Hang on, innocent deaths at the hands of thugs in uniform are the price we pay for orderly society? That is almost the exact excuse Goering used to disregard civilian deaths during the Night of the Long Knives.
Yes, because that is exactly the context that I was speaking to.
This sounds all fair and good; until, despite you obeying all instructions, a cop starts stomping on the back of your head, or they pull a gun on you and start yelling, or they drop their knee into the back of your neck while you're handcuffed on the ground. These are all things I have seen on Cops, by the way, which means they are apparently considered acceptable behaviour from American police officers, or they wouldn't do it with television cameras to hand.
In the vast overwhelming majority of cases, if you follow a cops instructions, the worst that is going to happen to you is that you go to jail for a night. If a mistake has been made, this will often NOT occur. A supervisor on scene will release you or you will be released from jail after a few hours by a judge or supervisor there.
I wonder if you'll bother reading
this?
I won't. Videos are at least somewhat credible. Wikipedia is not a peer reviewed, academic resource. I didn't watch the video because I was well aware before hand that the poster chose an extreme case to attempt to prove a point, which is completely irrelevant to what I have been saying all along.
BOTTOM LINE
There have been a lot of you that seem to want to be intentionally obtuse in order to try and win an argument. If that is the case, then bugger off.
For those that genuinely misunderstand: When I said you should obey the orders of the police, I have clearly and repeatedly stated that I am talking about cases where you feel that the stop is unfair or you have been otherwise mistreated, not cases in which the cop is beating you for no reason. This is a similar situation to what appears to have occurred with Mike Brown, with the exception that he clearly did do something wrong. I have clearly stated that the aim of what I have been saying is to prevent escalation and violence from occurring in the first place by moderating your actions and cooperating, and then pressing your case later, the proper way.
Common sense should prevail, and if you're being beaten senselessly or if the cop is attempting to kill you, I think we can dispense with the rules and slip into survival mode. In the very small fraction of cases where this actually occurs, feel free to disregard my recommendations. In the 99.9 percent of cases where the cop is giving you reasonable instructions, whether you did something wrong or not, simply follow those instructions. If you resist and initiate violent resistance, you WILL catch a beating and rightfully so. If you assault a cop, you risk death, and rightfully so.
Some of you seem to want to argue that because a very small fraction of police encounters end with police abuse, that it gives you the right to resist arrest and assault police officers, if you think you are being treated unfairly. It does not. The police have a dangerous, difficult, and stressful job to do. Follow their (reasonable) instructions, go to jail, if necessary, and pursue redress through the proper channels. If you attack a cop, I support the cop's right to use force to subdue you. You are the same as those trying to argue that we shouldn't wear seat belts because they end up contributing to your death in 0.00000000001% of cases.
That's a 10-25 turkey, now when it doesn't move very much, imagine trying to get any movement out of a 300 lb person.
