For your thoughts and awareness: Seattle PI Article BBC Article Officers' actions being questioned yet again. As mentioned in one article (and frequently on local TV news) Seattle police are trained to act in such a manner when shown such strong resistance and this is being used to justify Walsh's actions, however, as mentioned in the BBC article, race is being brought up as a potential factor. Walsh has been temporarily taken off the street and placed at a desk job and the two women were placed in jail, then swiftly released. Frankly, I find it sad that people are so ready to question the selfless people risking their lives to keep the streets safe and crime free. Here's a man just trying to keep people safe by stopping them from jay-walking (when there's a pedestrian bridge just down the street) and meeting such strong resistance for it. Why is no one shocked that people have the nerve to treat officers so badly? He was borderline assaulted! His actions were entirely warranted and part of his training, why should it reach international news? But that's just my thoughts. Anyone else have anything they'd like to share?
It's okay for them to disobey law enforcement, yet it's not okay for him to physically implement that enforcement. So very fair. So what if she was black, it makes no god damn difference, race obviously had no influence here, he did what was necessary!
I think the problem here is that, in theory, his training should of never allowed him to be in the situation where he's tussling with Woman A for so long that Woman B is given a chance to intervene. The video doesn't show how the confrontation started, but I'm guessing he should of either told Woman A to keep her distance and not get in his face or immediately get out his cuffs and arrest her. At no point in that video did he reach for his cuffs, which made the scuffle looks like something between two civilians, not a police officer and a suspect.
You have a point there NuTech, he certainly doesn't do a huge amount to try and control the situation, and cuffs would have enabled that. Still, I believe that the punch enabled him to get some control as he pinned her to the car after, possibly to cuff her.
At the very start of the video the officer attempts to place Woman A against his car and cuff her, at which point she starts becoming physically aggresive. He then tries repeatedly to turn her around again to cuff her and then it boils down into him simply trying to hold her still. I don't believe they're supposed to cuff people with their hands in front of them, and she was flailing something fierce anyway. A couple people I've talked to irl have mentioned pepperspray or a taser, but I figure those methods would just get him into worse trouble.
Looking carefully at the beginning of the video, the scuffle started nowhere near the car. I'm not defending the suspect (like I said, we have no idea what happened before the video started recording and the context of it) but the entire 'arrest' looks botched to me. At the start, he was pushing her shoulders and walking her backwards. Why? IMO (I'm not a cop, so I could be completely wrong) he should of either attempted to keep a safe distance between himself and the suspect, or gone into full arrest mode. Instead he got involved in a shoving match which was unprofessional and escalated into a messed up situation. I'm sure he has been trained in subduing uncooperative suspects better than that.
I think I get what you're saying now. The problem likely stems from him not actually trying to arrest anyone in the first place, this all started over a simple warning/citation. For whatever reason, asking the women to please walk over to his car provoked heated resistance, likely very unexpected and flustering, though I bet you're right: even Walsh probably would admit he could have done better (even if what he did was still totally okay). From a distance it's kind of funny really, no one ever thinks of jay-walking as a real offense and certainly no one expects such an outburst over it.
Again I dont know the legalities of it all but to me it seemed that he was trying to arrest/or restrain the woman in black, the woman in pink intervened and assaulted the officer. If his actions (and it was a nice punch) has been deemed appropriate by the powers that be then I don't see why there is a fuss. If it was a male that assaulted him, would it have made headlines?
I'm with NuTech here. Much as I feel sympathy for the cop (it is a shitty job at times) and not for the women (who appeared to go for the ''tragic outcome' option with hysterical relish), I think that as soon as he got into a tussle with the first woman he had already totally lost control. Why let things escalate to that level over jaywalking (my personal feeling is: cross at your own risk)? The first duty of the police is to maintain order (not to maintain the law as such --that happens in court). He should have weighed up stopping the disorder of some dumb ass pedestrians from jaywalking against the disorder generated by stopping them. Get into a screaming match with them? I think not. Just step back calmly and don't allow them to engage you in a hysterical game of black-woman-oppressed-by-fascist-white-pig. In the end, if they want to walk, let them walk. It is the action of least disorder. That is an invalid argument. If an outraged 8-year old had jumped in to defend his mother, could the officer have punched him too? Don't think so. Defense has to be proportional to the threat posed. Else he might as well draw his gun. Don't get me wrong: I think the women were being dumb, hysterical and frankly got it coming, but the officer should have known much better.
If an 8 year old jumped in then fair enough then obviously a punch would be out of order, an adult is different and should be treated accordingly. Now I think we can all agree that he could have/should have acted differently but what I was saying is that he was assaulted first and that if the Seattle PD deems it appropriate to punch someone in that situation then as far as I am concerned the matter should be over with.
That officer wants to learn how to throw a punch first, what a windmill!! On this occasion, I think the officer took what was the least forceful option available to him. A ***** punch like that is going to hurt a lot less than a baton or CS spray in the face. I think he had a right to be worried for his own safety, as they were both grabbing at him. What if one of them went for his gun? Whole different kettle of fish then, and it could easily have happened.
Given the situation, I think he was perfectly within his rights to defend himself. Perhaps not in that manner, though. Serves her right for intervening, IMO.
It's all very well saying "He should have used <insert less-than-lethal tool here>" but at what point in that video do you see him having time to get the aforementioned tool to subdue Woman B? Granted, scuffle with Woman A should not have continued so long as it did, but for whatever reason it did. Personally, I laughed at the silly bint getting slotted in the face. She deserved it. Under no circumstance should anyone try and disrupt an officer making an arrest - It makes it worse for the Officer, the original arrestee, and the person intervening, whether they were right to intervene or not. She did something stupid, got punished for it with a punch to the face, and now claims the officer was out of control. Hypocritical moron should have known better than to get involved at the stage we saw the video take place.
and three of those options would have made even more headlines than this did.... "Seattle PD officer shoots woman for jaywalking" "Black woman beat down by Seattle PD" "Defenseless woman Tazed at hands of Seattle PD" Pepper spray would have probably been the best solution to quickly put the subject down with little struggle, that stuff really sucks.
So lets see... 1. Officer cites girl for jaywalking. 2. Officer feels a need to get physical during that citation 3. Girl shouts "get off of me" 4. Girl's friend seems to think officer is being heavy handed & believes she is justified in pushing the heavy handed officer away, in defense her friend. 6. Officer punches a 17yr old girl in the face. The crimes of jaywalking and being verbally abusive (disturbing the peace) are both citationable offences, not arrestable offences... No physical contact is required during a citation, so whom, between the two parties, seems to be unjustly antagonistic and violent?
When you intervene in police matters, I don't care if you come out with a broken arm/jaw/leg or whatever, the same goes for anyone who intentionally tries to hinder the police. And some people just needs to get their rear kicked.
You can't really say, without seeing the beginning of the altercation. With what is there, who's to say that she didn't get physical with him first?
