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Here’s a pro/tip: Don’t believe ANYTHING you read in the craprag that is Vice.com. It’s a cesspool of liberal stupidity.

She wasn’t ‘picking flowers on the side of the road. She was shopping at Walmart. What kind of shopping? The LIFTING kind. A Walmart employee confronted her about the items she took, she ‘got physical’ and the store called the police. The police found her walking on the side of the road and made several attempts to get her to stop by - as he says - ‘lighting her up.’ She doesn’t stop, so he gets out and again tells her to stop, which she doesn’t do. So, quite correctly, he’s had enough and arrests her.

That’s how enforcing laws works. Old people don’t get to shoplift. Ladies don’t get to shoplift. Dementia patients don’t get shoplift.

That’s how enforcing laws works.

Human nature being what it is, the law cannot extend to good officers the discretion to do their job effectively, without extending to bad officers the ability to act oppressively. So perhaps in a country with no jury system the judge, or three judge panel, who hear criminal cases all the time, can refrain from considering the thuggish stupidity of officer A, when hearing cases that turn on the testimony of officers B, C or D.

But civilians tend to have far less exposure to LEOs, and to be unfamiliar with the arresting officer(s) the once or twice in a lifetime they serve on a jury. That makes their general opinion of LEOs very important in criminal cases. The local DA, back in the 60s, used to give a talk to LEOs about once a year, that ended: Men (they were all men then) you win, or lose, jury trials every day you on the job, by the way you treat the public. If the jurors of this county show up to court believing you to be fair and honest there will be very little the defense attorney can do to change their minds during the course of the trial. And if they show up believing you not to be fair and honest, there will be very little I can do to change their minds during the course of the trial.

Whether or not this cop's behavior is held to be tortious, it was morally wrong from a purely human point of view, and profoundly stupid from a pro law enforcement point of view.