just bounce off then wall. Punching’s no good. She doesn’t weigh enough for it to have an affect.
I could kill the cat eventually, but at a much higher cost.
It’s not my intention to be disingenuous. Are you honestly saying that police should just fling up their hands and give up whenever a suspect resists getting cuffed? It would be the end of policing if police aren’t allowed to restrain anyone who resists. He wasn’t “trapped”, but it’s obvious that he was in a position where he can’t just leave because he’s carrying out his job duties.
It does have pointy bits, true. But you could grab it and rend. Squeeze it out like a bath towel and have your fingers bite into it as hard as you can. It’ll die.
The trouble is you may get a puncture wound but the cat will never kill you. It’s claws are unlikely to get to your arteries and it’s teeth leave it vulnerable while it’s latched on. What if the girl has a knife?
And you could kick it, that would end it in one good hit.
