“Do you or don’t you consider someone who had just taken police on a 100+ mph chase a serious physical threat ? “
He was down on the ground and NOT resisting. In fact he was complying with the police requests.
Okay, how about answering that question?
And don't tell me you think his character and outlook on life miraculously changed once he decided to surrender, and what happened before just didn't matter.
Once again, they needed to physically apprehend him, and there was no guarantee after such a chase that he would comply.
His actions, from his police record - which they likely got an idea of during the chase - and the chase itself, show him to be "antisocial." (I don't agree with psychology in many ways as it conflicts with Christian truths, but do believe there are partial truths in it, including, in a way, that people can be "antisocial").
So his surrender would have been self-serving and antisocial, too. The police had every reason to believe that he might at any time resume resisting them or trying to flee. And it can be so easy, if you're simply not fighting back, to be taken in by a docile act.
Also, the police deal all the time with those who not only criminal, but disturbed or on drugs, or any combination of the three.
Now, I've dealt with many such people, mostly in a more limited way, but including and not limited to at a restaurant I work at, which is frequented by many homeless people, some of whom are criminal, and some not.
In one case, there's a man banned from the restaurant because he was sitting there one day when he suddenly stood up, took his hot coffee, and threw it on the people sitting next to him. He is disturbed and still tries to get in, though, but he always just docilely leaves when told to. He's been so docile that I had a hard time believing that people were correctly identifying the same guy that had supposedly done this, though, until one day recently.
Lately he'd be talking sort of angrily, and he wouldn't leave the property. The police were called, but one officer just incidentally showed up before they got there and bought him some food, handed it to him, and left.
He'd apparently acted normally enough to the officer, and asked for food, that the officer thought nothing amiss other than that he was homeless and hungry, while we had just called police for how he was acting and talking. Then the officer went out the door, and the man looks at his bag of food, and angrily whips it to the ground. Then he takes a piece of the food on the floor, sits down and starts eating it. After a minute I threw out his bag that had the rest of the food, in order to clean up the mess and thinking his gesture meant he didn't want the rest, but he started angrily asking where his food was. I retrieved the bag from the garbage and set it on the floor, and he came and got it and ate the rest of the food. Then he eventually left when the police got there. They persuaded him to go.
The thing is, many people can be very unpredictable, and someone who leads police on a chase like that is a prime candidate. You can't begin to guess what is going through that person's mind, especially when they are also willing to assault others. The police know that a great many of the people they deal with are like that. They deal with unpredictable people, both hardened criminal and not, all the time.
“Once again, they needed to physically apprehend him, and there was no guarantee after such a chase that he would comply.”
He was complying. He was face down on the ground with his hands behind him.
“The thing is, many people can be very unpredictable, and someone who leads police on a chase like that is a prime candidate.”
Then maybe they should have just shot him?
“The police had every reason to believe that he might at any time resume resisting them or trying to flee. “
So anytime the cops think a person may resist or flee, they should beat him up first?