Here's another one. [More unnecessary police force.]
The video window is at the base of the article.
They had the guy handcuffed and kept beating and tasing him. He died.
I'm a conservative guy. Hate criminals and would support drastic clamp downs on criminals but I don't support the cops beating people to death or just shooting people out of hand when they've not an immediate threat. Why? They're killing plenty of White people too. All these guys think it's just Blacks but let yourself get in the wrong place at the wrong time and you could be the one they're beating on or shooting. I think some of this is they're recruiting cops that are less civic-minded. Also I think a LOT of the problem is they all seem to be on steroids and have little control over their tempers.
The Captain
Sam, I am currently training a high-ranking police officer from a Maryland Municipality. He is of the following opinion on the current police problem:
“Look, ask us to fight a war or ask us to serve the community. When you try to do both at the same time what do you expect? I know guys who are scarred for life emotionally from the type of low-down vicious criminals they have to deal with in the beginning, when they were rookies wanting to save the world.
“You, of all people, know what a delicate balance a fighter’s mind is—it’s the focus of what you do. Now you don’t expect your guy to climb down out of the ring in between rounds and negotiate a truce between two rowdy spectators—to walk the mayor’s fucking dog—to not say the wrong shit in a world that is a semantic he-said she-said-louder minefield? Do you? Don’t even get me started on your dumb bitch mayor not letting her cops defend themselves back in April—really, Are you fucking kidding me, you stupid ϲunt?
“If I was a young man, now, I would never become a cop—ever, fuck no! I would go into the military if I wanted adventure or get as far away from political bullshit as I could. Now, I grant you, there are some stoked up hot heads in any police department. But there are also the little “commissars” the scumbag cowards who no one can trust. Both bad groups are a minority. But with the bullshit coming from the politicians and the media, these assholes are who we are in the public eye, and let me tell you, it hurts.”
My take on the occasions of excessive police force we are seeing are:
1. It has always been part of the package in big cities but is only now under the scrutiny of the ever present video device.
2. It has become a bigger part of all law enforcement because of the federally mandated drug war which necessarily cultivates any police involved in its prosecution as a paramilitary force.
3. Police often seem to have been prevented from developing the cool discipline seen in true military units for reasons which I do not understand.
4. Any force tasked with prosecuting an unwinnable war and not blessed with an exceptionably stable and unpoliticized command structure will face crippling morale problems—making the War on Drugs a Vietnam experience for law enforcement.
Commentary on the News Story Below
The lack of understanding on the part of these two liberal reporters is understandable, as they most likely lack experience dealing with the insane. 15 years ago FBI Supervisory Agent Tom Petrowski told me that this was where we were headed as a society, with police left with no alternative other than to beat people over the head because his bosses at the DOJ outlawed the choke, which is about the only humane tool available to your basic cop.
Also, take into account that the Tazer is promoted and advertised to cops in demos in such a way as to present it as a magic wand that ends the problem. Unfortunately, many people are immune to being tazed. The morale blow to a cop who sees his tazing subject shrug it off must be similar to a bad guy shooting Superman and then watching the bullets bounce off his chest—panic will set in. When left with no options but their own hands, the most any cop has in his arsenal is a crude punch, since he is not allowed to choke and is very unlikely to be a submission grappling expert who could immobilize the suspect.
Cops do not have the type of individual combat training that my fighters have, which is needed to deal with a tough strong man one on one. Compounding this, cops—who expect to gain compliance via command in most cases—are rarely trained to work in teams of more than two unless they are SWAT operatives or on other special details. So, in a situation where a half dozen cops are presented with a panic cue you can expect panic. Combatants who expect to be in control, who find themselves suddenly out of control, are prone to simple intensification of effort, which has a tendency to get ugly, and if ineffective, uglier. Two experienced mental health orderlies, or a single veteran bouncer, would have probably had better results subduing this guy without killing him.
Like it or not, implicit in every police encounter, is the knowledge of the cop that, in extremis he can kill. No bouncer or mental health worker is ever trained that killing is an option, a possible logical end game. In any combat situation that occurs often enough, if the rules of engagement stipulate or fail to explicitly bar a possible resolution, that resolution will be achieved somewhere, sometime by somebody.
" is very unlikely to be a submission grappling expert who could immobilize the suspect."
I've wondered about this before. Why don't cops get any basic grappling training? I understand that there needs to be a continuum of force that allows the cop to trump a bad guys weapons, but, for the random crazy or drunk that is just swinging and pushing, some basic take downs and pins are more than enough.
The fact that your average patrolman is so physically inept that he can't take care of some malnourished drunk is pretty embarrassing.
"Two experienced mental health orderlies, or a single veteran bouncer..."
Exactly. How is it that people all over the world can deal with angry people through manual force, but the police can't?
There was a big case here in Canada where 4 RCMP officers tazered a distraught Polish man to death. How is it that 4 cops, 4 professional "warriors", a combined 800 lbs of federally funded goons, could not handle one middle aged man?
Our society is getting weak, and going mad from that weakness.
Thanks for this great comment, Bayonet.
Of course we are not talking about "warriors" are we, but armed agents, of what, of...Mom as a dyke lawyer?
I understand no wanting to grapple with all of that weaponry within reach of the target of your aggression.
Behaviorally, the answer is obvious, lack of training and confidence—and the resulting fear—on the officer's part, exasperated by the indignation of representing The State, and still not being respected.
Since cops can often get results just by opening their mouth, and also have the option of using a weapon on those who do not respect them, then there is a lack of focus on middle ground resolutions. It is like having a boxer with a huge right hand, who wins most of his fights because every opponent is terrified. What happens to this feared fighter when he is not feared?
Look at Tyson versus Douglas and Tyson versus Holyfield.
I don't doubt their job is very stressful and difficult. I don't hate all cops and it's disingenuous to suppose I do because I have reservations about the behaviors of some. The police verbal flim-flam,"...“Look, ask us to fight a war or ask us to serve the community. When you try to do both at the same time what do you expect? I know guys who are scarred for life emotionally from the type of low-down vicious criminals they have to deal with in the beginning, when they were rookies wanting to save the world...", has nothing to do with beating a schizophrenic guy to death while in handcuffs. Has nothing to do with him being tased while in handcuffs. That he tries to deflect this event to some other vague "evil criminal" that I'm not sure where he conjured up shows dishonesty.
There's lots and lots of these. Like the guy who was shot because he was whittling on a stick and didn't drop the knife. Guy was deaf. I could go on for pages and pages. The problem is an attitude that we, the citizen, are their wards and we should just do what they say.
Speaking of choke holds. The Black guy in New York, I think, that was killed in a choke hold. Well what was he doing? Selling cigarettes. Should we choke people for selling cigarettes? What's the purpose of this? They didn't even see him do it. He was just in the area. Write him a ticket if necessary. This kind of overreaction is exactly what I'm talking about.
Another problem, not of the police making, is when they actually catch the criminals doing something the judges let them go. If we would just keep them in jail it would solve a lot of these problems as the police see the same people over and over. Like the rap sheet you showed that was 80 feet long. That's ridiculous. He should have never been out.