You got things like Live PD which lives up rather well to the tagline ‘America’s Ride Along’ where you get to see many well trained officers who do what people expect them to do, sometimes butting up against some incredibly obnoxious people.
You’ve got hundreds of hours of live broadcast that show how officers are supposed to act. And then you get 30 seconds videos showing an officer doing something which would have gotten any non-officer arrested and put in jail. And it’s justified because the guy didn’t completely follow orders.
Mind you, I blame the guy for not following orders just as much. Don’t be stupid, just follow directions to the best of your ability, and hold flippin’ still. And of course, we’re only seeing part of the situation, not what happened moments before, what the call was, etc.
Officers need community support, they need people to not just pick up their cell phones and video, but telling their fellows to just hold still, comply with orders, things can get figured out. That’s not going to happen with videos like this.
“not what happened moments before, what the call was, etc”
No context whatsoever to this video. The cop wanted him to put his legs straight, not a comfortable position with knees bent. An easier position to get up and run, or attack from. I don’t know what he was being accused of or if it was warranted. The cop could have shocked him a lot more than what he did though
I watch live PD regularly. Most cops are reasonable. Many bend over backwards to de-escalate conflict and accommodate unreasonable people.
That said, even on live PD I see a lot of bad policing, over-reacting and police CAUSING problems. I see police with inflated egos who go ballistic and escalate immediately when people don’t instantly comply with their orders or give them any backtalk at all. Not common, but not rare either.
Their are plenty of bad cops out there. Even on live PD.