On assaulting Nurses and Pro Football players.

[kandrathe]

I don't understand what is hard about de-escalating hostile situations. It's got to be a dominance thing, or ego thing, or bad training. I mean, the recruiters should be able to filter police applicants. Bullies need not apply.

Not everyone is a confident talker without having the backup of force. And if you tried to filter out everyone who might react badly in a hostile situation, the police force (of any nation) would be rather miniscule. Everyone has had different experiences growing up, so the instinctive/default behaviour of people is always going to vary. Someone being told that "dem <insert racial slur> are bad criminals" throughout their youth is likely to have that as part of their intrinsic worldview.

Good point. My father was the type to go from casual conversation, to red hot, blowing his top angry. I learned quickly to read people, and defuse them. For me, it was a survival skill.

In the SLC case, in context, the police were in a high speed pursuit with a suspect who committed suicide by head on collision into a semi-rig. Yes, the suspect being chased died immediately in the crash. The trucker/patient they wanted blood from is the victim of the collision that erupted immediately into a fiery explosion. Evidently the purpose of the blood test was ass covering for the police who were involved in the high speed pursuit. I think this is a definitive case of the giant snowball of injustice. Everybody loses in this case. Well, the nurse will get a hefty settlement. Probably, also the trucker/victim of the head on collision will also get some settlement.

Dash cam footage from the two police cars just before the crash.

Another summary article with good details.

Here is a pretty good vid of the nurse situation... the police officer talking at the beginning describes what he was told to do... he is clearly frustrated with the red tape. He takes out his frustration on the nurse denying him what he wants.



More consequences for the arresting officer...

For the nfl player, running away from police is almost always a bad idea. If they're looking for an armed suspect even more so. He likely just wanted to get away from the shooting, but running away from the police is very likely to make them suspicious of you. The police may have (massively) overreacted, but the officers likely didn't know if he was the shooter and he was trying to get away.

I have more sympathy for the verbal abuse Mr. Bennett suffered, if corroborated. His detainment lasted ten minutes. His physical complaint was handcuffs too tight, which, if you've ever been handcuffed is a common failing. They are very uncomfortable, without the prerequisite fun fur.

Anyway, I think with more body cams will come more lawsuits as more injustices that would have been he/she said situations (with defecto backing the officers judgement). It is becoming more important to weed out the loose cannons who will expose our municipalities to malpractice suits, and to give proper training. I would still maintain that many who are drawn to the profession are exactly the types you don't want. They like to get physical, are already bigoted, or have a dog in the fight ( grudge). Chasing bad guys every day does not improve your opinion of society. After a New Years party one year, an employee of the firm I worked with was arrested because his girlfriend was wading in the hotel fountain (long story). The guy was not drunk, but again, things escalated out of hand. He had served time as a young man, but turned his life around with a career in software. I spoke to one of the officers afterwards, to find out how we could bail him out. He told me, "you know he did time... we can always tell... they have an institutional smell." Chilling. This was why it got out of hand. They sensed the fear of a former caged man.