State troopers from Mass., N.H. arrested and charged with assault after video showed officers punchi

The Washington Post ^ | 7/19/16 | Mark Berman

[HiTech RedNeck]

now now you should not tweak if you have not been twoken to.

[TexasGator]

“That is, he needed to be brought under their total physical control, without any way for him to regain the upper hand on them or effectively resist them or flee.”

I take it that you think everyone should be beaten up before they put the handcuffs on since that is the only way to ensure that the cops have the upper hand?

[HiTech RedNeck]

For worse or better, the philosophy seems to fly in the courts that if you did zoom around in a motor vehicle on occupied public roads at ghastly rates of speed, the fuzz may then assume you more dangerously inclined than if you politely pulled over, and may assume anything that glints to be a gun.

As the not-so-nice Nice incident showed recently, a motor vehicle can be used as a guided missile.

[Faith Presses On]

“How do you know he wasn’t willing to die before he would be arrested again, or just wanted to die then, period. “

You are right. They should have just shot him 33 times and save the taxpayers a lot of money ...

Come on, I haven't said that they should have shot him OR even suggested that in so many words. 

That is you suggesting it.

I said HE might have wanted to die "suicide by cop," (as apparently another young man did in another high profile case, IIRC). Or he just might have been irrational, perhaps under the influence of some drug, and didn't care about anyone's life or death, including his own. 

In such a situation, he might irrationally resist.

[TexasGator]

“The potential threat he posed being entirely neutralized is the end of the situation.”

Interesting that you think a person that is not resisting arrest should be neutralized by beating him up.

[TexasGator]

“Come on, I haven’t said that they should have shot him OR even suggested that in so many words. “

Wouldn’t that be a more effective way of neutralizing such a dangerous threat to the police?

[TexasGator]

“I said HE might have wanted to die “suicide by cop,”

LOL! So you think every punk should be beat up because he might want to die at the hands of the cops?

[TexasGator]

” Or he just might have been irrational, perhaps under the influence of some drug, and didn’t care about anyone’s life or death, including his own.”

His actions as he got out of the car showed he cared about his life. He was able to rationally comply with the cops directives.

[Molon Labbie]

I have been in chases. I can tell you from experience that your heart rate is at 200 BPM the whole time and some go for long times.

When they wreck, and they always do, (sometimes even after you have broken off), a certain demographic has an uncanny ability to survive wrecks that would kill normal people, and I talking about ejections, and through windshields kind of things, they almost always jump up and it’s urban gazelle time.

If you are lucky they collapse in a yard somewhere, if you are unlucky they have broken into someones home and now you have a barricaded subject.

Back to the topic, we have got to only do the things were trained to do to take people into custody, even when the adrenaline is redlined. You can’t enact justice roadside, and you will want to, put you must suppress it.

I have watched officers pass out or puke after chases, and yes, the highfiving happens and it is an outward manifestation of saying “So glad I am alive after that, for there were hundreds of times I could have died.”

[Chickensoup]

So glad you came out safe. there is a thin line between cop and criminal at times.

[july4thfreedomfoundation]

“.....when I got home, all the tail lights were working fine.”
_________________________________________________________

I hope you challenged that bogus ticket.

[Faith Presses On]

“Do you or don’t you consider someone who had just taken police on a 100+ mph chase a serious physical threat ? “

He was down on the ground and NOT resisting. In fact he was complying with the police requests.

Okay, how about answering that question?

And don't tell me you think his character and outlook on life miraculously changed once he decided to surrender, and what happened before just didn't matter.

Once again, they needed to physically apprehend him, and there was no guarantee after such a chase that he would comply.

His actions, from his police record - which they likely got an idea of during the chase - and the chase itself, show him to be "antisocial." (I don't agree with psychology in many ways as it conflicts with Christian truths, but do believe there are partial truths in it, including, in a way, that people can be "antisocial").

So his surrender would have been self-serving and antisocial, too. The police had every reason to believe that he might at any time resume resisting them or trying to flee. And it can be so easy, if you're simply not fighting back, to be taken in by a docile act.

Also, the police deal all the time with those who not only criminal, but disturbed or on drugs, or any combination of the three.

Now, I've dealt with many such people, mostly in a more limited way, but including and not limited to at a restaurant I work at, which is frequented by many homeless people, some of whom are criminal, and some not.

In one case, there's a man banned from the restaurant because he was sitting there one day when he suddenly stood up, took his hot coffee, and threw it on the people sitting next to him. He is disturbed and still tries to get in, though, but he always just docilely leaves when told to. He's been so docile that I had a hard time believing that people were correctly identifying the same guy that had supposedly done this, though, until one day recently.

Lately he'd be talking sort of angrily, and he wouldn't leave the property. The police were called, but one officer just incidentally showed up before they got there and bought him some food, handed it to him, and left.

He'd apparently acted normally enough to the officer, and asked for food, that the officer thought nothing amiss other than that he was homeless and hungry, while we had just called police for how he was acting and talking. Then the officer went out the door, and the man looks at his bag of food, and angrily whips it to the ground. Then he takes a piece of the food on the floor, sits down and starts eating it. After a minute I threw out his bag that had the rest of the food, in order to clean up the mess and thinking his gesture meant he didn't want the rest, but he started angrily asking where his food was. I retrieved the bag from the garbage and set it on the floor, and he came and got it and ate the rest of the food. Then he eventually left when the police got there. They persuaded him to go.

The thing is, many people can be very unpredictable, and someone who leads police on a chase like that is a prime candidate. You can't begin to guess what is going through that person's mind, especially when they are also willing to assault others. The police know that a great many of the people they deal with are like that. They deal with unpredictable people, both hardened criminal and not, all the time.

[TexasGator]

“Once again, they needed to physically apprehend him, and there was no guarantee after such a chase that he would comply.”

He was complying. He was face down on the ground with his hands behind him.

[TexasGator]

“The thing is, many people can be very unpredictable, and someone who leads police on a chase like that is a prime candidate.”

Then maybe they should have just shot him?

[Faith Presses On]

I don’t have much longer to write tonight, but once again, I never said or suggested that.

In fact, I’ve said just the opposite. I said this would clearly be unjustified in a case where he was a loiterer refusing to leave, or even in a much more serious case, as long as the suspect actually surrendered properly.

Please, if you want to discuss things, actually stick to what the person is saying.

It is only that he did a very dangerous, highly antisocial thing, something that was also resisting arrest, and that he still needed to be physically arrested, that I see a rationale for what the troopers did.

[TexasGator]

“The police had every reason to believe that he might at any time resume resisting them or trying to flee. “

So anytime the cops think a person may resist or flee, they should beat him up first?

[Faith Presses On]

“The potential threat he posed being entirely neutralized is the end of the situation.”

Interesting that you think a person that is not resisting arrest should be neutralized by beating him up.

No, I think someone who has posed such a threat, a violent one, might still be a threat and only "playing possum." Despite the person doing a 180 in their behavior to suddenly "act good," they might totally do another 180. Quite a few prison guards have been killed or maimed by trusting to the docility of a prisoner a little to much.

[Faith Presses On]

“Come on, I haven’t said that they should have shot him OR even suggested that in so many words. “

Wouldn’t that be a more effective way of neutralizing such a dangerous threat to the police?

The police have to make every effort to use the least possible force necessary - and that is the least amount of force that reasonable officers, at the time, would consider necessary. It's not a matter of only what people looking at it with hindsight think the police might have been able to do.

I've heard so many people lately, mostly on the left, say that police should be more willing to be shot, since that is their job to take that risk. They also shouldn't ever fire their weapons until someone is actually firing at them first.

And again, that's wholly your suggestion that this man should have been shot.

You have yet to answer for how the police should have physically apprehended him, and on what you believe would have happened if they did as you say they should have. Please answer those questions.

[TexasGator]

“I see a rationale for what the troopers did.”

Interesting. You started your defense of the officer saying ‘a physical response’ had been triggered by the high speed chase and adrenalin affected his condition.

Now you are saying it was a rational response to beat him up because he might try to flee or die by a cop’s gun ...