When Law is Lawless
"The police beating of a man who was being pursued by police is now under investigation in St. Louis.
The chase began in a St. Louis suburb and ended in the city on Monday. Much of it was shown on live television, including the officers apparently punching and kicking the man for several seconds. The man was hospitalized.
Police believed the suspect may have been casing a convenience store. When officers approached the suspect, he took off in a GMC conversion van.
Police finally cornered the suspect. Police say he tried to escape by ramming a couple of police cruisers, then ran away.
After a short foot pursuit, officers captured him and proceeded to punch and kick him, and hit him with batons. The arrest was captured on video by KSDK news.
The Maplewood Police Department says the officers were not sure if the suspect was armed, and that the suspect may have been resisting arrest.
Police Chief James White warns against jumping to conclusions."
Whatever. Every time this happens, this is what it comes down to: "No one saw what happened before the tape so let's not jump to conclusions."
Bullshit.
I don't have to know what happened before the tape started rolling to know that when a person is on the ground and no longer poses a threat to police officers that he doesn't need to be repeatedly kicked and punched. One officer kicked the suspect again and again in the legs from behind for no reason while he was submissively lying down -- he wasn't attempting to get up, he wasn't thrashing his legs around, and he was being held down by three other officers.
Remember the you-didn't-see-what-happened-before-the-videorecroder-turned-on argument was the one officials used when the Rodney King tape surfaced, and has been many times since in similar incidences. It's irrelevant, though, because what could a person do to justify that kind of treatment anyway? If you ask me, nothing, and that's how I know these police used excessive force.
The problem is when you're a cop people think you have a right to beat someone even when you're life's not in danger. My theory is cops get angry when a person flees, they're scared because they don't know if the person is armed, and they're hyped up on adrenaline so then they overreact when they finally catch the suspect. Instead of just admitting all those things and fessing up to the fact that they inappropriately handled an arrest they make up bullshit stories about how a person was resisting arrest or they thought he was armed.
Cops who act like this need counseling or retraining at the least and need to be fired at most.
Sometimes people can actually put two and two together to make four. You can't pull the wool over our eyes. We can see that some treatments in some circumstances simply can't be justified. Wife- and child-beating, for instance, have been legally and socially accepted in U.S. culture, but we now acknowledge there is simply nothing a woman or child can do that would incite or validate a beating. Well, police brutality offers another instance in which excessive violence just can't be justified.
The chase began in a St. Louis suburb and ended in the city on Monday. Much of it was shown on live television, including the officers apparently punching and kicking the man for several seconds. The man was hospitalized.
Police believed the suspect may have been casing a convenience store. When officers approached the suspect, he took off in a GMC conversion van.
Police finally cornered the suspect. Police say he tried to escape by ramming a couple of police cruisers, then ran away.
After a short foot pursuit, officers captured him and proceeded to punch and kick him, and hit him with batons. The arrest was captured on video by KSDK news.
The Maplewood Police Department says the officers were not sure if the suspect was armed, and that the suspect may have been resisting arrest.
Police Chief James White warns against jumping to conclusions."
Whatever. Every time this happens, this is what it comes down to: "No one saw what happened before the tape so let's not jump to conclusions."
Bullshit.
I don't have to know what happened before the tape started rolling to know that when a person is on the ground and no longer poses a threat to police officers that he doesn't need to be repeatedly kicked and punched. One officer kicked the suspect again and again in the legs from behind for no reason while he was submissively lying down -- he wasn't attempting to get up, he wasn't thrashing his legs around, and he was being held down by three other officers.
Remember the you-didn't-see-what-happened-before-the-videorecroder-turned-on argument was the one officials used when the Rodney King tape surfaced, and has been many times since in similar incidences. It's irrelevant, though, because what could a person do to justify that kind of treatment anyway? If you ask me, nothing, and that's how I know these police used excessive force.
The problem is when you're a cop people think you have a right to beat someone even when you're life's not in danger. My theory is cops get angry when a person flees, they're scared because they don't know if the person is armed, and they're hyped up on adrenaline so then they overreact when they finally catch the suspect. Instead of just admitting all those things and fessing up to the fact that they inappropriately handled an arrest they make up bullshit stories about how a person was resisting arrest or they thought he was armed.
Cops who act like this need counseling or retraining at the least and need to be fired at most.
Sometimes people can actually put two and two together to make four. You can't pull the wool over our eyes. We can see that some treatments in some circumstances simply can't be justified. Wife- and child-beating, for instance, have been legally and socially accepted in U.S. culture, but we now acknowledge there is simply nothing a woman or child can do that would incite or validate a beating. Well, police brutality offers another instance in which excessive violence just can't be justified.
posted by MW at Friday, February 03, 2006
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