Saturday, November 11, 2006

Point to Ponder

Why is eyewitness testimony considered unreliable by community activists when being used to send a defendant to prison BUT it is considered by the same activists to be as reliable as the testimony as a busful of nuns swearing on a stack of Vatican blessed bibles when it is given against the police in brutality cases?

I am referring of course to the current video being shown of the two officers who, after chasing down a suspect, apprehend him. Now in the video, the suspect {I'm giving the guy his constitutional right of 'innocent until proven guilty'} is on his back and is being restrained by two officers. The video shows one officer punching the suspect in the face a reported 5 times. I say reported, because I've only seen it twice and I didn't count either time. The other officer is either trying to block the first officers blows or grappliing with the suspect's flailing hands, I can't tell, again I've only seen it twice, I'd have to watch it more closely and more times.

The officer doing the punching is saying, and I gotta hand it to him, it's a good story, the suspect was grabbing for his clothes, and his belt. He felt his holster move and since the suspect was resisting arrest, was not being compliant with verbal commands to cease fighting, and he felt he was in danger of loosing his weapon, he was trying to subdue the suspect.
I have not, at this point heard any statements from the partner who was either blocking punches or grappling with the suspect's grabby hands.

The NBC morning anchor guy, Lester Holt, was asking the community watch dog guy, whose name I didn't catch, if the suspect was a gang member. Of couse, Watchdog denied that. I'm sure the suspect also answered the standard "Why were you running?" question with the standard fleeing felon answer of "Cuz you was chasin' me, man!" Watchdog guy then said that the video was backed up by "eyewitness testimony" of many people on the scene. And that's what set me off this morning.
Just so you know.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Eeeeyeah...."'cuz you was chasin' me, man".

I'm a big proponent of Occam's Razor, myself.

That excuse only has merit with kittens and dogs.

Regards,
Rabbit.

Anonymous said...

Video evidence is highly reliable. It doesn't change and is not subject to the vagaries of memory.

The suspect was on his back, which indicated that he wasn't yet restrained. All LEOs are taughts that forced restraint begins with the critter face down. We are also allowed to use reasonable force to apprehend a critter, and that force can increase as soon as the critter escalates it. Trying to grab an officers weapon takes you immediately to lethal force. Punching a suspect six or seven times in a lethal force encounter sounds to me like the officers used exemplary restraint.

That said, the Rodney King beating set police procedures back fifty years. There is no good reason to beat a properly restrained subject.

HollyB said...

And that was my point, pawpaw.
I always forget, y'all can't hear my sarcasm when I'm typing. You also can't read my mind.
Anytime a suspect is being non-compliant, and even reaching for an officer's firearm, ASP,or flashlight any action the officer takes to bring that suspect into compliance and get them cuffed is acceptable. If he could say,"I can't breathe", he could breathe, therefore he wasn't having that much frickin' trouble! He also still had enough strength to resist the efforts of TWO officers trying to subdue him!
This guy needed to have the whole can of "whup-ass" used on him until he was cuffed. Then they could take him to the nearest medical facility for treatment of any injuries he received while being subdued. Injuries, I wish to point out, that the suspect would NOT have received if he had NOT resisted arrest.
It hurts to be stupid, but they never learn.