Are you saying he should have just given up? That if a suspect resists arrest the police should allow them to go free? He had a job to do; he did it. Probably not as well as he would have liked to - I don’t imagine he was proud of himself for hitting a teenager, no matter what she did. But giving up and running away is most likely not in his job description.
I"m glad you work with animals, and not kids. I think.
Don’t be silly. Cats aren’t built like primates (humans).
What’s with all this no-holds barred caged death match fights anyway? For heaven’s sake, we’re talking about restraining pets and young humans without hurting them. Geez, I could kill my cat in one second if it were life or death. I could kill a 15 year old girl almost as quick, once I got my hands on her, unless she’s got some wicked martial arts skills. We’re not talking about that.
15 year old girls are a lot stronger than you think, especially when you’re trying to restrain them without injuring them. Humans are a lot closer to chimps, than chimps are to domestic cats.
We’re playing what-ifs here, I realize. I can’t prove it, but I firmly believe that grabbing an enraged cat is not nearly as easy as you seem to believe, by a factor of about 100. All the time thrashing about at about Mach 7. And once grabbed, that cat is going to cause a lot of pain. Much more than the girl can.
No, the cat won’t kill me. It could open my hand to the bone in a Miami minute, however.
That would change everything. What if I had a shotgun? Or a deathray? Or thousands of bees at my every command?
Again, I don’t think so. Maybe if the cat were absolutely still and I got to wind up and plant one right in the ribs, but that is unlikely.
As I said above, a 15 lb. Jack Russell beats the cat 9 out of 10 falls, and I beat the Jack 10 out of 10. So what? They were bred to apprehend and bring to bay such critters as badgers and foxes. They’re quick as a minute, and can out maneuver a cat much better than I can. Once their jaws clamp down on the back of its neck the fight is over.
I was trained to fight humans, not animals. I still believe that I come out of it much less the worse for wear if fight the girl.
No I’m not saying that! You suggested that he couldn’t run away and that’s why it was okay that he responded that way. I object to framing his position in that way, is all. He wasn’t trapped.
What if the cat has laser beams for eyes and can fly, too!
I started a thread in IMHO.
To go on further, there is plenty of room between running away and not punching back, so I sense an excluded middle here. He didn’t have to punch the girl to restrain her. The punch appears to be an emotional response, not one calculated to bring about control.
From the discussion here, you’d think we were talking about a Rodney King II tape or something. For crying out loud, I wish some of the posters in this thread would test their theory in real life and assault a policeman and see if you don’t get a dose of reality.
And the talk about calling a female officer as a backup. What good would that do? You think that a female officer would miraculously be able to get the girl to put the cuffs on? Nope, you’d just have the girl resisting a different officer.
We’re talking about getting bitten and reaction to getting bitten. There is no “plenty of room.”
He shouldn’t have had to do anything. He asked, politely, many times for the girl to comply. All she had to do was comply and she wouldn’t have been punched, sprayed, nothing.
Why is this POV so alien?
I think a lot of folks in this tread, myself included, agree with that POV.
And I’ll bet you didn’t mind any of that, eh? Going to school every morning was a delight, none of those rules were ever harsh or arbitrary, and you wouldn’t have traded that life for anything? You didn’t mind not being able to get your driver’s license, or watch R-rated movies, or anything else that you were denied because of your age?
The grass is always greener in the past. Maybe you’ve convinced yourself that giving up all those things would be worth it now if it meant you didn’t have to pay bills or show up for jury duty. But if you could go back, you’d remember the bad parts soon enough.
Of course, because the world you live in is one where you’re no longer affected by those rules. You don’t care about how 15 year olds feel about being on the business end of these policies because you’re not one of them anymore. You don’t think it’s reasonable for them to feel like they’re suffering by being subjected to a curfew (even though you wouldn’t tolerate being subjected to one yourself), so it’s almost like they aren’t really suffering at all, and so the policy is fine. Is that about right?
Well, I was talking about the state restricting their freedom, not their parents. Parents are in quite a different position from the state, because as you pointed out, kids living at home depend on their parents for such things as food and shelter. If a kid wants his parents to support him, then he’ll have to follow the conditions they set out. In turn, if parents want to ensure that those conditions are followed, they’ll have to do it on their own; the police have better things to do than enforce bedtime and homework.
I love the quotes around “freedom”, by the way. Gives the impression that the word only properly refers to the things adults want to be free to do.
You can probably guess what my answer is to the second question: no one should be forbidden to work because of their age. And that provides an answer to the first. If a 12 year old wants to move out, she’d better have a plan for supporting herself.
No, in my world there’s contraception, and it’s more likely to be used when there’s no need to sneak around and when it’s available to anyone regardless of age.
So would you say the cop knew she didn’t have a knife?
It’s not. Of course, this argument isn’t compelling because it could easily read:
"He shouldn’t have had to do anything. He asked, politely, many times for the girl to comply. All she had to do was comply and she wouldn’t have been punched, sprayed, shot, beaten, and killed. "
…and I would be just as unimpressed.
Essentially, your POV is that being punched in the face is a fair consequence to biting a cop and resisting arrest. If that’s what you believe, okay. I disagree, at least in the case, but I ain’t about to shit on your opinion. I simply take issue with arguments that suggest that the cop just couldn’t help himself. I believe he could have; he just didn’t. And I think that he should have helped himself.
Seriously, I don’t care about the cop or the girl. Overreaching arguments about reflexes and instincts bother me and prompt me argue because I don’t think that the amount of consciousness behind an action affects whether that action is acceptable. Either argue that it’s okay if cops haul off on people that are trying to resist, or argue that it’s not. But not holding them accountable for their fists isn’t good for anyone.
Have you ever wrestled with anyone or been involved in a physical fight? You don’t chose your every move with deliberation. I’ve asked you this about five times now and you’ve ignored it every time.
Your position seems to be people always deliberate every move in a life or death struggle. And that’s plenty wrong.
This doesn’t sound like ignoring it: “I don’t think that the amount of consciousness behind an action affects whether that action is acceptable.”
This is why I stopped posting. This thread is like banging your head against a brick wall - useless.
- Honesty
I haven’t responded to your questions because I find them to be a bit ridiculous, to be honest. Like this one. I’m not a cop. That’s not my job. So asking me how I respond in a fight is stupid and irrelevant. I can’t perform heart surgery without making simple mistakes that would probably kill someone, but that doesn’t stop me from expecting a heart surgeon to not commit those same mistakes. I can’t hem worth a damn, but when I take my clothes to the tailor, I expect my skirts hit me straight across the knee. I can’t fly a plane and just the thought of doing so scares me, but I expect a pilot to not shit his pants at take-off and touch-down.
I expect cops to behave a little bit better than Joe Schmoe when it comes to keeping tempers in check.
Why is this POV so alien?
Shouldn’t you be off championing the rights of toddlers to own handguns?
Sorry, just kiddin’. In any case that is ignoring it. You can’t punish someone for something they did inadvertently. That’s stupid.
OK, I guess I missed the part in the video where she was shot, beaten and killed.
She wasn’t. She bit the cop, a minor assault, and got rebuked in kind (at least the cop didn’t bite her back). Had she shot him, I imagine she could expect to be shot back. The infamous “punch in the face” was pretty minor in the grand scheme of things (see: Rodney King), and was not instigated by the cop.
If the cop would have just walked up and punched her lights out, then asked her to put the cuffs on, I’d be right there with you. He didn’t. He didn’t initiate the chain of events, she did. Again, do you think ANY of this would have happened if she would have just compied with his lawful request? Of course not.
I think if you provided a single cogent argument you might have gained some ground.