Worth repeating.
I wonder if you would indulge a brief digression though.
Back in the day, when I was coming up, I might have been out after closing time once or twice. But one thing that never entered my mind was to loundly offer my advice/opinion on an officer's handcuffing technique, ancestry, or personal hygene while he was dealing with another unruly drunk. No one did, because you would have expected to have your @ss handed to you, and everyone present would have figured you had it coming.
Was that just here in LA? I don't think so, but maybe it was all wine and roses outside of the land of the Lotus Eaters. Post Rodney King, that's all changed, probably for the better. But the notion that the cops have gotten more likely to give a guy a "tune up", rather than less likely to be "proactive", runs counter to my personal recollection of past vs. present policing use of force standards. I realize this wasn't the issue you raised, but I'm curious, and it's impossible to have this discussion with the Libertarians for some reason, so I figured I'd just ask you what you thought.
IMO, it always depended on the circumstances.
You never get close to an officer that is involved in something like this as if you are going to intervene.
If the officer is doing something you think is wrong, and you are at a reasoned safe distance, I don’t see a problem with voicing a plea to stick to reasonable force.
If you’re up on the sidewalk and you are not insighting the crowd to rush the officers or some such, it would seem that you are within your rights to voice concerns.
You don’t say, “Hey you assholes, quit screwing with this guy.” You should be able to say, “Officers, this is generally a good person, please take it easy.”
The behavior of the first suspect may have set the officers off. I don’t know that. The actions of that one officer taking down the son with the phone was unfortunate, because ultimately that officer is going to lose his job. I do think he’ll do prison time for it too.
This was assault under color of authority. It doesn’t sit well with most sane people.