I wish I could have found some clips from local news but I can't at work. The story goes that yes, the officer was pushed around first. He'd asked her to move to the car and was going to walk her over, or some such thing like that. At which point the 'cameraman' realized something was going down and started filming.
Unless you are reading something I'm not, that is simply what the BBC reported in a very short article on the subject. They don't cover anything else the officer says or did. There is a more thorough telling of the story here- http://www.seattlepi.com/local/421888_punch17.html and http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattle911/archives/211523.asp?from=blog_last3
He got quite a nice shot on her. It just needed one of those Batman POW graphics to make it complete. Taser would have been more entertaining though. Tasing is a superior spectator sport. I suppose, if I wanted to pretend I cared - she did enter his space enough to get dangerously close to his firearm. Really, everyone's lucky the guy snapped into a punch instead of pulling his pistol.
If a cop stops someone for a minor offence, the normal response from that person is to comply, listen, respond to questions and accept the fine. People who are extremely defensive or aggressive tend to have something else to hide. Such aggressiveness has hinted cops into finding (huge) amounts of drugs in cars etc. The only problem with this case seems to be that the cop is white, and the girls are black. Hence, he's a dirty racist and a top-ranking KKK member. Every (online) newspaper I've seen this reported in has mentioned the skin colours of the people involved, when they absolutely do not matter. This isn't a racist cop, it's a cop making a (badish) decision in the heat of citation-turned-bad. He's alone. He's not called for back-up. Apart from the girl he wants to give a citation, a second one is beligerent. There are also other people around - how many of them will beccome aggressive towards him? If a cop is dealing with someone, you let them deal with them. If you intervene, expect a punch. She got lucky: as has been said before, she could've been tased or shot. If it looks like the cop is going over the line, you stand back and be a witness. That has a much better result than attacking (because that's what it is) a cop. Society would've deemed a taser more "acceptable" because its image is less violent: it's less "hands-on" (it was literally hands-on in this case). There is physical distance and the damage is done by an object rather than the cop's fist. However, the headlines would've still read "White cop tasers black girl OMG!!!". # rant: racism is bad, but the governments are equally bad for keeping up the divide, by making us fill out forms declaring our race/ethnicity; and the media keep referring to people by their skin colour. An asshole's an asshole, despite his/her colour. It's sad to realise that if it had been a black cop punching a white girl, the colours would've been left out of the headlines. (Just for the record and as a disclaimer, racism (from whatever side/colour) is totally ****ing retarded.) And as a funny ending after the "race"-rant (I really hate the word "race", btw, as I don't believe in "races" of humans): a guy from Malawi once told me "White people aren't white. They're beige." When he said that, I looked at my exposed arms and realised he was right. Until now, I've never met anyone to speak such truth. I'm ****ing beige. Beige pride!
He could have de-escalated the situation before that stage. He decided to go for confrontation rather than engagement (i.e. citing her for jaywalking rather than asking her to consider for a moment whether crossing a busy intersection like that was a safe thing to do). Then again, perhaps they are just people with poor impulse control and sense of boundaries reacting against perceived authority. You recognise their script and make sure you do not play your role. The Fail in reasoning is (from the Seatle article linked by Volund): No, you match the severity of intervention to the severity of crime. You de-escalate a jaywalking incident; you use force in an armed robbery. And de-escalation is not "walking away". If you think that is the problem, consider what the reaction would be if the girl was a blonde blue-eyed cheerleader. Or Paris Hilton. The problem is that people perceive a disproportionate use of force (they are wrong, but that's what they see). They simply do not think that jaywalking is the sort of offense that warrants arrest and a spot of police brutality. They totally do not see that the punch was a consequence of the girl's assault of the officer, not jaywalking. That is because they feel that the girl's assault was a response to the (perceived) unreasonable arrest in the first place. Correspondent inference at work: if the consequence of the police officer's intervention is a fight, then his action is perceived as probably intended to pick a fight. I agree, but that is all rational behaviour of the level that you would expect from a police officer too: stand back, stay calm, do not get involved in the drama. You are right about the first part, but in your reversed scenario there just would have been different headlines and the cop would have lost his job already.
Just from a 'common sense' standpoint it seems pretty obvious to me there was no issue of race involved. Jaywalking citations are relatively common in that area, supposedly, and common thoughout Seattle, so he wasn't targetting them or anything. And if Walsh was racist why not simply punch out the first one? Why not punch them both? In the Lakewood shooting I linked in the original post there was no mention of race as a factor in the execution-style shooting of four officers. The shooter, Maurice Clemmens, was black and all four victims were white, if memory serves. Could someone not claim that was no accident, and that he intentionally shot white cops only? It's something which was never brought up or questioned publicly.
She jaywalked and the PO had the right to temporally detain her. If she refused, then she's refusing a lawful order from a PO and can be physically detained. If she touched the officer in ANY manner it's illegal and there for an arrestable offence. If he would of punched women A, he'd been in the wrong for excessive force. Since he punched women B, he was defending himself from an unknown attacker. For all he knew in the little battle, women B had a weapon. All in all he used physical force over less lethal and lethal force. Where I live, physical force is a level 1 use of force. Level 2 being less lethal and level 3 being lethal. Was the whole situation handled poorly? Yes. Was the officer in the wrong? No. Was it a racial issue? No, but it will be turned into one.
My understanding of the backstory i that he was specifically stationed there the deal with jaywalkers on a busy intersection. He's not just trundled over and seen some kid crossing the road, he's been dispatched to deal with a specific social problem.
"Most innocent girl ever viciously abused by power-hungry cop" for the former, world-wide "she probably deserved it"-hilarity for the latter? But isn't this just the general public being retarded (as usual; myself being a prime example)? The police force's job is to protect us, decent members of society. We cannot expect a cop, on his own, in the heat of the moment (which is what it would've been for that cop), to make a decision based on what the public (whose opinions are shaped by the media; a media whose profit depends on spectacle) may think afterwards. If I was a cop, dealing with someone - even for something stupid like jaywalking - and somebody tried to intervene, I'd assume the worst ("I'm going to get stabbed/shot"). You just don't touch a cop. He was taking legitimate action with legitimate authority. It seems like he was just doing his job to his employer's specification and the oath he probably took (the USA seems like a country to make cops take an oath or something deep like that ). Anyone interfering in that... well, should be considered dangerous. The justice system has easily accessible procedures to contest an unwarranted arrest or police abuse. Whilst I would agree with the idea that "cops look out for eachother" (and would maybe not testify against eachother), going to court trying to sue a cop/police department is still a better option than trying to break up a cop legitimately arresting someone. I just got really annoyed with literally every publication mentioning the skin colours in either the headline or the first lines of the article. There is no indication of the police officer's "White [beige] power" leanings, so "race" shouldn't matter at all. There is no point, bar sales, to specify this in the media. It just pissed me off so badly, mainly because whenever some North Africans commit a crime over here, they're not named as such. But when a European asshole commits a crime against a non-European victim, colours/ethnicity/nationality/etc are splashed all over the headlines. As if it matters. When I was a kid (though it may've been just the place where I grew up) there were no "races". There were just "humans". Some came from Europe, some from Africa, some from Asia, some (the fat ones ) from the USA, etc... But in the middle to late 1990s, "races" suddenly popped up again. It has annoyed the **** out of me ever since, hence the rant above (for which I should probably apologise, as it was written in... well, "OMG-WTF-rant-mode", rather than attempted rational thought).
Yes, but: This means that he (and his superiors) had time to think about how they were going to approach this campaign as a whole, what sort of reactions they might encounter and how to respond to those in the most appropriate way (i.e. resulting in change of attitude towards jaywalking of the local community as a whole, rather than targeting a few specific transgressors). Nobody is questioning that. I just think he went about it in a really dumb way, which resulted in him getting drawn into a confrontation with a few hysterical girls and thumping one in the process. He may have had authority, but he did not demonstrate it.
The fact that they have an officer stationed there shows that there is a significant problem with jaywalking at that precise spot. Whether it's because someone's a jobsworth, danger to pedestrians and drivers, or congestion in that area I don't know. But there's a reason that officer was sitting there waiting for jaywalkers. I can't see how it's reasonable to for the police to foresee a jaywalking ticket escalating into an assault. I don't even think there's a big picture here. I just think a couple of complete idiots tried pushing their luck and ended up with an assault charge. It would seem that the allotted action was that offenders get a misdemeanour ticket or an informal caution. In this case we'll never know, because when the officer called the girl over she ignored him and kept on walking. She escalated the situation from a simple ticket to resisting arrest right there. That is highly significant, and it's important to understand from that moment on she was getting cuffed. She was no longer getting ticketed for jaywalking, she was being detained for resisting arrest, wasting police time, and any number of 'hell you've done it now' charges the officer wanted to think up over the next five minutes. Let me put it like this - if it was you, or your friend, getting ticketed would you have ended up in cuffs sporting a black eye? I can tell you with 100% certainty that I wouldn't have. Damn. I might even have got off without a ticket, because I wouldn't have treated the officer with disrespect from the get go.
People can be real assholes. I know that because I work in the health services, where you frequently get to see people in what is not exactly their finest hour. The police really know that, because they deal with assholes intimately on a daily basis. If anyone can predict the range of (unreasonable) responses you might get from people when you stop them from jaywalking, then police should be able to. I certainly can. So this was a planned initiative. That means that they had time to think about how they are going to approach jaywalkers, and the range of responses they might get --including the really out-there, unreasonably assholish ones, because that's the kind of behaviour they are all too familiar with. Including those of drunks, hostile petty criminals, paranoid psychotics, rebellious teenagers, the lot. You hardly have to deal with such people, so you don't think about it. The police deals with them all the time, so they should be, well, not surprised by such behaviour and have a bit of a game plan for it. Or are you saying that the only way a police officer can deal with a bunch of hysterical teenagers is to cuff them? Don't get me wrong: I'm on the copper's side here; the girls got what they deserved. But there were better ways of dealing with the situation.
In America standard procedure seems to be to restrain in cuffs. If they think you're suspicious they put bracelets on you until they run checks. I think if someone brazenly resists the authority of the police then they should be put into custody until they cool off, yes. The office and officer require a certain amount of respect, whether they've earned it or not. It's part and parcel of the job, they require that respect to be able to operate without violence, if you don't give that respect then you leave them no leeway to do their job. If there had been two officers on, and that girl had done the same thing, she's still have ended up in cuffs. The only difference is one officer would have probably sat on her while the other tased her. I'm still not sure how else this could have played out. The officer was put in a situation where they could only react to the actions of the girl. Would you have just let her walk off? When she didn't respond to your calls what would you have done? Then when you did catch up to her, and her big fat friend started pushing you about how would you have handled it? The threat of authority and power are all well and good - when people respect you have the option. Ultimately there comes situations where you absolutely have to exercise that power. In that respect the way the officer handled himself may not be particularly popular in a media centric world, but compared to his reasonable options a quick punch was the simplest and most minimal course of action, if he'd pepper sprayed her this would never have hit mainstream media. My point is, although you may well plan for an action there's always a chance the action will escalate to complete absurdity. At that point you can either submit, or you can escalate. The police officer would probably just have lost his job when the footage of him being beaten by a fat girl got put on the internet. The girl who got punched isn't even the one who he's trying to detain. She's just an acquaintance. She assaulted a police officer, probably because she's mentally inept. I'm pretty sure they do have set procedures for this kind of incident, and I bet they involve mace, a taser, or a sidearm. Out of interest how would you have handled the situation, bearing in mind that you have a duty to detain the first girl, and the second girl assaulted you as you were trying to put the cuffs on her. Since these two things cannot be changed, what are your options? Personally, I think this situation has arisen precisely because he did take a 'soft' approach. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing.
That's hard to say because we don't know exactly how the scuffle started and therefore have to make a lot of assumptions. I'm going to assume the officer was talking to Woman A and she became rowdy, then started acting hysterical. I would of kept her at arm's length (even if it meant I had to back peddle slightly) until the point I have no other option than to arrest and cuff her. Then, rather than try to shove her towards the car bonnet (which makes things messy), I would of done a ground take-down and arrest. Quick and efficient, it uses a limited amount of aggression and is something all police officers are trained in. By engaging that scuffle and not backing away, he severely limited his options and prolonged the confrontation. Effectively, he lost his upper-hand - training. But again, hindsight allows us to be judgemental and we don't know all the facts.
Actually it seems the commission stated he didn't use enough force. I can see why he didn't put her into a violent headlock, she's only a skinny little thing. The whole ground takedown seems a bit much for the same reason, and then he'd have been on his knees in the middle of a crowd. I bet this ends up with even more people getting tasered, though. This is probably not a good thing, because a taser is probably more dangerous than a scuffle in the long run - chances of heart attacks etc.
I absolutely agree that it would of seemed very aggressive (and no doubt the video would cause people to say he used unnecessary force) but at least it would of been quick, controlled and professional. If anything, I doubt Woman B would of interfered due to the shock and awe of it. Edit: Just to clarify my initial comment - I mean he could of done this after giving her several warnings about keeping her distance. If he warned her, had his arm out, back peddled and she still was acting hysterical and trying to get close to him? Take that idiot down, for both of their safety (as somebody rightly pointed out, if he suspected for one second that she was trying to go for his gun, the situation would of gotten a lot worse).
I would walk up to woman A and draw her attention. Then I'd stand in her path (at arms length) and say something like: "Excuse me Miss, my name is [insert name] and the reason I am stopping you is because we are doing a road safety awareness campaign. Did you know that over the last year on this crossing alone X number of pedestrians died while trying to cross the road?" --making sure to sound friendly and concerned rather than confrontative. Basically, the purpose is to engage her in a conversation rather than confrontation. If her friend butts in, I would engage her in the conversation too. "Do you know anybody amongst your friends or family who was a pedestrian involved in a road traffic accident?" If yes: "What happened to them? How are they doing now?". If not: point out how tricky the traffic on this crossing is and mention how just the other week some young woman not unlike them was scooped by a car and killed on the spot. I would also have some flyers on road safety if possible. Then I would point them, friendly, to a safe crossing point over there and wish them a pleasant day. All throughout you keep the conversation friendly and engaged. You take off sunglasses if you are wearing any, keep eye contact, keep your voice friendly and calm and give your name and ask for their first names (no last names; you're not out to cite them, just to make them aware of the danger). Ask them whether they cross this road often and how they find traffic, whether they find crossing tricky and if they whether they think they ever had a narrow escape etc. Thing is: if you are going out to cite jaywalkers then you are going out to confront. And you have to consider whether that is the best way to get people to change their jaywalking behaviour.
