Posted on 10/01/2012 3:31:28 PM PDT by Altariel
This is the shocking moment a police sergeant punched a young woman in the face because he thought she sprayed silly string at him during a peaceful parade.
The video was recorded during yesterday's 50th anniversary Puerto Rican Day parade in Philadelphia - where around 1,500 people were in attendance.
The 36-second clip shows a number of people milling around enjoying the festivities in the 'City of Brotherly Love'.
From the left-hand side, someone can be seen throwing an unidentified liquid towards a group of police officers.
At the same time, a young woman is walking past - who also gets hit by the liquid.
As she turns around to see where it came from, a police officer in a white shirt - which means he has acquired the rank of sergeant - comes towards the woman and delivers a brutal punch to her face, knocking her to the ground.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I'm going to take a break from berating the cop to address this: YES THERE ARE circumstances where taking a swing at a woman is justifiable, such as when she initiates a violent assault. As to whether a particular response is justified, my standard of judgement is: if a man of the same size and strength did the act, what would my justified response be?
She "said" something. Not "she DID something", but she "said" something that justifies a large cop busting her in the mouth over it?
For me, the justification for decking her for SAYING something would have to meet a high standard of threat. If she was saying "Come on people! Let's rush these pigs!", then that would be one thing, where failing to terminate her agitation immediately would have lead to violence.
On the other hand, if all that happened was she called the cop a "[n-word] pig" or something else personally insulting, then he would have no more right to punch her out over it than a non-cop would.
Cops are city employees doing a job. They are not the nobility. They are not samurai with the right to cut off the heads of uppity peasants. They need to remember that.
We get it. You've had a few run-ins with the law. Had your meth lab raided? Your drug dealing business hindered by the "war on drugs?"
Every person that I know who has this attitude toward the police is basically a scum who thinks he has the right to flout the law, kind of like this administration. They are the "libertarians" who think they can drive 80 mph, weaving in and out of rush-hour traffic, because they are above it all.
Initially I was on her side until I watched the tape for the 17th time.
What she said angered the police not what was thrown. She was taunting the police. That's what got them to turn to her.
She could have been the most hateful, rotten, agitator ever but when the officer went after her— she was not running and her back was to him.
Right. She was trying to run away after the Lt probably told her to "come here" or "stay there". Her body language says "screw you" as she turns her back to him to flee. That's called resisting a lawful order or resisting arrest. That's when he catches up to her and punches her. She was not some innocent damsel as this thread alleged to begin with.
he still was wrong in punching her. He didn’t need to.
The minute she says "screw you" and turns to flee after defying a lawful police order to stand still or come here, a whole new set of options open up to the police. A punch to her pie hole to keep her from fleeing is better than a lot of others.
A more legitimate police response, and scale of escalation, would have been:
1) Give her an order to leave the area immediately.If I was standing there, and an officer, without justification, had punched my wife, girlfriend, or daughter, then I GUARANTEE to you, that you would have a much bigger situation to deal with than you did before.2) If she does not immediately comply, then grab her by the arm, say "You are under arrest", and take her away.
3) IF SHE RESISTS ARREST by attempting to break free or trying to assault the officer, THEN he can legitimately use force in order to subdue her.
I know that I have the common sense to tell when a police officer has done us proud.
This aint it. This is the opposite pole, from it.
The cop didn’t kill anybody, and the woman’s going to recover. Recover physically, and also going to recover cash money...IMO she’d win this court case in any state in the land, and rightly so.
But, what may or may not recover, is what standard this sets in what we expect from LEO’s in general. If we took the post of this thread as a slice of the greater public opinion, then there must be a sizable fraction of the countries population that thinks 250# of police officer can assault 110# of citizen, when that citizen is committing no crime, and the fact that citizen is a woman, not only doesn’t help her, in this court of opinion, I think it hurts her. I don’t think I would have seen half of the incredibly prejudicial comments and fantastic interpretations of her behavior, if it’d been a 250# cop knocking out a 110# man... bearing in mind, a male 110# would not be a man, that would be a boy still in elementary school. If this had been male on male violence, with an attacker double the victim’s size, I don’t think the fact that the person committing the assault had a badge would carry as much weight... it would just be a matter of right and wrong, and what was right would be more clear.
Somehow the fact that the victim is a woman, is bringing these bizarre interpretations of her behavior, “she wasn’t walking right”, “she wasn’t talking right”, “she was hopping on her feet”, “she looked agitated, therefore she’s an agitator” (that progression of logic was strange), all the way to claiming that there was some huge all enveloping conspiracy to frame this police officer, and that this woman was some kind of Puerto Rican Mata Hari who somehow machinated the incident and faked her injuries in a deep ploy to influence the upcoming elections??
I have never seen grown men jump through so many hoops, and present so many bizarre excuses that would not only exonerate this beast with a badge, but to somehow formulate an alternate reality where a cop asserting his dominance by beating down a defenseless woman is, in their little private worlds, a hero. Someone they look up to, someone they even envy, someone who is finally addressing what they hold in their hearts to be a long hidden grievance or wrong.
I think what lies at the center of this big dance around the truth, these twists of semantics, jack-in-the-box theories and clairvoyant interpretations from armchair swamis, is this: The fact that this woman is innocent of any crime, doesn’t even weigh in their thinking. They put an ounce on the scale on the side of this police officer, simply because he’s a police officer. They put a pound on the scale, on the side of this police officer, because a woman shouldn’t have been where she was, she shouldn’t walk like she walked, and possibly, she shouldn’t have talked like she talked. To put it in one simple term that everyone understands, they saw her as being “uppity”. And every insecure man who viewed this clip, saw a “man” finally take an “uppity” woman under control, in a way that they’ve always wished they could do, but are afraid to. Finally these little women-fearing men get some pay back... this woman beating cop has addressed some inner scale of justice in their tiny little hearts, and that’s why he’s a hero, and why they’re willing to imagine that the sky is green, and the sun rises in the west, in order to make him one. Because if he’s not a hero, but a bully and a coward, then so are they.
And until someone comes up with some hard evidence that she’s a mastermind from the Puerto Rican Al Quaeda faking a beatdown at a family event in some byzantine plot to take control of the elections, I’m seeing the statements on this board as revealing what’s in the hearts of some men, rather than what actually happened at this parade. And that’s the name of that tune.
I’m concerned about the standard we’re teaching the next generation to expect from their peace officers...I sympathize with, and as a man, apologize to the women who are wondering what happened to the men in this country.
Then it became clear that she taunted the police until the LT told her to come here or stand there because you are under arrest.
She says screw you and turns to flee. That is against the law. She disobeyed a lawful order and tried to flee to avoid arrest when he punched her and subdued her.
Whether that punch was over the top depends upon whether the officer thought that she was so out of control and defiant that he was going to have to wrestle with her to get the handcuffs on her. She was clearly not in a cooperative mood which when it arises gives police greater leeway in their actions. It could have been worse for her.
That is my take after watching it for the 18th time.
If that were my wife or sister or daughter I would hate to be her husband or brother or father.
> So if I see you punch my wife, I can react by putting a
> bullet through your head?
Actually, yes, on that question. A punch can be, and often is, “lethal level” force.
Variables to this would include how quickly you shot the attacker after the punch, the severity of the punch, from your wife’s point of view—not the punchers, whether it was in context of an argument or a random attack, and importantly (in this case), if your wife had provoked the punch by attacking first, etc.
According to the FBI (which confuses things a bit by combining the statistics), “Fists and feet were responsible for 745 murders in 2010, or 5.7 percent of all murders that year.”
So yes, under many circumstances it would be appropriate to shoot someone who had punched your wife. That you shot them in the head doesn’t really matter, except on an emotional level.
Get over yourself.
Women are not above the law -- especially women mouthing off at police officers trying to do their jobs and then fleeing to resist arrest.
Go take your pathetically patronizing "War on Women" meme somewhere else where it's not so obvious.
Even if assaulted, the proper response is a rush and tackle, by many officers at once, then cuff and confine in car. Punches are out.
Also: The fact that only one officer reacts, with so many nearby, gives lie to the conjecture that this officer was assaulted.
I blame part of the problem of current officer behavior on the unions. There are officers on the force who should NOT be on the force, who just don't have the temperment to be a police officer.
I also blame the EEOC for there being people in the police force who have no business having been hired.
I also think that the bad attitudes on the part of the police are being encouraged by left-wing union reps and by Democrat managers who are setting up the police for an incident. This happened in Philadelphia, a city in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania currently has about 5% of the population having CCW. Cops really should not gratuitously punch women in the mouth, in front of a crowd where 5-10% of the people are likely to be legally armed.
Inability to accept reality is a liberal characteristic.
I'm not taking anything anywhere, because you don't have the balls to bring it, at any time. If you had the purely theoretical balls to bring it, zip code 32208 is the location you would bring it to. And you would bring it on youtube, so everyone can see this excuse of a man that excuses this behavior towards women. I guarantee I'll greet you with empty hands.
Right now I'm going to go do 5 miles in neighborhoods you wouldn't show your face in, in a car... and try to burn the stench of your online acquaintance out of my short term memory. Type something manly, while I'm gone.
If anyone knows how to turn fight club into an FR fundraiser, I'm up for it.
You referring to me???
What, you go x-ray vision??? You could see thru her head???
The cops arm was not in a position to hit her with his fist...More than likely his hand WAS closed when he hit her since he went to a lot of trouble looking at his open hand as the other cops came up...
She definitely did not get a full fist shot...
AND, he pulled his punch as can be seen in the video...A guy his size could have laid her out on her back where she would have had to have been carried away...
The only clowns are the ones who can watch the video and not see what is going on...
So you have been here a month and you already want to start a fight club???
Hating cops, law and order is a liberal characteristic. Wear it.
And the reality is, after watching the video enough times, that she was taunting the cops on the scene and given a lawful order by the cop in charge to come over to him or stand still which she defied by turning to flee the other way. She thought that she was above the law and found out otherwise what can transpire when you taunt the police and then flee when they come to arrest you.
I am not a scum, I am a respectable member of society. Work in a hospital and see how the police treat people who come in for mental health issues and the dui’s I know they broke the law but treat people like they are human. I saw my step father get beaten by 3 cops because he parked the car the wrong way on our street. As a teen we were always getting harrassed by the Police for just hanging out. I had a cop almost choke me out when their was a fight at a party and I had not done anything except for show concern about my friend who had gotten motor cycle forks to the back of his head. Cops are ten times worst now. Now they just shoot your dog or kill you in your home.
Wow, your screen name fits you.
Seek help.
And find a fascist website to participate in. You do not belong here.
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