Cops are above the law

[bhsup]

Yeah, this one is bad. The city is going to take a huge hit fiscally on that one. Cop acted extremely unprofessional, and should be charged with assault and fired on that one.

I spy with my little eye.... a future post claiming Mobby has never said a cop should be punished, ever, for anything. It'll happen. I guarantee it.

 

[MobBoss]

4. Did you miss the part where I explained that I've trained cops?

Training cops isn't actually putting someone in cuffs into a car so I guess that's a no answer.

No, it's not. You obviously can't apply a leg lock on someone and keep them moving. At least, not unless you are considerably larger than them. You can, however, apply a shoulder-bar, with very little difficulty - it's hard to learn, easy to do once learnt - and propel them whereever the hell you want. Now, they could conceivably kick you in the shins when you are placing them in the backseat. That is all. There is absolutely no way that someone can kick you unless you release them, then stand there waiting for them to reposition themselves.

You also cant hold it unless your planning on tossing the person into the car face first, increasing their risk of injury. You have to relax the hold if you want to try and get them to sit in the car as opposed to just tossing them in.

I've been in their shoes. There's plenty about policework that is hard, but placing an already handcuffed individual in a vehicle is not one of them. Not unless there is a considerable weight difference. If it had been Eric Garner that kicked an officer in the face while handcuffed, I might be on your side of this argument.

If it'd been someone that big, the cop could have been potentially knocked out by the kick.

I would certainly hope not, as a figure four is a professional wrestling move that is more painful to the person applying it than the person it applied to.

I understand that the average cop can't apply a gogoplata or rolling crucifix while remaining even-breathed enough to explain to a class what points this hold puts pressure on. I also do not pretend to know the exact training methods police receive in the US

Its going to vary a lot from department to department depending policy, budget, etc.

I do, however, know the methods taught in Australia, because I happen to have learnt Hapkido from the man who teaches them at the NSW Police Academy. And I can tell you that most police officers over here are both capable of learning, in a single lesson, the shoulder-bar technique I describe. I can also tell you that the vast majority of trainees ignore those lessons, in spite of the fact that the guy who teaches them has taught several Ultimate Fighters, including two World Heavyweight Championship competitors. The police apparatus over here is happy to have their officers do a sub-standard job, because they know that it will be those being arrested who are injured, and not their officers. It's disgusting. They also attempt to pressure him into teaching them chokeholds, which he refuses to do, as he doesn't want a bunch of dead police victims on his conscience.

As often as cops get injured on the job (and that's more than you think) I think that's merely an assumption on your part.

Yes it does. I once got jumped by a drunk guy at a train station. I calmly performed a double-leg takedown and mounted him, only to have him escape the mount, pass my guard, and catch me in a back-mount. I ate two punches to the back of the head before I rolled through into a heel hook. It turned out the drunk guy had taken two Pankration classes three years previously, and picked that one time he got drunk and jumped a guy to remember everything he'd ever seen before. And if the police had punched him in the face, I wouldn't be concerned, because he's a guy that could counter a shoulder-bar. In fact, he did; I applied one after snapping his ankle while waiting for the police, and the wily bastard rolled with the pressure and I had to take him back down and apply a kimura.

Great play by play. I'm sure you're just a kick-ass guy.

But a woman in handcuffs is not the bastard lovechild of Jet Li that I came across one night in Seven Hills. All she did was kick. An appropriate response was to lock up her legs. As I said, maybe the police in the US simply don't know how to do that properly. But punching someone in the face is not the appropriate response. It increases the odds of the officer suffering a serious hand injury, for one thing; I teach people to throw forearms rather than punches for that reason.

Good for you. But I didn't say the woman in handcuffs was some kind of expert, I said she got lucky - which anyone can do and can happen to anyone.

A wrist breakage from someone fighting a wristlock is obviously the person in the wristlock's fault. Unless the cop is taking them to the ground applying a full body scissors while doing so. The bigger the person being subdued, the more leeway I am prepared to give the police doing the subduing. Pepper spray seems like the sor of thing you'd save for one hell of a big guy though.

They always still blame the cop regardless and claim excessive force. Always.

I once saw a person break their leg kicking a soccer ball. A fractured eye socket from a punch to the face is not a weird injury. It's a very common injury. Now, if the punch to face had caused her to break her pelvis, you might have a point.

My point was its hard to claim excessive force from a single punch, even if it results in such an injury. Now, if the guy had continued to pound her 4 or 5 times, you might have a point.

 

[MobBoss]

That case could have been solved with words. The cop let his ego control him. All he had to do was listen to the woman, acknowledge that it was unfair but he's just doing his job, and be patient with her emotions. Show a person respect and they'll usually return the favor.

Instead, he treats her like a dangerous animal.

Cops did try to solve it with words. That's plain from the video. She wasn't having any of that though. They did show her respect, until they saw that she was simply going to get more combative with them, not less.

 

[Farm Boy]

And what the hell is wrong with Illinois?

A lot. Welcome to government Chicago style. It's less appealing than the same styled pizza. There are reasons we consistantly rank 50th of 50 or near it when it comes to competency of US state governments. I mean it probably just sounds like I'm complaining about Chicago for funzies a lot of the time, but this state is seriously screwed up in a lot of ways.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

A lot. Welcome to government Chicago style. It's less appealing than the same styled pizza. There are reasons we consistantly rank 50th of 50 or near it when it comes to competency of US state governments. I mean it probably just sounds like I'm complaining about Chicago for funzies a lot of the time, but this state is seriously screwed up in a lot of ways.

You have the same problem as Nevada, and probably other states I could come up with. If I am running for a state office and carry Chicago metro area by a significant margin I can get elected without a single vote from the rest of the state. So the state government becomes an apparatus for sucking assets out of the rest of the state to buy votes in Chicago. I don't really see any way to fix that.

On the topic, those cops really screwed up, as evidenced by having lost even MobBoss. They should have just shot the woman in the head when they accused her of trying to run them over. Then they'd be fine and dandy. Just a couple cops doing their dangerous job and defending themselves, right MobBoss? Better advise all your cop pals so they don't make a similarly stupid mistake.

Moderator Action: This one is covered by the "don't be a jerk" rule and earns you a vacation - please stay civil in your postings. - ori
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[James Stuart]

Training cops isn't actually putting someone in cuffs into a car so I guess that's a no answer.



You also cant hold it unless your planning on tossing the person into the car face first, increasing their risk of injury. You have to relax the hold if you want to try and get them to sit in the car as opposed to just tossing them in.



If it'd been someone that big, the cop could have been potentially knocked out by the kick.



Its going to vary a lot from department to department depending policy, budget, etc.



As often as cops get injured on the job (and that's more than you think) I think that's merely an assumption on your part.



Great play by play. I'm sure you're just a kick-ass guy.



Good for you. But I didn't say the woman in handcuffs was some kind of expert, I said she got lucky - which anyone can do and can happen to anyone.



They always still blame the cop regardless and claim excessive force. Always.



My point was its hard to claim excessive force from a single punch, even if it results in such an injury. Now, if the guy had continued to pound her 4 or 5 times, you might have a point.

So when confronted by facts from someone who knows what they're talking about, you resort to insults. In other words, your argument is crap. Thanks for illustrating it so poignantly. It's like the watercolour of online cop-outs.

 

[MobBoss]

So when confronted by facts from someone who knows what they're talking about, you resort to insults. In other words, your argument is crap. Thanks for illustrating it so poignantly. It's like the watercolour of online cop-outs.

Where did I insult you?

I asked you a simple yes or no question. You gave me back an ambiguous answer. And I feel like you did that because although you have helped cops out in various ways, the truthful answer to my question was still 'no'.

I'm not a martial arts instructor, but I do have a lot of combatives training from my time in the Army, so it's not like I'm totally unfamiliar with the topic. I just simply don't agree with you on all your opinions.

 

[James Stuart]

Where did I insult you?

I asked you a simple yes or no question. You gave me back an ambiguous answer. And I feel like you did that because although you have helped cops out in various ways, the truthful answer to my question was still 'no'.

I'm not a martial arts instructor, but I do have a lot of combatives training from my time in the Army, so it's not like I'm totally unfamiliar with the topic. I just simply don't agree with you on all your opinions.

You implied the answer was "no" when I have put people in the back of cop cars. Including struggling people. Accusing me of lying is an insult. As is that "kick-ass guy" comment. In a discussion on physical altercations and being injured because one is caught off-guard, a discussion of the single hardest fight I've ever had in my life (outside of competition, where I've had my arse kicked far worse) gets a smartarse remark. If I wanted to look tough on the internet, I'd upload pictures of myself winning MMA fights to youtube.

 

[MobBoss]

You implied the answer was "no" when I have put people in the back of cop cars. Including struggling people.

Again, it was a simple yes or no answer. Your answer in itself was snarky when a simple yes would have sufficed, and in fact, your response still didn't answer the question.

Helping 'train' cops doesn't necessarily equate to actually putting a struggling person into a police car. You do realize that don't you?

Accusing me of lying is an insult.

I didn't accuse you of lying. I said you gave an insufficient answer (which is simply true) and in the absence of an positive answer, I choose to take it as a negative.

Don't want people to misinterpret your comments? Give simple answers to simple questions.

As is that "kick-ass guy" comment.

Not in the least. I was stating you present yourself as being competent in how you described your altercation with the drunk guy. It was rather overly descriptive, but hey, if that's how you see yourself, then ok. That's your business. But overcoming in that situation would indeed make you a 'kick ass guy' in just about anyone's viewpoint that's been in a fight light that.

It wasn't meant as an insult, and I find it kind of odd that you thought it was. Maybe you're being overly sensitive here?

In a discussion on physical altercations and being injured because one is caught off-guard, a discussion of the single hardest fight I've ever had in my life (outside of competition, where I've had my arse kicked far worse) gets a smartarse remark.

Couple of thoughts. One, try to develop a thicker skin when arguing with people on an anonymous internet discussion board. Two, it's not like you've given me the same courtesy when, in my professional field, I found and read the appropriate law regarding that Grand Jury argument we had. Yet you insisted you knew how to read the law better than I did, although I have about 30 years of legal professional background to call on. In fact, you did your best to say my interpretation of that rule incorrect.

I find your insistence on professional courtesy here rather hypocritical given how much crap you gave me over the Missouri Law issue when I absolutely found the correct rule concerning prosecution duties before a Grand Jury in Missouri.

If I wanted to look tough on the internet, I'd upload pictures of myself winning MMA fights to youtube.

Um...ok.

 

[James Stuart]

Again, it was a simple yes or no answer. Your answer in itself was snarky when a simple yes would have sufficed, and in fact, your response still didn't answer the question.

Helping 'train' cops doesn't necessarily equate to actually putting a struggling person into a police car. You do realize that don't you?



I didn't accuse you of lying. I said you gave an insufficient answer (which is simply true) and in the absence of an positive answer, I choose to take it as a negative.

Don't want people to misinterpret your comments? Give simple answers to simple questions.



Not in the least. I was stating you present yourself as being competent in how you described your altercation with the drunk guy. It was rather overly descriptive, but hey, if that's how you see yourself, then ok. That's your business. But overcoming in that situation would indeed make you a 'kick ass guy' in just about anyone's viewpoint that's been in a fight light that.

It wasn't meant as an insult, and I find it kind of odd that you thought it was. Maybe you're being overly sensitive here?



Couple of thoughts. One, try to develop a thicker skin when arguing with people on an anonymous internet discussion board. Two, it's not like you've given me the same courtesy when, in my professional field, I found and read the appropriate law regarding that Grand Jury argument we had. Yet you insisted you knew how to read the law better than I did, although I have about 30 years of legal professional background to call on. In fact, you did your best to say my interpretation of that rule incorrect.

I find your insistence on professional courtesy here rather hypocritical given how much crap you gave me over the Missouri Law issue when I absolutely found the correct rule concerning prosecution duties before a Grand Jury in Missouri.



Um...ok.

Ah, so you're chucking a hissy-fit over another thread in which you were unable to back up your argument. Ok then.

 

[MobBoss]

Ah, so you're chucking a hissy-fit over another thread in which you were unable to back up your argument. Ok then.

And see, this is what I am talking about.

You cry about insults and then say this. You demand to be treated a certain way and then simply refuse to reciprocate in kind. In fact, you throw your own 'hissy-fit' when you even think I'm being dismissive of your claimed profession and ability.

Thanks for proving my point for me. I stand by my comments given.

 

[JollyRoger]

And see, this is what I am talking about.

You cry about insults and then say this. You demand to be treated a certain way and then simply refuse to reciprocate in kind. In fact, you throw your own 'hissy-fit' when you even think I'm being dismissive of your claimed profession and ability.

Thanks for proving my point for me. I stand by my comments given.

Isn't your call for a thicker skin coupled with some thin-skinned complaining pretty much the same thing?

 

[MobBoss]

Isn't your call for a thicker skin coupled with some thin-skinned complaining pretty much the same thing?

Rofl, buddy I have elephant hide from dealing with you over the years and from being in the minority around here for as long as I have

 

[JollyRoger]

On the plus side, your legal research skills have apparently sharpened. You're welcome.

 

[James Stuart]

And see, this is what I am talking about.

You cry about insults and then say this. You demand to be treated a certain way and then simply refuse to reciprocate in kind. In fact, you throw your own 'hissy-fit' when you even think I'm being dismissive of your claimed profession and ability.

Thanks for proving my point for me. I stand by my comments given.

Absolutely nothing I said proves any point you made. For that matter, nothing you have said proves any of your points either. You simply insulted me in response to something that happened in another thread a coupls of weeks ago, then tried to backpedal while still throwing weak insults. Then you complain when I point out that it's a simple hissy-fit. After all, I never insulted you in that other thread.

 

[Smote]

Wasn't I just talking about how cops need to get their egos in check... you guys both need to too

From what I can see, MobBoss's interpretation of morality is heavily influenced by whats legal and what's not. This is likely a useful moral system in the line of work as a legal professional.
James (and me) have views that are more ordinary, I think.

My holocaust example from earlier shows why a moral system based on the law is flawed - it will always defend the laws as just, which means it basically loses any conception of what an unjust law is, unless it's a law that contradicts a different law (like the Constitution).

 

[MobBoss]

On the plus side, your legal research skills have apparently sharpened. You're welcome.

Why thank you! If anything, our discussions have made me do better research.

Absolutely nothing I said proves any point you made. For that matter, nothing you have said proves any of your points either. You simply insulted me in response to something that happened in another thread a coupls of weeks ago, then tried to backpedal while still throwing weak insults. Then you complain when I point out that it's a simple hissy-fit. After all, I never insulted you in that other thread.

Again, I didn't insult you. I even explained to you precisely the context of my comments, and the fact that you accused me of calling you a liar when I did no such thing.

And you are in error if you think my comments were 'payback' for something that happened regarding the Ferguson Grand Jury discussion. Nothing of the sort - I only brought that up after you insisted that I was insulting to your expertise as a martial arts instructor to remind you that you've done the same thing to me previously as a paralegal.

However, it appears you insist on feeling insulted. That is another matter entirely, and one I can't really do anything about.

Wasn't I just talking about how cops need to get their egos in check... you guys both need to too

From what I can see, MobBoss's interpretation of morality is heavily influenced by whats legal and what's not. This is likely a useful moral system in the line of work as a legal professional.
James (and me) have views that are more ordinary, I think.

My holocaust example from earlier shows why a moral system based on the law is flawed - it will always defend the laws as just, which means it basically loses any conception of what an unjust law is, unless it's a law that contradicts a different law (like the Constitution).

Police can engage in unlawful behavior and use excess force. However, if you begin the encounter by resisting arrest or even assaulting the officer first, the ability to make your case before a jury of your peers goes down by a huge percentage.

Although it hasn't been said here much yet, but in these cases where the cops are not punished/charged/etc. is to look for the ensuing civil suit and see if it were successful or not. Trust me, a cop that engages in behavior that costs a city money in such lawsuits will not remain a cop for very long. Too much liability for the city.

 

[Smote]

I'm coming to realize that the law favors police to an absolutely absurd degree. This lack of trials and lack of convictions isn't just due to jury bias and police cover ups - it's also due to many court rulings in favor of police, as well as this "qualified immunity."

Qualified immunity protects public officials from being sued for damages unless they violated “clearly established” law of which a reasonable official in his position would have known. It aims to protect civil servants from the fear of litigation in performing discretionary functions entrusted to them by law.

The qualified immunity test requires a two-part analysis: "(1) Was the law governing the official's conduct clearly established? (2) Under that law, could a reasonable officer have believed the conduct was lawful?" Government officials performing discretionary functions generally are shielded from liability for civil damages as long as as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.

A case:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justic...n-excessive-force-Supreme-Court-declines-case

A longer analysis of many cases:
http://www.antoniocasella.eu/nume/Sussman_taser_2012.pdf

Brooks v. City of Seattle
In November 2004, an officer pulled over Malaika Brooks, who was sevenmonths
pregnant, for driving 32 miles per hour in a 20-miles-per-hour school zone
while dropping her son off at Seattle’s African American Academy. The officer
gave Brooks a notice of infraction, which she agreed to accept but refused to sign,
objecting that she had not been speeding and, when a second officer arrived, doubting
his assertion that signing was not an admission of guilt. After “exchang[ing] heated
words,” the officer lied to Brooks by saying that if she did not sign the notice, “she would go to jail.”
A third officer then arrived and told Brooks she was under arrest.

When she asked why, the officer did not respond. Instead, the officer unholstered
his taser and asked Brooks if she knew what it was. After replying that she did
not, Brooks told the officers that she needed to use the restroom, adding, “I’m less
than 60 days from having my baby.” The three male officers ignored Brooks’s
request to use the bathroom (which obviously would have served their goal of her
exiting the car) and instead discussed how to go about tasing her. “All the while,
[the officer holding the taser] appeared to be very agitated and continued yelling
at Brooks . . . . This frightened her.”

After Brooks stated she did not know what the taser was, one officer opened
the car door, removed the keys from the ignition and dropped them on the car floor,
and grabbed Brooks’s arm, twisting it behind her back while another officer sparked
his taser as a demonstration. Brooks “stiffened her body” and, with her free hand,
“clutched the steering wheel,” frustrating the officer’s attempt to remove her.

The officer continued to twist Brooks’s arm behind her back while the other
officer, twenty-seven seconds after demonstrating the taser, deployed it in drivestun
mode against her thigh. In the span of forty-two seconds, the officers tased
Brooks in her thigh, arm, and, most dangerously, neck, during which time Brooks
cried, screamed in pain, and banged her hand against the car horn. After the third
tase, Brooks slumped over in her car. The officers “dragged her out” of the car and
on to the ground, laying Brooks on her stomach and “handcuffing her hands
behind her back.” As a result of the encounter, Brooks suffered “extreme pain,”
“permanent burn scars,” a “rapid heartbeat” that concerned the examining doctor
later that day, and, “in all likelihood, emotional pain.”

The district court denied defendant officers summary judgment, but the Ninth
Circuit panel reversed, finding that there was no Fourth Amendment violation
and stating that the force used, because the taser was deployed in drive-stun mode,
not dart mode as in Bryan, was “less than . . . intermediate.” The appellate panel
was dismissive of Brooks’s injuries, stating that tasers in drive-stun mode cause
“temporary, localized pain only,” mentioning Brooks’s permanent scarring only to
deem her injuries “far less serious” than those suffered by Carl Bryan,and ignoring
the question of how her pregnancy factors into the reasonableness analysis of taser
use. In its Graham analysis, the panel further displayed many of the pro-defendant
biases discussed in Part II, several of which were ameliorated in the en banc opinion
but reemphasized in the en banc dissent, as discussed below in Part IV.B.

[In August 2006, a physical altercation occurred between Jayzel Mattos and
her husband, Troy, during which Jayzel asked their daughter to call the police.
By the time four officers arrived at the Mattos’s home, the altercation was over.
Troy, who was sitting outside, complied with the officers’ request to have Jayzel
come to the door to make sure she was safe. One of the officers waited until
Troy had walked into the house to find Jayzel and then stepped inside. When Troy
returned with Jayzel and saw this, he demanded that the officer leave his house, as
Jayzel had agreed to speak with the officers outside. Though Jayzel also
repeatedly asked the officers to “leave the house[] and not disturb her [sleeping]
children[,]” another officer stepped into the house to arrest Troy, “bump[ing] against
Jayzel” who stood between them. Jayzel felt “uncomfortable and exposed” and
“raised her hands, palms forward at her chest, to ‘keep [the officer] from flushing
his body against [hers].’” In response, an officer shot his taser in dart mode at
Jayzel’s hand, causing what she described as “an incredible burning and painful
feeling locking all of [her] joints.” (The original Ninth Circuit panel failed to
ascertain what the use of force was and weighed the effects of “a Taser in the drive
stun mode,” not dart mode).

The district court denied defendants summary judgment on qualified immunity
grounds; the Ninth Circuit appellate panel reversed, holding that the use of force
was objectively reasonable. Significantly, the court reached this Graham conclusion
about the quality and nature of the intrusion versus the governmental interest
while declaring it “difficult . . . to opine with confidence regarding either the quantum
of force involved in a deployment of a Taser gun or the type of force inflicted,”
as the plaintiffs had “not offered any evidence about the kind of force or injury a Taser
inflicts.” The court did not consider Jayzel’s testimony that the tasing was “incredibly
painful” and similar to childbirth as constituting such evidence. As elaborated
in Part IV, the Ninth Circuit’s original Mattos opinion in particular demonstrates
why, in cases involving new police weapons technology like tasers, the Ninth Circuit
should take the approach it has taken in cases involving new police search technology
in order to fulfill the requirements of Graham.

A police officer who injures someone severely and unreasonably
with a new type of weapon will virtually never be held liable if courts
interpret al-Kidd to compel finding it reasonable for the officer to not understand
that his force was unreasonable. This is clearly demonstrated in the Mattos v.
Agarano/Brooks v. City of Seattle en banc opinion in which Judge Schroeder
writes in her concurrence:

One could argue that the use of painful, permanently scarring weaponry
on non-threatening individuals, who were not trying to escape, should
have been known to be excessive by any informed police officer under
the long established standards of Graham. . . . Nevertheless, the Supreme
Court’s opinion in al-Kidd appears to require us to hold that because
there was no established case law recognizing taser use as excessive in
similar circumstances, immunity is required.

 

[Smote]

Officer harassed for arresting another officer:

http://jonathanturley.org/2014/08/1...ficer-driving-120-mph-on-way-to-off-duty-job/

 

[Smote]

Beat the unconscious man: Reinstated

http://www.copblock.org/2766/birmin...an-while-he-was-unconscious-to-be-reinstated/