Sure. You can say she panicked and wasn’t thinking rationally. The officer still has to deal with what she is actually doing regardless of guesses about her mental state. That’s what he did. He tried to warn her and get her to listen because he did not want to be too rough acknowledging that hse was small and could get hurt. She still would not cooperate.
The most I think he could have done is when he had her pinned on the hood he might have taken a couple of extra minutes to try and convince her that struggling hard would only increase the chances she would be hurt and wouldn’t help her situation at all. He might have told her, they would call her parents or some other responsible adult she knew as soon as she got to the station. That’s assuming she was an innocent scared 15 year old. That may not be true.
Perhaps she was struggling and panicking because she knew she was guilty of something and once she got cuffed and in the car it was all over.
Most people lack the ability to break their own wrists struggling against handcuffs using only isometric muscle power. Attach someone to a stationary object and they can definitely start leaning into it and injure themselves pretty badly. Or they can break whatever they’re cuffed to. And there’s no guarantee they’ll calm down.
The police are under no obligation to protect any individual member of the public. There are many court cases on the subject.
If he was carrying a glock it’s possible to field strip it in a matter of seconds. The problem is that the trigger has to be back to do so… so either he fired a round or was essentially carrying his gun unloaded. Possible he was trying to rack the slide and chamber a round, got in a struggle over the weapon, and ended up having it disassemble in the process. This was spun as heroically disabling his firearm while being beaten.
Until they’ve been found guilty by a court of law, claims of innocence are always true.
Having a warrant issued for your arrest has no direct relation to your guilt or innocence.
I don’t see why people, regardless of age, can’t understand when a fucking cop is trying to subdue you, no matter if he’s an asshole, or if you’re in the right or have done nothing wrong, you fucking stand there calmly and let him do it and if you have a gripe you take it up later, because not doing so is only going to cause trouble? What’s so hard about that? A cop is not going to try to stop arresting you just because you resist, and isn’t going to take your abuse just becasue you’re a teen, an old bag, or you’re cute, or your dad’s rich, whatever? Isn’t it common sense not to screw with a cop like that?
Sure, but let’s see you release the holster, draw the weapon, remove the clip and eject the round in the pipe, and then strip it all while being beaten by two people; without losing your grip on it or having it taken away. If you can do that, you must be John MacLain. Yippee kiyay, motherfucker.
When two people jump you unexpectedly, you don’t have a matter of seconds. I still call bullshit.
One of the first things they teach you in cop school is you’re not a judge. You enforce the law, and determine whether to arrest someone or not, but it’s up to the judge as to whether you’re innocent or not.
So people can proclaim their innocence 'til they’re blue in the face. The cop’s not the one you have to convince.
Personally, I value the life of a trained professional with experience and education and a family over the life of a teenager. I have no children, that probably explains that.
Bullshit. Suppose you tell me what her being black has to do with her behavior? Do all black people fear police officers in your twisted little mind?
Here’s some of your other gems in this thread":
“I suspect the Policeman would be in a great deal of trouble were she not Black.”
"Who’s playing the race card now? (in response to “She also looks like she’s been hitting the meth pipe a little too much.)”
“Of course her parents should have taught her to cooperate with the police, like Amadou Diallo.”
These statements are nothing but race baiting, and should have no place in a rational discussion of the issues.
By all means, explain your point of those statements. To me, they seem to be completely based on your own prejudice about someone’s race. Maybe you can explain why the officer would be in more trouble if she were not Black? Do blacks not complain about police misconduct in your little mind? Or is it that the officer and all his superiors are racist and make their determinations of the propriety of his actions based on the race of the person? Why is mentioning meth the race card? Only black people use meth? Please, by all means, debate these little prejudices of yours.
The one time I was cuffed and put into a car, I was doing nothing (my roomie on the other hand…) I had a cup of coffee in my hands as we walked down the alley and the lights came on. I immediately did as they said, putting it down and my hands behind my head and ended up spending an hour or so in the car answering questions before they let me go with a warning. They took roomie away though. And yes I was freaking out, that was the one and only time that’s happened to me and I don’t plan to have it happen again (and boy was I pissed at HIM).
She’s lucky she didn’t get worse. And the swing he took was an automatic reaction. I have that same reaction when my son bites me (or rather when he did, he doesn’t generally bite anymore) he obviously reacted and then gathered himself to do as he was trained rather than beat the shit out of her.
Why would a fifteen year old need to be walking around at one in the morning with a bag of clothes? I don’t see how there would be a reason acceptable (even as a parent, law or no law), and she was obviously breaking curfew so even if she wasn’t doing anything otherwise, she was breaking curfew and needed to be taken either home or to the station and her parents called.
What physiological reflex is this? If you can tell us more about it, I guarantee you that you’d be your way to winning the Nobel Peace Prize in Biology. You know, when I took Neuroscience, I was taught that nociception related reflexes cause the target muscles to move away from the source of pain. I can’t think of one single pain reflex in which the organism moves the affected limb toward the source of pain. Not a single one. Can you? If you can, even if its anecdotal, you should notify the Nobel Committee immediately.
I don’t think there wasn’t an “automatic reaction” here; a kid bit an officer, he got angry, and punched her in the face. I can’t quite understand why nearly every single poster here is putting an euphemistic spin on that. It is almost as if acknowledging that the officer was temperamental and unprofessional somehow somehow negates the validity of the arrest. News Flash: It doesn’t. Both the officer the kid were wrong; I, unlike the other posters here, believe that the adult in this situation should have known better not to let his emotions get the better of him. If he is unable to gather the intellectual strength to restrain his emotions when handling a child, he should have called for backup.
The bit you cut out: “The problem is that the trigger has to be back to do so… so either he fired a round or was essentially carrying his gun unloaded. Possible he was trying to rack the slide and chamber a round, got in a struggle over the weapon, and ended up having it disassemble in the process. This was spun as heroically disabling his firearm while being beaten.”
From an operational standpoint, no, all else being equal there should not be any difference in how you’re treated whether you’re presumed innocent (and are) or presumed innocent (and aren’t)
Yours was not the first comment implying that unsolicited interaction with the police and/or protesting your innocence is some sort of evidence of guilt.
Well, I dunno about you but that’s how I react when I get bitten. I pull back and then I swing out at the offending party. My brother got a few fists in the face that way from me when we were kids. Anecdote doesn’t equal data and all that, but I’m obviously not the only person who does it considering how many others here have mentioned it.
I don’t think he should’ve hit her, he should’ve gone for the pepper spray first, but I having done similar myself I know what it’s like in the moment. I just happen to not be a cop nor have had a camera on me when it’s happened.
Any evidence? Or are we just to assume that all black people are afraid of white police officers? And are you going to explain the rest of your statements or just ignore them?
I think someone asked above why he had to cuff her to put her in the car. A few years ago, an officer here caught a 13/14 year old kid running around in the middle of the night. He didn’t cuff the kid - he put him in the back of the car and was taking him home. The little thug somehow managed to get hold of the officer’s gun and shoot him, killing him instantly.
The officer wasn’t even taking the little bastard to jail. Now his wife and two kids are without their husband/father, and the taxpayers have to support the little thug until he is at least 21. All because the officer was trying to 'be nice".
Maybe the girl was scared because she knew she shouldn’t have been out after curfew. Maybe she had snuck out of the house. Maybe she was stoned. Whatever. She earned what she got.
You cuff everybody you arrest. My supervisor was telling the story just the other day of the time he didn’t cuff the sweetest, nicest looking 87 year old woman shoplifter. She slashed him across the face with a pair of scissors a centimeter from his eye. They’re temporary restraints, and they’re for the safety of everybody involved in the situation.
She’s 15, not a little girl. A teenager is old enough to know that if you bite someone, they’re likely to react in a way that will cause you pain. If a police officer tells you to put your hands behind your back, you should do what he says.
I don’t get the impression at all that she was scared–she’s arguing with the officer and yelling at him that she didn’t do anything wrong. You can only reason with someone who’s listening to you–which she obviously wasn’t doing. Now she knows that arguing and biting police officers does not get her what she wants. Ignoring your teachers and arguing with them may get you out of a detention, but that’s not going to work in real life. If she were my daughter, I wouldn’t be happy about this, and I’d be sorry for her that it went down this way, but she did it to herself.
I made no such comment and implied no such thing. You are just flat out wrong.
What was noted was that often when people are protesting their innocence while being cuffed it turns out they are not innocent. Nobody I saw suggested that their protests are in any way evidence of guilt.
