Wow, this really worked out well. Last week I decided to let all of you comment on a video before I did. The response was wonderful: Lots of different opinions, and all well articulated. As promised, here is my take:
1. I never judge a video on its face. Never. I don’t care how good it looks, there could be some misconduct there. I don’t care how bad it looks, there are things we might not know.
2. Based only on the video, there are some good things and some bad things about the deputies’ actions.
GOOD: It seems like she kicked one shoe at them. No need to take a second one, so some sort of ballistic take down is probably okay.
ALSO GOOD: It seems like she is not compliant on the ground, so as bad as they look, the punches might be in policy in many large police agencies.
BAD: I have never understood picking someone up by the hair. If she is non-compliant there are wonderful techniques to do so. If she is violent, leave her on the floor for goodness sake. No reason for that, except anger and loss of temper.
ALSO BAD: I am not a custody expert, but have worked a bit in that environment. If, as the news said, this is a Sheriff’s department, I am guessing there were more deputies not that far away. Why not wait for help and do a proper “team” takedown and securing of this suspect? I know I always try and separate the officer who is angry from the suspect and let others deal with him or her.
So, while it is human nature to lose it once and a while, this was not a great video for the police. Take the suspect down for kicking the shoe (to protect from another such kick) and then cuff her. Call for backup once she is cuffed, and then have a new team lift her up.
Again, this is making a multitude of assumptions, such as the availability of backup, my guessing what preceded the video, etc.
Overall the most important thing is to remember never to judge completely based on what you see in one video clip. It simply cannot tell the whole story.
I strongly agree with your first point, never to judge a video at face value. I recall one video in particular shown on TV news about a woman being taken out of her vehicle via Tazer. The TV version looked for all the world like the worst kind of abuse, but if you found the entire video on the Internet and watched it a much, much different picture was painted. The woman was a criminal who didn’t want to be arrested, and so was practicing a combination of passive aggression and authoritative dismissal. She belonged in jail.
The kicking of the shoe is non-harmful. The girl kicked a tennis shoe, which is an act of adolescent defiance and anger. So she kicked one – big deal, let her kick the other one and shut the door. She’ll stew in her own juice for a while and tomorrow she can tell the whole thing to the judge.
Ignoring any extenuating circumstances to explain this, I still think the officer’s attack was unjustified.
I’d have to agree with Mad Jack. Could the officer try to justify his response based on her actions? Sure, using some technicalities. In my state her actions would technically be an aggravated assault. But so what.
There comes a point where common sense and calmer minds have to prevail. Reasonable and necessary. It doesn’t appear to be either at face value.