If my mom died tonight, I wouldn't WANT to feel like the world was coming to end and I wouldn't WANT to cry for hours, but I would. I wouldn't be able to control the emotion of sadness, which would make me cry and feel depressed. If I could
control the way I felt, then I wouldn't cry or feel bad. I mean, once again, why would someone
want to feel that way?
Chef, you've made your point, which really has no connection to this issue. Nobody's questioning the officers' feeling anger or rage toward this guy. What's being questioned is how they opted to express it - beating an unconscious man who'd just been thrown from his vehicle after he crashed his car. Their job requires (obviously - see what the result has been here) them to act dispassionately as agents of the state, not to act as a gang, who will get abusive when One of Their Own is harmed. Their job is not to dispense some on-the-spot punishment, their job is to apprehend those who they identify as lawbreakers. Yes, they obviously have some discretion in determining who those people are, based on their (limited) training in the law, but they don't have the discretion to determine and dispense immediate punishment at will. Also, unlike some countries (which are typically viewed, with some justification surely, as backwards and even barbaric), the U.S. doesn't allow physical beatings as allowable punishment. You can be locked up or, in the most severe cases, killed, but you can't be beaten. See, what professionals are supposed to do (and supposedly instructed to do via their training) in this situation is get this guy medical attention ASAP (perhaps telling him they hope he dies en route or whatever, but not bringing him added harm) and then show up en masse at his trial (armed with video, not fists and clubs) to tell the judge and jury what he did, and what he did to their co-worker. That's what professional police officers are supposed to do. It's not like they're actually in a gang. They must distinguish themselves clearly from thugs, and the badge and gun alone do not accomplish this, the behavior is a necessary element, as well.
This is coming from the same guy who frequently makes threads and posts about how police officers abuse their power?
If it (the display of emotional control) is done "all the time"..."even by police officers"...and you truly believe that, then why do you make so many anti-police threads and anti-police posts, which clearly demonstrate your disapproval of how police officers handle situations and act as if they are above the law? If their emotions weren't getting in the way of their actions, and it was happening that way all the time, then you wouldn't be so quick to disapprove of their actions.
Chef, you're getting desperate. Showing people videos to discuss, and debating and criticizing police abuses are not "anti-police" - unless you think that such abuses are an intrinsic and wholly necessary part of policing. I don't. I also don't need to be told that many cops aren't corrupt, aren't brutal, help kids and the elderly, etc. Fine. I'm against police abuse of power and police brutality. Like it or not, plenty of cops have been busted for a wide variety of crimes. (It will be interesting to see how this Drew Peterson case plays out) Are the prosecutors who indict and convict them "anti-police"??? Police officers are only one aspect of the law. Just as when civilians act outside the legal boundaries in their behavior are reined in by police, police who act outside the legal boundaries must be reined in by the justice system itself. Are cops who arrest cops for commiting crimes "anti-police"? I think this "anti-police" accusation is simply something you toss out as a cheap smear, a free pass to end the discussion and claim automatic victory or whatever. What's the implication, that I'm "pro-criminal", "pro-crime" or something? If I was pro-crime, then I guess I'd be cheering the cops on in this vid to slit the unconscious guy's throat, shit on his corpse, dismember him, and set him ablaze. Those are all good, extreme crimes.
Ironically, the police officers that do act is if they are above the law and do take advantage of the power that they are given are acting on their emotions (anger, pride, resentment, neglect, anxiety, etc).
How is that ironic?
I thought that you just said...
It's called nuance, Chef. Assault is assault, but the punishment for that crime can be downgraded in certain circumstances. It should not simply be excused and overlooked. Assault is not an acceptable part of policing. I'm not going to give some elaborate disclaimer of the obvious here - going into how what the dude did was wrong (although if I wanted to follow Chef's logic from another thread, I could say that if he hit the officer with his van it was just "accidental", as the guy was only trying to escape and the cop was standing in the roadway!). Again, that's obvious enough. This dude deserves some SERIOUS time in the clink. But still, what to say when professional law enforcement officers, given power by the state, are seen dispensing punishment on a guy who has just been tossed from a car, and is currently unconscious?? (Also, just as trying to hit a pedestrian with one's car is unmanly - not a fair fight - so is beating a guy who's already unconscious - not just down, but out!)
It's wrong. Clearly, these guys deserved to lose their jobs, and I wouldn't have objected to a couple days in the slammer, either.
Sooooo, which one is it? Can or can't people control their emotions and the physical manifestions that follow?
As much as you're hoping to find it there, I haven't contradicted myself. While people can't necessarily control their (internal) emotions (irrelevant to the discussion of this vid - nobody expected the cops at issue to not feel emotions here), they can - and in some circumstances are required to - control their reactions to those emotions, the physical manifestations of those emotions.
First of all, it's not like the officers stood there for 5 minutes, kicking the shit out of the guy. They hit him for like 5 seconds and then stopped.
Actually, it's about 10 seconds, from x:41 to x:51 on the dash-cam (the police chief says it's 11 secs.) It involves a billy club to the back, feet kicking all over, knees JAMMED down hard on his back, punches to his head and neck. And that's from no fewer than 4 guys (sometimes up to 6), all getting their licks in. The perp just lays there from the beginning, a lifeless blob (he flew out of his car window when his van rolled over, remember?).
You should know that serious or even fatal injuries can be caused by ONE person assaulting another,within 5 seconds, let alone 10 or 11 - let alone 4-6 guys attacking one.
Secondly, since you can't control your emotions, it is completely understandable that the officers would have such a reaction. If you were in the same situation and somebody had tried to run over and kill your friend, you would have the same initial reaction as well.
Again, what matters is not what emotions they FELT, but how they chose to EXPRESS them. They didn't control the physical manifestations of their emotional reactions to the situation. Their reaction is understandable enough (as can the actions of warring gang members be understandable), but not excusable.
Lastly, how do you know that the officers KNEW that the man was unconscious? Should they give every suspect a physical examination before any action is taken? Should they wait for a doctor to arrive, just to get the ok to move in on a suspect? You know, in case the suspect is physically kept at bay by an injury?
Ok, now you're being silly. They could have simply got out of their cars with their guns drawn (entirely reasonable) and told him to get on his knees and put his hands behind his head, etc. If he continued to lay there without moving, they could have approached him slowly (remember it's at least 6 officers on the scene, probably more off to the side), nudged his shoulder to see what's up, checked his pulse, etc. Then call the ambulance.
They ran up on him like lightning and started striking him right away. They didn't lay back and take inventory on the entire situtation. They saw him lying there and started hitting him, which was their emotionally driven reaction.
... and therein lies the problem! As he wasn't moving and was laying face down in a ditch, the urgency for instant action was OVER.
If you look at the video clip and focus only on the part which shows the officers hitting the unconscious man, then no...none of it was warranted.
But, if you look at the WHOLE video clip and focus on the WHOLE story, then yes...the initial reaction was warranted. And, if you look at the clip again, you will see that the officers don't spend a whole lot of time beating him. They hit and kick him for a few seconds and then back away.
- and this is precisely why you shouldn't be a law enforcement officer (good god, if you do, I suspect you'll be doing your precinct a real disservice by reinforcing some negative stereotypes - and no, not that police are emotional creatures, really in touch with their feelings
). You're saying that if officers get angry in the line of duty they have the right to murder a suspect/perpetrator when that perp could simply be apprehended and taken into custody to stand trial. It's not hard to apprehend an unconscious person. But they were in the right to beat him. 10 secs., 5 secs. it doesn't matter. One solid kick to the temple, up the nose, etc., can KILL a person. I don't know what this guy was wanted for, but let's suppose he was a drug-runner, and while fleeing police, he clipped an officer's leg. This probably wouldn't get him the death penalty. But you're saying that officers in some scenarios where they are really angry and they'v been provoked by a particularly evasive criminal, they are entitled to kill that perp once he give up (in effect) and is injured and unconscious??
Obviously, neither you or I can get inside of their heads and figure out exactly why they stopped, but it appears as if their initial emotional reaction (the punching and kicking) came to an end as they started coming to their senses, which made them back off and go back to acting from a completely unemotionally driven stand point.
Their job involves keeping their sense all the time not just "most of the time, unless you get really angry".
Let me pose this question for everyone, not just you...
If this same exact video, with the same exact situation (the chase, the run down, the car ejection, the assault) was shown on the news, only there were no police officers involved (just normal, everyday civilians)...would you feel the same way? Or, is it the badge that they are wearing that makes you so upset with this?
So, what's the scenario? A bunch of guys in competing gangs (Bloods vs. Crips?)??? Or a big family on a vacation, with someone standing in the road, unrolling the tire-popping device and nearly getting it, meanwhile the rest of the family pursues the crazy-guy and then, after the crazy-dude rolls his van they pile out and pile on, sporting heavy boots and billy-clubs? Why was the family member standing in the road, unrolling a tire-popping device? Why was the crazy dude trying to escape the family on vacation? Give me a scenario that makes some sense, and then I'll give you my 2-cents.
These guys weren't gang members, nor a family on vacation. They were police officers, and their jobs oblige them to conduct themselves professionally and dispassionately, not to lash out based on the emotions of the moment. Stop trying to twist anyone's opposition to their behavior as being anti-police.
:hatsoff:
