Crazy Luke Scott must have had some kind of jackassian clubhouse influence.
Here’s what happened Friday: This bare-chested man was milking the crowd and weaving around the Baltimore City Police officers who are instructed to create a seal around the trespassers until it is eventually closed. But that gives these clowns plenty of time in the spotlight.
And Friday’s perpetrator had an extended frolicking period – so much that he ran down the third base line and slid headfirst into home plate. He got up to the roar of the crowd, and immediately went back down – thanks to a NFL-Draft-worthy hit from plate umpire Jeff Kellogg, who face-planted the man into the Camden Yards turf, to more shrieks of delight.
...“That was awesome. I told [Kellogg], ‘That’s awesome,’” Jones said. “I’m sick and tired of these guys running on the field, man. I said let’s get a K-9, something. A K-9 [unit] would be fine.”
More Jones: “It’s so annoying. You’re stopping the game. I understand you’re drunk. I mean, go do that on someone else’s expense. I hope that’s [Kellogg’s tackle] a lesson.
Perhaps Jones’ most electric comment was the idea that anyone who runs onto the field should be tased.
“I’d [advocate] that people get tased. I’d enjoy that. You don’t run on the field and just disturb a game that’s going on. It’s private property, and I’m sick and tired. I don’t like the way the cops go after them here,” Jones said. “I know it’s not their call. I know the rules; they want them to create a circle or seal. Those kids are running all around those guys. No disrespect to the cops, but go get this dude, put your knee in his throat and tie his [butt] up, simple as that. It’s so annoying. I wish I can go out there as a player, but we can’t.”
Repoz
Posted: April 28, 2012 at 08:20 AM |
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He said he didn't recall him being badly hurt. I see no way to read that other than "I was wrong about King."
If you don't believe him, or are not willing to accept his explanation, that's a different issue. At least tshipman has taken to psychoanalyzing him, instead of claiming that he didn't say he was wrong about the basic fact that King was severely hurt. (Lassus, unfortunately, has not accepted that Snapper retracted his statement.)
I must confess I'm not sure what Snapper had to gain by intentionally misrepresenting something so obvious to check, or by making a statement that was sure to be immediately called out as bullsh^t.
I don't see where he attacked Ron. (EDIT: Got it. I had missed Snapper's "#### you" the first time, what with so many ####s flying around.)
But whatever. This discussion has gotten silly. When people won't move on after the person has admitted he got it wrong, there's not much useful discussion left. I realize it was Snapper's initial comment that derailed the discussion, but now people are just compounding it by circling like sharks who smell blood. Jim should just close the thread.
cokes, etc.
To be fair, snapper's general point is true, though it's more because the goal of most violent authority figures is to use tactics that really really really really hurt but don't leave huge visible injuries. and the cops ###### up majorly with Rodney King not by causing incredible pain and injury but by leaving huge visible injuries.
Tasers are better at not leaving marks, except when they leave marks in the form of people who unexpectedly die.
Edit: Thanks Ron J and Snapper for being conciliatory.
I'm going to blow your mind. There's this website where you can look things up really easily. All you have to do is type "Was Rodney King injured by police?"
It's amazing. I think it's going to revolutionize debate. No longer will we be in thrall to hazy mis-remembered details.
It isn't just about "oops, I was wrong about this minor little factoid".
And then he said he was wrong about that. What the hell?
He retracted his post #66 by then saying: "I honestly didn't recall him being badly hurt."
people get #### wrong all the time on first crack, dozens of geniuses will look bad on Jeopardy every weekday of the year, when they whiff badly on the details, and their crime will be not looking it up. I was shocked by it too, but move on, he didn't hang on to the obvious error for dear life, or even for a single post.
That's kind of what I'm talking about. Cops at least receive some training when they're starting out and they have to pass a physical/agility test every so often (in most states) but after that they're pretty much done. Security guards are even worse: we slap a jacket on someone and all of a sudden they're qualified to physically engage drunk/belligerent/hostile people. It's mostly because we want to be able to pay these guys $9 an hour, and then of course we're STUNNED when they screw up. Whereas you can save yourself a ton of hassle in the long run by ponying up a couple hundred bucks a month to get someone to come in and actually teach people something (apply this to many workplaces, not just security/law enforcement). Krav Maga is a throwaway - martial arts are absolutely ubiquitous in America, you can find people who can teach you how to subdue or flat out fight someone in every tiny town in America. We don't do it because we're obsessed with the couple hundred bucks a month - we'd rather wait until there's a screwup and the business/institution/stadium is pilloried and/or gets to pay out a civil lawsuit.
I will say, that even having seen the King video I'm equally disturbed by the videos of people getting hit with a taser after only a few seconds and without having shown any physical signs of resistance. I saw a study that showed that the average time from meeting to violence (taser/baton/gun) had dropped a ton after the taser became standard equipment, which is disturbing to say the least. Also, this video makes my stomach churn. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPIun5mkAr4
Oh yeah, that's gonna help.
However he almost always has a massive size advantage and size matters if you know how to use it. He works with troubled kids and a large adult male (a few primates have met me. He's not as tall as me, but probably out-weighs me by 20 or so pounds. And I'm not a small guy) can generally be trained to control a 15 year old with no impulse control.
However even in dealing with kids he gets bit or punched on a routine basis.
I fully believe that a similarly-sized white man who acted the same way King did would have faced a very similar use of force. I'm more inclined to believe that King fled and resisted so strongly because of the racial tension between black civilians and white police officers than that the officers beat him harder because he had black skin.
It seems reasonable to me to assume that had King simply lay in the prone position that he would not have been beaten by the officers. It is possible or even likely that the combination of King's intoxication, prior criminal history, and awareness of the racial tension led King to believe that these police officers would seriously hurt or kill him if he didn't escape.
I can comfortably say that the force used was extreme, but not that it was excessive. This was a pretty extreme situation. We're talking about a very large, very strong man, clearly intoxicated, capable of resisting a taser and significant beating. I don't know that the police could have stopped him with less force than they used given the equipment they had available, and I think his actions were significantly dangerous to make stopping him necessary.
I'm not a police officer, and I don't have police training, but if I had to detain someone that big and determined to resist, I'm hitting him until he stops moving. I'm a guy who is pretty anti-violence in general; I don't believe that there's really any place for physical force outside of legitimate defense of self or others. I just think this was the sort of situation where there really wasn't a good alternate solution. That doesn't mean King "deserved" to suffer permanent injury but I don't think the police were trying to inflict permanent injury.
I agree with you that tasers are grossly overused, and that video is disturbing, but what is more disturbing is the response to that sort of police activity. The officer in question said that under the same circumstances that he would act in precisely the same way, and he was found to be justified in his use of force. This was a very different set of circumstances: we're talking about a detained and handcuffed suspect (poorly detained, mind you... she was cuffed in the back of a police car, so how did she even get to run away?). No verbal warning. No physical resistance.
Have you watched the video lately? King is rolling a bit on the ground while one or two officers haul back and hit him as hard as they can while a bunch of officers stand around and watch. It does not look like those officers are in any way concerned he may get up and attack them. If shooting someone with a taser, kicking them 6 times and hitting them full force with a baton 56 times isn't excessive I don't know what is.
So basically, until they are unconscious or dead. Not excessive at all. Sure.
I don't think so.
I don't want to speak with less than a full memory of this as Snapper did, but from what I recall of the video, they were beating him senseless at times while he was just kneeling there and such. Not only with their clubs, but also stomping him with their boots.
It's true he didn't stay down all the time, but I don't remember the sequencing of when he was up and when he was down.
Unless I am misremembering, I flat disagree. They had several officers there.
I for the life of me cannot figure out why they didn't just cuff him, frisk him, and put him into the back of the cruiser.
Maybe they needed a wack or two with the club first to subdue him, but, come on. Taking shots at him for several minutes without cuffing him and putting him into the back of the cruiser was just absurd. I don't see how it can be defended. But perhaps someone with a fresher recollection of the facts can enlighten me.
This makes no sense to me. I mean, perhaps if you're alone with him you need to take more aggressive action to be sure you've got him handled, but with (at least eventually) several officers standing around taking turns beating him without just cuffing him and putting an end to the situation... it seems outrageous.
Now, that certainly doesn't mean that when a guy is lying on the ground writhing, that he should be tasered until he's unconscious. But kicking and screaming is a whole 'nother story. (That doesn't mean that warnings shouldn't be given before force is used, or that cops shouldn't try waiting out the person whenever possible.)
I watched a version of the video again just a few minutes ago. There's no question that it's a lot of force, but the overwhelming majority of the blows came when King was shifting out of the prone position. As best I can tell, the kicking was intended to force him back into the prone position. Many of those blows were absolutely not "full force" either, delivered from waist-height as opposed to overhead.
What we're missing (and what practically nobody has seen) are the events leading up to the video. Every version that I've seen has the feed starting with King already on the ground. We don't see the initial arrest attempt (including a drawn gun that King complied with) and we don't see King resisting the initial attempt to restrain him with a swarm, pushing off two officers and striking another. We don't see King standing and refusing to lie down. We don't see him hit with a taser and continuing to resist.
I want to clarify my position. I'm not saying that it couldn't possibly have been excessive. I'm saying that based on the totality of the circumstances and believable testimony on the part of the officers, that the force might well have been within the limits of reasonable (allowing for imperfect human beings in a high-stress situation).
So basically, until they are unconscious or dead. Not excessive at all. Sure.
Or they hold still and stop fighting back. What you're seeing is the very end of the situation, not the beginning or the middle. It looks awful because his resistance appears to be minimal, but this is the very same man that threw off a swarm of officers and stood up yelling after being tased.
I'm not talking about jumping right to clubs as your first tactic. I'm talking about using clubs when verbal request, swarm, and tasing haven't ended the struggle. Oh, and when the criminal appeared to comply at first (at gunpoint) and then began to resist once the gun was put away.
I for the life of me cannot figure out why they didn't just cuff him, frisk him, and put him into the back of the cruiser.
Maybe they needed a wack or two with the club first to subdue him, but, come on. Taking shots at him for several minutes without cuffing him and putting him into the back of the cruiser was just absurd. I don't see how it can be defended. But perhaps someone with a fresher recollection of the facts can enlighten me.
They did try. It just happened before the video starts.
Who here would resist a police officer to the point where they'd start beating? This didn't start off as a beating, but it escalated into one because of considerable, physical resistance.
If your consideration of the events starts and ends with the video, then sure, it was insanely aggressive force. If you consider the totality of the circumstances, perhaps not so much.
Jesus ####### Christ.
There's a trigger that goes off in the heads of cops where a situation is no longer about detaining a suspect and is instead about proving their dick size and asserting the unquestionable nature of their god-like authority. Both of the assaults in question are instances where that line was crossed and captured on video. (This is why police departments are so brutally obsessed with curtailing citizen video of police actions, by the way.)
It is beyond pathetic that there are people here defending this #### as reasonable actions. It's police state brutality, and they do it because 1) they can, and 2) they know they'll never be prosecuted for 95% of it.
This was precisely my reaction upon realizing that I will have to side with you and your high fivers on this, Sam.
Crosby: The latter part of the video really does speak for itself. It doesn't really matter how they got there. Yes, King was coming at them earlier, but for several minutes at the end he's just lying or kneeling there for long stretches and they had plenty of opportunity to cuff him -- but instead, they just kept beating him, or waiting until he moved and then beat him some more.
Because the mentality of many cops is that anything other than instant, abject compliance with their whims is an assault on an officer, and entitles them to use whatever degree of force they deem necessary to get that compliance.
I know; Crackpots who defend the battery of unarmed men or the assassination of 16-year-old boys make political discussions--on this site in particular and the world in general--pointless.
Although it's amusing to see Repubs with libertarian streaks turn statist when law-n-order is on the docket and the states' paid agents are put on trial. Somehow statism becomes more tasteful when you dress it up in a uniform and strap a gun to its hip.
Agreed. I'm agreeing with Sam. Beat me now with a billyclub or nightstick and put me out of my misery.
Well yes, of course. But they dress it up as assault on those rare occasions their abuses go public and they have to cover their asses.
Put me down with DiPerna on the "I can't believe I'm in a foxhole with these guys" list, but yeah. This. They beat Rodney King, and tase that idiot in the mall, and shoot that poor bastard zip-tied tight on the floor of the BART station because a switch flips and they all become Eric Cartman ranting about respecting their authoritah. In a just world they're all in prison.
They'll do the same if they come to make good on an arrest warrant for failure to pay taxes.
I don't think there is a response to this sort of situation that will ever seem reasonable.
The police gave King verbal warnings, which he ignored. They tried to swarm him in order to cuff him and he fought back. They tased him twice and he continued to resist. What is a reasonable next step? I think they were pretty much forced to use the batons at that point.
I don't know that they had to hit him as many times as they did, but I also don't know that it's reasonable to expect police in such a situation to know the precise number of blows that would incapacitate him. I think there's a wide enough band of reasonable baton use that there's at least some question as to whether the force was excessive or simply at the high end of acceptable under the circumstances. One jury with access to more information than any of us are privy to felt that it was acceptable. A different jury felt that it was not.
I'm not defending or excusing the police. I'm saying that the police used a level of force that is close enough to the boundary between appropriate and excessive to be discussion-worthy, and only because of the relatively extreme events that occurred prior to the beginning of the tape. I've read the police reports and I've read about the case.
If you consider my posting history, you'll recall that I'm generally quite conservative when it comes to acceptable use of force. I honestly believe that this is a very extreme situation that demanded a very extreme reaction. I'm not convinced that it was too much but I'm also not convinced that it wasn't too much for the situation.
More likely they'll shoot an old black lady three blocks away instead. They're notoriously bad about getting the right addresses. (And we'll concern that silliness when they start sending the SWAT teams jackasses for petty tax evasion, nutjob.)
I was more aghast that it was you, actually.
What's the proper use of force there? How about just surrounding him, keeping him from harming anyone else, hell, let him walk it off and follow him (to ensure he doesn't harm anyone else.) Then pick him up later when he's not strung out?
Your paranoid delusions are so quaint.
You know who really has to worry about cops kicking in their doors on trumped up charges?
Black people.
And what everyone else is saying is that this is really not reasonable at all, CB. Given that Ray, Sam, David, and myself all agree on something, it is probably worth re-examining what you think.
And I am taking your - what at least I consider reasonable - posting history into account.
Yep. The appeal of SWAT is clear to the officers themselves; they get to play dress-up in tactical gear, kick down doors, smack around perps (or whoever), and generally smash #### up. Good times. And it makes sense at the department level too; they get more funding for their paramilitary toys to ensure they can protect us from... ummm... Al Qaida! Yeah, those guys.
It's a disaster for taxpayers and people in poor neighborhoods who have to deal with SWAT raid related ###########, but since when has government shown much respect for either of those groups?
Failure to pay taxes? They'll make up some claim about how someone who doesn't pay taxes might be part of a militia and thus very dangerous. But when they really think the people in the house are actually dangerous, they take the cautious approach, waiting the inhabitants out.
There have been more than a few organizations along all points of the political spectrum that openly promote income tax resistance, and presumably the ones who are doing this are following their own advice. Some of these groups have also engaged in very inflammatory rhetoric, which would seem to make them rather threatening to law enforcement.
If there have been cases where any of these people have had their doors smashed in, I've never yet heard about it. I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but the response by the IRS usually seems much more along non-violent and legal lines.
High five!
I am, believe me.
I hold police officers to a pretty high standard, and there's absolutely some cognitive dissonance here. In order for me to believe that these police officers used excessive force, I have to believe that they were capable under the circumstances of recognizing some lesser degree of force that would have been sufficient, and that they willfully disregarded that lesser degree of force. That means that they aren't just cops exercising poor judgment in a stressful situation, but fundamentally bad human beings.
I'm not comfortable making such a judgment on someone I know so little about. Based on what I've read and watched about the case, I can see a path, even if somewhat narrow, to this behavior being barely within the bounds of acceptable. Again, I lack police training, so perhaps I am not giving the police enough credit by not demanding an even higher standard. Or perhaps I am giving them too much credit.
I can't get around the fact that Rodney King seems like he was a pretty dangerous person that night. We're talking about someone who drove over 100mph to escape police, was highly intoxicated, and showed a remarkable level of resistance to legitimate authority in legitimate circumstances. I think some use of the baton was appropriate if the police reports are to be believed.
1. "Some use," even granting that ad argumentum, is not "beat him for 10 minutes even after he's clearly near unconscious on the ground."
2. "If the police reports are to be believed" begs a HELL OF A LOT of the question here.
Well done.
If the police had rammed his car while he was speeding and he got injured as a result, I'd have been on their side. But he was not armed, violent, or dangerous by the time they were beating him. He was on the ground. Yeah, it may have been a struggle to get him to the ground in the first place, but he was on the ground.
I do not believe that this is the definition of "excessive force" anywhere. Excessiveness is defined by objective reasonableness, not their own character.
EDIT: That doesn't mean I'm trying to defend the extent of King's beating, only that given the history of the relationship between the LAPD and black men, I'm thoroughly unsurprised at how it played out with King.
Coke to Sam, but how on earth do you watch that video and call that "some use" of the baton?
Well he didn't get the Abner Louima treatment.
Are you suggesting that black men were going around harassing and otherwise violating the civil rights of the LAPD? Just trying to make sure I understand you fully. I do otherwise agree it was a perfect storm of events that was bound to break at some point.
Well, you know. The way they were dressed. In that neighborhood?
I really don't understand how you can claim to hold police officers to a 'pretty high standard' in one sentence and then claim that what they did was potentially acceptable behavior. Yes, King was belligerent. Yes, he resisted arrest. Yes, he probably should have been tased, as he did stand up after the gun trained on him was holstered. Yes, he did toss a cop off his back. Yes, he may even have needed to be hit with a baton once or twice. HE DID NOT IN ANY WAY NEED TO BE HIT REPEATEDLY WHEN HE WAS ALMOST UNCONSCIOUS. What the #### was he going to do if he did get back to his feet? Bleed on them? Just tase him again if he lunges at a cop, how hard is it at that point to just surround the guy and tell him what you are about to do to him if he comes at you? Nope, instead you think it might be ok to beat him senseless if he moves slightly. Cops should have the training and mental wherewithal to realize they need to calm the #### down and not be the dick-swinging aggressors as pointed out by numerous posters. That is holding a police officer to a 'pretty high standard'.
Sorry if that is grumpy, I just think there are some things that should be black and white. Cops shouldn't be able to beat an unarmed man senseless unless he has actually done some damage. And no, tossing someone off your back, or even punching them does not count as damage. This guy for instance does deserve the beating he got. He killed an 85 y.o. woman and then killed the officer interrogating him.
Right. And if you don't think the LAPD's first action upon seeing the tape of the beating being aired publicly was to call all of the officers together to make sure everyone filled their paperwork out properly, you're a fool. The minute that video went public Rodney King went from an intoxicated driver to the greatest public menace since Jack the Ripper, by official "police report" standards.
I will quibble with this only to point out that hitting him with the taser again is just as violent and brutal as beating him with a baton. There's a cultural idea that tasers are a "non-violent" option for cops and such. That's ######## of the highest magnitude.
Understood. At that point though, after someone has resisted arrest, if a police officer clearly yells at you that if you move towards them they are going to tase you, and the person still goes after the officer, then tase away. Police officers do have a right to defend themselves and tasering someone can be done at a safe range, hitting someone with a baton is probably closer than the officer would like to be if someone is actually attacking them.
And that sure was some use.
Crosby, they are supposed to be apprehending him, not meting out their brand of punishment for resisting arrest. The punishment is supposed to come later, after due process. Instead, long past the point where he had been a problem for them (and I agree he gave them a lot of trouble initially), they were still beating the crap out of him.
I recall then and now that many people were claiming that King wasn't hurt, or wasn't as badly hurt as it looked in the video...
The people with knowledge were simply lying, but most were parroting what thy heard others say.
.... Anyone remember "In Living Color"
One of their skits:
"And now a public service announcement from Rodney King and Reginald Denny"
Two men appear, black guy who seems to have an uncontrollable twitch, white guy whose eyes seem to wander independently of eachother, in haltering speech:
"we would like to address the current situation and say, why can't we all get along..."
they look at each other, it looks like one whispers, the other nods, they look back at the camera:
"Oh, and one mote thing, trust us, if the #### really starts to fly...
STAY IN YOU CAR"
completely and utterly tasteless
one last thing, the Rodney King cops were really done when the Federal Civil Rights case introduced audiotapes of two of the cops from BEFORE, the Rodney King chase and beating- 2 had gone on a "domestic incident" call earlier that day, and a tape existed of their subsequent conversation with the dispatcher, one compared the household (a black household) they'd been to as being a scene out of "Gorillas in the mist," and the other laughed and said a few even more tasteless comments.
Yeah, I was looking at a small portion of the video this morning, and at one point someone's trying to get one of them (Powell?) to back off, but he doesn't.
Had the cops known they were being filmed -- as they have to assume in the year 2012 given the proliferation of handheld cameras and such -- you'd have to think this would have gone very differently.
Do all cop cars now have front cameras that are basically rolling 24/7?
I think the "official story," became that that they thought he as high on PCP- public perception was that PCP gave people superhuman strength (it didn't- it made/allowed them to do really stupid things) if the incident took place 5-10 years later I'm sure all the cops would have said, "roid rage"
of course he wasn't on PCP, but was evidently really really drunk.... Good old alcohol.
I think that the trial testimony was that he was tasered twice before the video began running, he went down with the 2nd one, got up again, and the video starts with an officer clubbing him in the head (which they are not supposed to do- but that was actually reasonably justifiable in a self-defense kind of way)-
I think essentially 2 things then happened- King did keep trying to resist for a bit- but he really wasn't capable of effectively resisting - and the cops were both running high on adrenaline and really pissed off- a bad combination
I don't know, but you get some great footage from those cameras.
Actually, the police (most of them anyway) put up with A LOT from the general public.
Which was essentially the same reason Amadou Diallo ended up eating 41 slugs from four service weapons. One part adrenaline, one part pissed-off-cop-out-to-prove-his-authority, and one part racism. And no, you can't really pretend that third part doesn't play into it either.
Which is always entertaining in a stupid-pet-tricks sort of way. And also their jobs.
Count me with Ray and David and Sam and Lassus and Good Face and tship and seriously, Crosby, WTF?
But I don't think that holds up. The cops accepted the surrender of his two passengers without incident.
The point at which he was "sure" to get beaten is when he resisted arrest _after_ stopping.
I chuckled at how Sam put it:
"I was more aghast that it was you, actually."
That "it" was you. As if Sam knew that _someone_ was going to defend the police brutality - he just wasn't sure who it would be. And then he was surprised upon learning that "it" was Crosby.
We are not want for authoritarian trolls in these parts, Ray.
Well I'd suspect that if anyone was going to get a beat down it'd be the driver...
From what I've read I think his two passengers basically flopped on the ground, hands behind their heads all by themselves, which if you are a cop who wants to beat someone likely ruins the mood... If King does that I think the worst he gets is maybe a kick in the ribs while he's down.
It's quite possible that one or two of the cops were looking for an altercation, an excuse, a justification, to beat on someone- and King gave them one (in their minds anyway).
MCoA: "This is madness!"
CrosbyBird: "THIS. IS. PRIMER!"
- throws chair into bottomless pit -
The video I watched started with King on his knees trying to stand, and in less than two minutes, the police had him in a swarm. Am I watching a shorter video (because that might explain the disconnect)? This is the video I'm referencing.
The really ugly part of that video is less than a minute. It's true that a lot can happen in a minute, but I really don't think that's a crazy amount of time to go from "this guy might charge one of us again" to "this guy is entirely contained."
2. "If the police reports are to be believed" begs a HELL OF A LOT of the question here.
Has there been any serious rebuttal of the statements made in the police reports? I'm asking seriously: has anyone suggested that the police didn't try verbal warnings, followed by physical restraint, followed by two tasings, before drawing batons? I didn't think this was something in dispute.
Crosby, they are supposed to be apprehending him, not meting out their brand of punishment for resisting arrest. The punishment is supposed to come later, after due process. Instead, long past the point where he had been a problem for them (and I agree he gave them a lot of trouble initially), they were still beating the crap out of him.
I think the bolded part is where I don't agree with you. I'm not saying that the police stopped the moment he was incapacitated, but I am saying that it is possible that the officers could have had a good faith belief that he wasn't incapacitated for that extra minute that they were hitting him. Not certain that they had a good faith belief, and perhaps not even likely, but possible.
I do not believe that this is the definition of "excessive force" anywhere. Excessiveness is defined by objective reasonableness, not their own character.
Objective reasonableness for a police officer under those circumstances, not for a regular person from the comfort of one's couch. Could a police officer under those circumstances have a reasonable good faith belief that the level of force was appropriate? If the answer is yes, then that's not excessive force.
If you're making the argument that no well-trained police officer could have a reasonable and good faith belief that the level of force was appropriate, then we've basically found the entire source of disagreement. Reasonableness is a question that I think is a bit harder to answer than most people in this thread. Good faith is pretty much entirely a question of character; lacking a good faith belief and using such force would be unquestionably evil.
EDIT: That doesn't mean I'm trying to defend the extent of King's beating, only that given the history of the relationship between the LAPD and black men, I'm thoroughly unsurprised at how it played out with King.
Are you suggesting that black men were going around harassing and otherwise violating the civil rights of the LAPD?
Of course not. See below.
Just trying to make sure I understand you fully. I do otherwise agree it was a perfect storm of events that was bound to break at some point.
What I meant by that is that there was a "history" between the black community and the LAPD going back many decades, most notoriously under Chief William ("We're on the top and they're on the bottom") Parker. The source of the "history" was the racist behavior of the LAPD, but there was also enough history of individual blacks reacting violently to arrests that when you combine that with King's behavior, that was part of the background that arguably helped send the confrontation into a violent downward spiral.
This seems a straightforward, mostly factual, and dispassionate account.
If they had such a good faith belief, they're insane.
I don't know how one watches that video and doesn't think, "He's incapacitated. Why do they keep beating him? When are they going to stop beating him?"
One doesn't say, "Oh, he might overpower them. Who is going to win this fair fight? Yes, they need to keep beating him to ensure their safety."
One looks at the video and one understands that the force was beyond merely being "excessive."
The answer is no, but I don't know why you're talking about a "reasonable good faith belief" if the standard is a reasonable one, not an honest one.
I saw the full video once on TV years ago. They pulled him over, concluded he was probabably on PCP, drained two tasers on him to no effect, and then commenced the phyical beatings. The blows to the head were uncalled for, but I find it pretty hard to believe that any one of us wouldn't be running on pure adrenaline in that situation.
I must say, the level of police brutality we're gotten accustomed to is extremely troubling, but this situation was not in any way similar to what we're seeing now with peaceful protesters and non-violent offenders getting slammed to the ground, pepper sprayed and tased on a regular basis.
Because having a good faith belief is part of what determines if the force was acceptable. In order to determine what a reasonable person in an extreme situation would do, you would have to have some insight into that person's mental state. If you know that a reasonable police officer didn't have a good faith belief that the force he or she was using was appropriate, I don't see how you couldn't conclude that the force was excessive.
I don't know how one watches that video and doesn't think, "He's incapacitated. Why do they keep beating him? When are they going to stop beating him?"
In a vacuum, sure. But if you've read the police reports and the testimony of the officers, you know that there is an answer. They kept beating him because they believed him to be dangerous and because he had resisted fairly significant force earlier. Whether you believe that answer is a different story.
I'm saying that the answer is something that could be believed under some circumstances, and I would need a more detailed account than I'm privy to as a non-juror to make an absolute determination. You're saying that practically no set of circumstances beforehand would ever make that behavior on the tape acceptable. That's a fair position, but I don't agree with you. I can imagine circumstances that are extreme enough where it would be reasonable for police officers in that position.
I'm also saying that I'm not going to assume the officers are lying, even a racist thug like Powell. I recognize that there is an incentive to lie, of course. That's not enough.
I've watched professional wrestling for years and based on the observed evidence it seems indisputable that the Negro possesses a skull of far greater thickness and durability than average. Only savages from the Pacific islands come close in this regard.
There's always an "answer." In the OJ trial, Bailey and Cochran made the argument that Nicole was murdered by Columbian druglords using the Columbian necktie method, because Faye Resnick happened to know some people who used drugs. (*) The question is whether the answer is plausible or believable. And I don't think it's reasonable to argue that it was too dangerous for half a dozen cops to slap a pair of cuffs on King who was finally sitting on the ground.
You can argue that they used an acceptable level of force initially. (I'd have to examine it specifically, but I agree they did need a certain level of force at the outset.) But when they had him subdued and sitting on the ground injured, the ballgame was over, and yet they kept wailing away at him for several minutes. That is outrageous, and completely over the top, and can't be defended on any level.
----
(*) Here's the Bailey and Cochran questioning, if you're interested:
Bailey to Furhman:
Q: NO. HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF A COLOMBIAN NECKLACE?
A: NO.
Q: YOU ARE HEARING THAT WORD FOR THE FIRST TIME TODAY?
A: NO. I KNOW WHAT A COLOMBIAN NECKTIE IS.
Q: COLOMBIAN NECKTIE. WHAT IS A COLOMBIAN NECKTIE, DETECTIVE FUHRMAN?
A: CUTTING SOMEBODY’S THROAT.
Q: DID YOU EVER HEAR IT CALLED A NECKLACE?
A: NO.
Cochran to Lange:
Q: NOW, IN THIS — YOU DESCRIBED FOR US THAT BEFORE LUNCH ABOUT THESE DRUG KILLINGS AND YOU — I ASKED YOU SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS COLOMBIAN NECKLACE AND REMEMBER WE TALKED ABOUT THAT?
A: YES.
Q: DO YOU KNOW WHAT A COLOMBIAN NECKTIE IS?
A: YES, I’VE HEARD STORIES OF COLOMBIAN NECKTIES.
Q: WHAT IS A COLOMBIAN NECKTIE?
A: MY INFORMATION IS THAT IT IS A TIRE THAT WOULD BE PUT OVER SOMEONE’S NECK AND SET AFIRE.
Q: THAT IS A COLOMBIAN NECKTIE?
A: THAT IS WHAT I’VE HEARD. I HAVE NEVER EXPERIENCED THAT.
Q: HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF A COLOMBIAN NECKTIE BEING A SITUATION WHERE IN A DRUG —
MS. CLARK: ASSUMES FACTS NOT IN EVIDENCE.
MR. COCHRAN: I ASK THIS QUESTION, YOUR HONOR, AS AN EXPERT.
THE COURT: OVERRULED.
Q: BY MR. COCHRAN: HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF A COLOMBIAN NECKTIE BEING A SITUATION WHERE IN A DRUG KILLING A PERSON’S THROAT IS SLASHED AND THEIR TONGUE IS PULLED DOWN THROUGH WHERE THEIR — THROUGH THE NECK AREA? HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF THAT?
A: NO.
Q: ALL RIGHT. WHAT YOU TALKED ABOUT WAS A NECKTIE USED IN SOUTH AFRICA WHERE TIRES WERE PUT OVER —
A: I THOUGHT THAT IS WHAT YOU WERE REFERRING TO.
Q: WE ARE TALKING ABOUT COLOMBIA, NOT SOUTH AFRICA.
A: I DON’T KNOW WHERE THESE THINGS OCCUR. THE ONLY NECKTIE REFERENCE I’VE HEARD IS WITH A TIRE.
What I recall was reading how one of the Simi jurors was pissed off at Briseno...
Basically it seems to me that the officers won the [first] trial in jury selection after the case was moved out of LA.
Essentially you had a jury of CBs/Prosimians with no Huchesons in there to even things out
Unless I'm watching a different video, it isn't "several minutes." It's somewhere between 45 seconds and 1 minute 45 seconds, depending on what point you think the police had King subdued. (I'm bringing this up because if your position is so clearly obvious, then you shouldn't need to rely on hyperbole.)
The video starts with King on his knees trying to rise with the taser wires attached. The swing that connects with King's head is around the fifteen second mark. Before the 2 minute mark, King is swarmed by the officers and the incident is over.
That linked testimony, interesting as it is, is entirely unrelated. We're talking about officers testifying as to what they believed during a high-stress situation. They made a judgment call, and it was a bad judgment with the benefit of hindsight; we can see on the tape that King wasn't a threat for a short window where they continued to beat him. I don't see why it's so outrageous to imagine the mere possibility that these police officers weren't (and could not have been held accountable for not being) in an emotional state where they could recognize that fact in such a short window.
How do you know that I wouldn't have voted to convict the officers? I've never said that the first jury was right and the second one was wrong.
I've said only that I think there's a legitimate question worthy of being asked here; that the story doesn't start and end with the video footage. (Based on what I've read, I believe that I would have voted to convict Powell and acquitted Koon.)
The difference between these sentences and what you deem "reasonable" is so vast it really boggles the mind how you see it as such. Considering, also, it wasn't ONE police officer. It was a crowd of them. But it was reasonable for him to be beaten for almost two minutes. Sit at your desk and watch your clock for 100 seconds, imagine yourself getting beaten for that time by at least four people with sticks. (Actually watch the seconds tick by, all 100 of them.) With a crowd of people backing them up. Imagine the threat you could possibly be in that situation. If that doesn't work, imagine even the threat the swamp-boy from Georgia could be during all that.
I recognize it's been impossible to go anywhere from here in this debate with you since about 130 posts ago, but it still is shocking.
Right. By the time this thing had gone off the rails, King was in the situation where if he moved, they hit him; if he didn't move, they hit him; if they didn't hit him after he didn't move, they waited until he moved, and then they hit him again.
If I am in an emotional state the prevents by brain from overriding my impulse control for one minute and I shoot someone then I have committed a crime. If in officer is in a state of mind where he is unable to accurately assess the threat level of a man he has been beating then that officer has committed a crime. Is this what you are saying? Or are you trying to argue something else? The cops were so full of adrenaline that their internal definition of excessive force was not functioning, so therefore the force used wasn't excessive?
Those 60 seconds cannot be considered in isolation. They are part of the authorities overall assessment of the gravity of the incident and erratic violent nature of the perpetrator. After he was stopped, did King submit like his passengers did? No. He acted in a wild and unpredictable manner. He was huge man flailing a way like hippo whose alpha status was being challenged. Even taser shots didn't seem to have an effect on him. What would that say to you, if you had to subdue him? What does that tell you about how pumped he was? Would you take all this into consideration in subduing the guy, and in crediting at what point that he had been fully subdue?
Essentially, what's at issue is about a minute of violence, which along a whole spectrum of events had been in his power to prevent from happening. Yes, I can see a jury thinking all that has a bearing on the police's assessment of the situation and what was called for in addressing that situation. Another jury might have found differently than that first one; a subsequent jury did, in fact, but only after very prolonged debate and discussion, and there was the feeling the reason they were convicted in that second trial was because of fear of more rioting. So, let's not pretend that all this violates credibility. That the outcome could not have been but one way. It was no such thing to many people, on both sides of the issue, including jurors in two trials. And that's why you have jurors. They are the referees in the pit, and they have to make decisions that have effect, unlike kibitzers on the internet.
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