TWEEEEEET!!!
There have been too many personal shots in this thread.
Stop it.
Comment on the facts or logic and leave out your impressions of other posters’ personalities or mindsets.
[ /Moderating ]
Sorry about the name - misread it all along.
I liked your proposal of using non-verbal ID in an attempt to find out what was happening. Did you miss that?
People have talked about what to do up until the point that they still do not get a response from the person locked in the bathroom.
That is why I asked a follow-up question of what to do when the trespasser will not come out of the bathroom. **Cisco **implies that kicking in the door is preferred. You asked for my proposal, I said if forcing the door did not work then pepper spray and wait.
That is the tragedy - because he was deaf, he did not hear the police announce themselves (assuming that they did). Because he was disabled, he might not have realized that spending a long time in the store’s bathroom would be seen as an issue.
I do NOT defend the later actions of the police. Once they realized that he was deaf and disabled he should have been taken home with an apology. The actions of the police after they had the facts (based on the reports) do not show great decisions or behavior.
I have had to take drunks out of a bar on more than one occassion. I was lucky to never get more than bruised up doing it, though I had fellow bartenders who had much worse injuries. Physically hauling people out of small areas is difficult and can be dangerous.
Final note - I think that the police tasers shoot 3 wires, so I don’t know if he was taserd 3 times or was hit with three needles. Minor point if you hate tasers, but I thought I would mention it.
Well, I guess I’ll take 1 over none.
As for the tasing, at this point I can only go by the information presented.
Cisco did, here -
See the references to smashing in doors and fucking up?
Well, OK, to the extent possible.
Yup.
No, I am not fucking kidding.
Yes, this mentally retarded deaf person needed a babysitter. Because he is deaf, mentally retarded and locked himself in a public restroom for an hour so that no one else could use it. If he had a babysitter, then maybe someone could either be in the restroom with him, or at least would know how to communicate after ten minutes or so “OK, dear, you have been in there long enough. If you still have to go potty for another hour and a half, we can go home and you can sit on the potty there.”
Then this whole sorry situation could have been avoided.
Well, he’s not a rabid dog. I am not clear on who you think is saying that he is.
But no, he is not exactly an adult human being. He is mentally retarded, and not responsible for himself, and deaf, and not able to communicate very well with strangers. Hence, he needed someone to be responsible for him, and communicate with strangers for him.
Legally, I have no idea what he is - possibly a “vulnerable adult” or something similar. Morally, “somebody who needs a babysitter to keep him out of trouble” is pretty close.
Well, that’s the point. Normal adults know that they should not be tying up the public toilet for an hour, and also that someone breaking down the door is a rather clear signal that “your turn is over”. Also that if you don’t respond to anything for long enough, people are going to wonder what you’re up to. But this guy is mentally retarded and deaf, and thus did not respond, and did not (apparently) think that someone might break down the door to find out if he was locked in and didn’t know how to get out, or locked in and didn’t want to get out. Which, again, is why this guy needs a babysitter.
Do you recall that I said “where possible”? This is one of those times where it may not be possible.
Here is as far as I am willing to go. Here is the first definition of the prefix “dis-” I found -
Cite. See how "dis-’ is defined as “not”?
So it seems that “not obeying” and “disobeying” are, in fact, identical.
It’s supposed, AFAICT, to stop the person inside the rest room from preventing the door from being forced open. IOW, we have gone beyond the point of trying to persuade the person inside to open the door voluntarily. He has already been asked, and not responded. Nor has he responded to pounding on the door. And his response to having the door forced open is to try to force it closed again. So they shot some pepper spray in to stop him from doing this. Because he did not respond to anything more reasonable.
Now this is apparently because he is deaf and mentally retarded. The police had no way of knowing this. You apparently believe they should have known this, somehow. Thru a locked door, with someone who does not respond to shouted questions or knocking on the door, and who resists the effort to force the door open.
I repeat, how are they supposed to know this before the fact?
Regards,
Shodan
You-- you-- I-- :eek:
How can you so grossly misinterpret what I said, when it’s right there in front of you?
And, frankly, instead of digging yourself deeper into this argument, you should take a step back and look at what happened here as a whole, and be ashamed of yourself for defending what these men did. Are you capable of experiencing empathy at all? Do you really think this is what society wants when we ask for order? This is sick. It’s sick.
Your reading comprehension appears to be on a par with a blind illiterate: none.
No, I don’t recall that. And a search of the thread only shows those words in the post I am replying to, so I’ll go further and state that in fact, you did not say that.
That’s as far as you are willing to go, because to go any further would mean you would have to acknowledge that you are wrong. Again, you seem to think that everyone has as slight a grasp of the English language as you demonstrate.
See, “disobey” is a verb. That means it is a word describing action taken. Therefore, “disobeying” is a willful act of not obeying. Clearly Mr. Love did not “disobey” anything, as he was unable to perceive that there was any command to either obey or disobey. The fact that he did not obey requires no action on his part, either willful or not. You are wrong. Go learn how to use a dictionary.
Your reasoning and the values it espouses are disgusting. Your arguments show a clear lack of rational thought, and display a conscious willingness not just to ignore reality, but to try and twist it. You argue from baseless a priori concepts.
If you come back, try and bring more than fantasies and fiction to the discussion.
Snowboarder Bo, Cisco, not sure if you guys have answered this (kinda skipped over all the name-calling and fighting :p) but how long are police expected to wait in a situation like this?
Granted, he was in a bathroom, not on a ledge or holding a hostage, but according to the employee he was already in there an hour. No response from police identifying themselves, and now someone wants them to slip a card under the door like a salesman?
Imagine if SWAT, getting ready to raid a house, instead put down the battering ram and pull out their cards and slip them politely through the mail slot. Then give the owner a few minutes to notice it and read the cards and let them in (but what if he was in the bathroom, listening to music with headphones on, what if he took sleeping pills and can’t be awaken?)
NO ONE, especially not the police, should assume that the potential unknown behind the closed door is just some harmless kid. By the nature of their jobs, they are called in to dangerous and potentially dangerous situations. They should be alert at all times.
This stuff about slipping badges under doors and forcing the door open (thus leaving yourself vulnerable) is not something that any normal human being should be expected to do, especially when police are trained to be on extra guard.
Look, I’m sorry that the kid was roughed up, and I think the police was horrible in their treatment of him **AFTER **they found out his condition. But up to that point, they did what any sane person would do. They used non-lethal force to subdue someone who they believed was disobeying orders.
I cant believe someone would even suggest that the police should put themselves in extra harm. Self-defense isnt relegated to non-police. They felt that an unknown in a locked room disobeying orders and pushing up against the door was a threat, and they were perfectly justified. Pepper spraying into the room is nothing, at most you’re pained for a few minutes. To the guy who asked how was it supposed to make them more likely to open the door? Well its harder to push up against the door when you’re rubbing your eyes and in pain.
All of our assumptions are clouded by the facts that we know after the police forced themselves in; facts that they found out at the same time we did. Maybe you guys should try to assume that the guy inside was a drug dealer who is armed and shooting up PCP. Because as far as any of us knew before forcing the door open, thats what could have been inside. So then the police would have forced their way in after pepper spraying this thug and tased him before he could draw his gun. Good job officers. Nothing wrong with your procedures then.
You and I have extremely different definitions of the word sane.
Put it this way: Say the store employees didn’t call the police, they called the manager. And you’re the manager. They say, “Hey Mr. Sosoth, there’s a guy that’s been in the bathroom for quite some time, can you check on him?”
You’re telling me you’d bust in there with pepper spray and then tase him? See, because according to my definition of “sane”, a sane person would attempt to establish communication. Exhaustively. Only as a very last resort would I break the door down, and still would not pepper spray or tase unless I had reason to believe someone was in danger that could be prevented by pepper spraying or tasing.
They should be willing to accept risk before putting the public in extra harm. They voluntarily chose a dangerous job in order to serve and protect.
The problem is that they had absolutely no reason to assume that. They might as well have assumed a bengal tiger was behind the door, but I haven’t heard that defense yet.
I don’t know how long an appropriate time to wait is, but I would say the window falls between “more than 30 seconds” and “less than an hour”.
Yes, I would like the police to make more attempts to communicate and gather information before acting.
Yes, I want the SWAT team to actually know what is happening before they take a random callers word for anything. If the store employee has told police that there was a crazy man with a gun in the bathroom, and the SWAT team showed up and just started letting bullets fly thru the locked bathroom door, that would be, IMO, an incorrect application of force and a terribly, horribly wrong police procedure.
Alert is fine, but the police should not be assuming anything. They should not act on assumptions. They should act on the best information they can gather. In this case, I don’t think the police did any information gathering. They knocked, they pepper sprayed, they broke the door down and tased Mr. Love. No information sought, as far as we know.
Not sure how you conflated slipping something under the door with forcing the door open. Slipping a badge or business card under the door is no more dangerous than approaching it, knocking, or trying the doorknob, all of which the police did.
That isn’t making them more likely to open the door. I can’t believe you’d phrase things the way you just did. You refute my question with the assertion that it makes the person less likely to resist having the door open, but my question was asking how pepper spray will gain cooperation, not force compliance. I don’t need a lesson in how force or violence or pain will force compliance: that is what started the thread, after all was the fact that police used, IMO, unnecessary force (and violence and pain) to force compliance.
And again, that is my point: this was shitty police work by shitty police officers. They assumed things they shouldn’t have, they assumed things when they shouldn’t have, and a man was abused because of it. That should not have happened.
OK. Stipulate there are no taser happy cops. How about in a mall? Or at Disneyland? Or at the beach? You would let your deaf ten year old wander about unescorted there, having no ides where he is? Really?
Why would he have no idea where he is?
He? Don’t you mean you? I was quoting you.
At any rate, to be analogous with the story, the man in question was out in public unescorted. The police had to take him home to his family, who apparently did not know that he was in the restroom for an hour with gastrointestinal distress. Unless it’s your contention that they knew about it and just didn’t see the need to come to his aid. Is it? Why wouldn’t they go help him if they knew where he was?
Is that your only objection? Let’s amend it again then, although I am beginning to suspect that you are ducking the question because you can see how ridiculous your position is. Would you let your deaf ten year old be unescorted and out of your sight for hours at a time as long as you had some idea where he was? Again, really?
I am sort of on the fence about this, but it’s not nearly as ridiculous as you’re making it out to be.
A couple points:
-At some point, being deaf is not that much of a disability. Once you know sign language, know to look both ways before crossing the street, etc., it’s just not a crippling affliction. To the point that many deaf people refuse “cures” for themselves and their deaf children.
-Plenty of people let their 10 year olds roam around. When I was 8, my best friend and I used to go to work with his dad (he owned a bar in a shopping center) and roam around the shopping center all day.
-While being mentally 10, Mr. Love did have one advantage over the average 10 year old. I assume the main reason people wouldn’t let their 10 year olds run free these days is because they’re afraid they’d get picked up by a pervert or child-killer. Well, Antonio Love presumably doesn’t look 10. The guy is actually 37.
There is reasonable/rational room for a little bit of :dubious: in why they let their mentally 10 deaf son fly solo, but we don’t know all the details; this place could’ve been 50 yards from their front door for all we know. And what this has to do with the police assaulting him, I don’t know.
What good is sign language when the overwhelming majority of folks you would encounter don’t know it? Where did I say that it was a crippling affliction? Specifically, please.
You’ve cited one example, from what I assume to be many years ago, in an area where I assume you were well known, so your assertion that plenty of people do it is a bit weak. And in that example, were you both deaf?
Do folks let their kids run free or not? I’m confused.
And it could have been on crack alley. So what? He was gone for at least an hour. He could have been miles away by then.
If you will peruse my posts carefully for where I said anything of the sort, all will be revealed to you.
Ok, you’re clearly just spoiling for a fight. I decline, on the basis that I don’t know wtf your point is. Have fun eventually just arguing with yourself with this attitude.
What attitude? Disagreeing with you? Calling into question your comments? Pointing out that I did not say what you imply I did? Damn, you must be a hard guy to talk to. If I said something objectionable, why not point it out, if you can, rather than dismissing the whole post as spoiling for a fight?
I asked who here would let their ten year old deaf child wander about unescorted for hours at a time. Would you? Seriously, would you do that? Not twenty years ago in a mall where you were known, but just generally out in public.
I would expect a store manager would act differently than a cop. Put it this way, the store manager could simply just ignore the bathroom bandit for hours if he wanted to, but if the cops were called, they’re not going to just sit around for hours waiting for whoever’s inside to open up. I think the divide here between me and you is that you think both manager and cop should have the same expectations (“Oh its just some guy in there taking a long time, whatever”) but situations in which cops are called are usually not settled so nonchalantly. Manager expects loafer, but cop expects dealer. Can you honestly say cops should not be on guard?
I dont think they should be expected to accept any more of a risk than you would. Yes, they chose their jobs, but that doesnt mean their right to defense should be lessened, especially since they confront more criminals in a day than you or I in a week. A dangerous professor does not abrogate one’s rights. A sky diver instructor should not except his parachute to be any less well made than one used for emergencies on an airplane
Come on, bengal tiger? Lets not let loose the flood of hyperbole now. :rolleyes:
Cops are usually called to subdue or mediate. Here was some unknown person refusing their orders and actively trying to deny them the ability to figure out what the hell was going on. Maybe they shouldn’t have expected a drug dealer, but just as that may be seen as jumping the gun, so would an expectation of a harmless, mentally challenged deaf guy. The point is that they didnt know, and they had to protect themselves once the guy started pushing back on the door
And if after, say, 30 mins of door pounding and yelling, he still didnt open it, then what? 30 more minutes? Then more? Let me give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that situation. The cops acted polite and nice for almost an hour with almost no response. Now can they break down the door?
Guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I think they made enough of an effort barring any unusual circumstances. You’d have to assume that the manager or clerk at least tried to talk to the guy before they called the police, so its not like the police just showed up and communication attempts started right then and there. Add whatever time the store personnel said they tried to get him out, maybe that’ll satisfy you
Noted. Bad example on my part. But glad to see we’re getting more to your actual complaint. If there was any question as to the veracity of the store personnel, I’m sure the cops would have given the bathroom guy more leeway. But this is one guy in a bathroom, not an anonymous call for police to bust up a house. Theres no reason to doubt the store employees and removing a guy from a bathroom is hardly a serious breach of his rights. The police in this case had all the information they could get and all that they would need to make a move.
Based on your answers to others in this thread, you would have wanted them to wait longer and identify themselves over and over. I dont think that would have helped in this situation, considering the deafness and everything. Slipping a badge underneath the door might seem like a good idea, but then again you’ve just given an unknown person a metal disc to throw. The best information was not available and since nothing else was known, the cops had to have been on guard. I do not believe they would have even pulled out the pepper spray or the taser had the guy simply not tried to push the door back. He did, and shit happened. That was neither the guy’s fault nor the cops, since at that moment of resistance, they had this new information that this unknown guy was actively defying their efforts to defuse the situation.
I mean, how long should the cops keep assuming he was no threat? What if they broke down the door and he started hurling soap and feces at them? Should the cops hold back because those are harmless objects? Mr. Love was going to get sprayed and tased as soon as he pushed back on the door. That is not his fault and not the cops fault
Those 2 were meant to be seperate.
I dont know if cops normally carry business cards but I wouldnt slip a metal badge under the door to some unknown. People have used more benign objects as weapons. Who knows if the door was even high enough to slip the badge under even?
At that point of resistance, I dont think the cops were looking for compliance, they were looking to subdue. Maybe you still wanted them to look for compliance after some guy tries to prevent them from physically coming in, but I believe it was ok to use some force at that point
That wasn’t my point. There was no shitty police work done because everything up until they found out his condition seemed by the book. We differ on how much leeway a cop should give. Every chase I’ve seen ends with the cop pulling out his gun and telling the perp to get down on the ground, or tackling him. And this is EVEN after the guy gives up and puts his hands up. They cant assume that suddenly there’s going to be cooperation. Mr. Love resisted, and I’m pretty sure that by the procedures outlined in the police manual (I dont know for sure since I’m not a cop), that gives officers the justification to use force.
And I gave a rather thorough answer. I also posed a question which you responded to with an invitation to play games, and I declined.
I do agree with this (which is different from what I said.) I fully support a police officer’s right to defend him or herself. Show me where these officers were defending themselves.
Tell ya what, Contrapuntal: since I am clearly too dull to comprehend what this has to do with the topic, why don’t you spell it out for me, yeah?