Let me first state that I agree that Police Officers shouldn't become thugs, but I really didn't see this beating as being all that offensive. It's wrong, yes, but given the uproar, I was expecting something of the Rodney King variety.

I find the other charge against Law of beating up jailed prisoner Henry Lavallee more offensive and disgusting.

Soooo....it's the lenght of the beating that predicates whether or not it's offensive or not then?

Apply that same logic to a bank robbery. If the robber didn't get much money, then it's a lesser crime?

JTF wrote:Soooo....it's the lenght of the beating that predicates whether or not it's offensive or not then?

Apply that same logic to a bank robbery. If the robber didn't get much money, then it's a lesser crime?

only if he doesn;t eat the cookies before being caught.

JTF wrote:Soooo....it's the lenght of the beating that predicates whether or not it's offensive or not then?

Apply that same logic to a bank robbery. If the robber didn't get much money, then it's a lesser crime?

Didn't mention length of time in my post, did I?

My point is that THIS is the incident that is causing the uproar. I found the severe beating of a drunk in a jail cell far more motivating towards galvanizing me in my opinion that cops are not above the law than this video snippet did. When I heard all the uproar, I was expecting to see far worse than I did.

I don't think it is the severity of the beating that I find bothersome. I found the beating itself excessive. It may well be sheer luck the bad guy was not more severely injured.

I feel it was unnecessary. I think they could have completely subdued him and hand-cuffed him in a few seconds given the manpower available.

Mantha wrote:

Didn't mention length of time in my post, did I?

You compared it to the Rodney King beating, which was the same except for the legth involved I believe.

grumpy old man wrote:
I feel it was unnecessary. I think they could have completely subdued him and hand-cuffed him in a few seconds given the manpower available.

.
thats the problem of not having the proper perspective, which i have been talking about GOM

you can have 10 guys sitting on someone and they will NOT be able to just simply muscle his arms out from under him if he is not cooperating.

i know this for a fact, its a regular training activity that i do / have done at work. and like i said above, if you dont believe me then go and try it

you need to do something to loosen the person up and get their arms out from under them. the question is whether there was a better way of causing pain to loosen him up and get his arms out.

Taser?

They all have them....isn't this a prime example of an acceptable use for one of those guns?

^
Ahhhh...when you kick someone in the ribs, that person will usually try to cover themselves up.

These fcuken cops then say he wasn't complying!!!

Cops are fcuken liars, and you're just spouting crap Adam.

heh I just love the tasering videos where the cops keep shouting stop resisting and keep tasering him/her over and over and all the person doing is reacting to the pain from the tazer or moving uncontrolably from muscle spasms.

HOWEVER... speaking from experience does one person have trouble getting a guys arms out from underhim? Certainly... do six properly trained people? Not at all. BUT... yeah I have seen cases where the "resisters" arms have actually been snapped because his bones were weaker then his muscles so its a fine line.

Your right DeanK...but this would be one of those proper cases where using a stun gun is warranted, and would have probably made a difference....you wouldn't have needed 6-8 guys beating or whatever you want to call it, in order to get this perps hands out to cuff.

So, you stun the guy if he's not cooperating.....right? I thought that was the big "safety" and selling point...so that the cops WOULDN'T have to do this sorta thing.

Now what you have, due to abuse and improper use, is a situation where a stun gun could have been used - and was used, according to early reports?- but instead they decided to get physical. That may be blowback from the whole Taser fiasco, maybe not.

What I'm saying is...IMO this was a textbook scenario for one of those devices to be used PROPERLY....perhaps as something to be held up "look, we are responsible with these weapons, we know when to use them and have done so"....instead, we have a home run conviction tossed out (He got time served for frick sakes) because of a optically embarrassing and unfortunate situation.

for 15 shining moments, winnipeg made the front page of digg.

JTF wrote:

Mantha wrote:

Didn't mention length of time in my post, did I?

You compared it to the Rodney King beating, which was the same except for the length involved I believe.

Longer beating = more hits, over 95% of which were from police batons.

I just watched the video again, and I think I would have been more outraged had the cops continued whaling on him once he was handcuffed, or if they'd posed for cel phone photos, or high fived each other afterwards.

The video was so hyped before I got to see it, that I think I was
expecting a lot worse. That's the crux of what I'm getting at. I don't condone this behaviour from the police, but I do tend to see things in shades of grey vs black and white. And this video didn't register with me as being as bad as the outrage.

JTF wrote:^
Ahhhh...when you kick someone in the ribs, that person will usually try to cover themselves up.

These fcuken cops then say he wasn't complying!!!

Cops are fcuken liars, and you're just spouting crap Adam.

its only crap when you make comments based purely on ignorance JTF

read my analysis and actually look at the video at the times that i point out. they only started kneeing and punching him AFTER trying to pry his arms out, so its not just a case of him covering up from blows.

I do agree that the "sissy kick" early on was inappropriate, and i pointed that out above.. but even after that kick they wrestled with him another 7 or 8 seconds trying to pry his arms out before throwing knees and punches.




JT i totally agree that this is the exact kind of situation a taser was designed for, unfortunately because of peoples outrage over tasering videos in the past, tasers are pretty much a last resort before a gun now. the cops have to be really careful of when they use it because so many people think that a taser is lethal.

Adam... but if they started out with some random sissy kick.. how exactly is the guy who has multiple people on top of him supposed to know what it is exactly that they want? stop resisting!!! when one guy is pushing him down and another is pulling on his arm? Hard to know what to do.

I noticed at the moment he went down his left arm was out.

He was going down on his own. Had the officers let him continue, perhaps he would have complied with every other order.

Maybe he wanted to move his arms out but had trouble what with 3-4 cops on top of him.

fair enough argument Dean and certainly something to keep in mind, its confusing and chaotic and we just have to hope that they were giving clear verbal commands up to that point.

although from what i read the guy was also really drunk at the time, so who knows if anything would make it clear for him.

generally though if cops are on you telling you to give them an arm and they are trying to pull it out from under you, it would be a good idea to just give them the arm instead of pulling it back under you.

but without sound on this video we dont know for sure what they were saying. if they were not giving verbal commands at the same time, then thats a bad thing

I'm sure they were all screaming "don't resist" and "stop resisting". I expect that is top-most in training protocol.

its pretty high on the priority list of training.. but in my experience verbal commands are also the first thing that gets forgotten when the adrenaline starts flowing... so its entirely possible that they were not giving clear commands.. we dont know without sound.

Given that he was flat on his belly at the time, if all they were trying to do was pull his arms out why not just slap a simple rear naked choke on him? Lights out in 15 seconds, no need to drop knees on the guys ribs possibly breaking a few in the proccess. Given the high level of training these guys recieve you'd figure this would be in their repitoire. Any nightclub bouncer is generally familiar with this technique. As long as you remove the pressure once the guy is out there's no long term effects or danger to him. Safer than a tasering any day. Perhaps the WPS should arrange some cross training at Munduruca BJJ.

Also, assuming Adamx is correct....just how does one get their arms out from under them when 6 guys are on top of them?

grumpyrom wrote:Given that he was flat on his belly at the time, if all they were trying to do was pull his arms out why not just slap a simple rear naked choke on him? Lights out in 15 seconds, no need to drop knees on the guys ribs possibly breaking a few in the proccess. Given the high level of training these guys recieve you'd figure this would be in their repitoire. Any nightclub bouncer is generally familiar with this technique. As long as you remove the pressure once the guy is out there's no long term effects or danger to him. Safer than a tasering any day. Perhaps the WPS should arrange some cross training at Munduruca BJJ.

Also, assuming Adamx is correct....just how does one get their arms out from under them when 6 guys are on top of them?

There have been cases in the USA where cops have given choke holds and the person on the receiving end died. Damned if you do and Damned if you dont, Same for Tazering the guy, if he dies everyone freaks out, best to shoot the guy when he starts to drive away.

grumpy old man wrote:I don't think it is the severity of the beating that I find bothersome. I found the beating itself excessive. It may well be sheer luck the bad guy was not more severely injured.

I feel it was unnecessary. I think they could have completely subdued him and hand-cuffed him in a few seconds given the manpower available.

Funny how being involved in the chase and the fact that he tried to ram your cruiser and that he has caused you to endanger your own life never mind all who were on the street . Can change your temperment at the scene .

I understand that completely. Slippery slope me thinks.

That it is Yes it seems severe but if I had just done what they did umm hard to say.

Oh wow... The guy who initially pushed him down (while he was obviously surrendering) on that clip spreads his legs... then punts him in the balls at 40 seconds.