RickR says:

There are several versions of this clip floating around, one with his head punches editted out, one with the lead in hallway camera video. All & all, this thug with a badge should go away & out of law enforcement.

Mat says:

Sorry, but I’m going to have to be the dissenter here. I have several reasons for this.

First, this is only a small segment of the video. It’s hardly surprising that the drive-by media will take the most dramatic part and show it (gee, where has this happened before?). Given the role of the media lately, I’m simply not going to buy this lock, stock and barrel (although from the post itself and responses, people have already).

Secondly, the girl clearly started it. It’s just good common sense that you don’t mouth off to a cop…ever. Oh, I suppose you could use your First Amendment rights and so forth, but you, the individual, is responsible for what happens afterwards. It kinda goes back to that personal responsibility thing that we conservatives always talk about but then eschew for silly emotional reasons. This is one such case.

Thirdly, yeah cops can be assholes, but can you really blame them? Cripes, watch an episode of Cops and look at the sewage they have to deal with. Talk about a shit job. I’m usually surprised that they don’t do worse than they actually do given all the crap they put up with. It’s a high intensity job (with the added bonus of being potentially injured or killed) so nerves are on edge. It’s real easy to beat up on these guys in the comfort of your own home.

Given those three factors, I’ll side with the cops and be the dissenting unfeeling jerk, thanks…

Shaniquequa says:

I think this is wrong. I actually know the girl personally and she didn’t deserve this. She’s a really nice girl and yeah she did something stupid to get arrested. I’m not gonna disagree with that but no cop has a right to beat up on a tiny 15-year-old old. I don’t even care if she was running her mouth, a grown man should know how to deal with it in a professional manner.

Kerry says:

Dear Mat,
How dare you. No matter what the media got their hands on, there is absolutely no reason for this to happen. None. Do you really think the punishment fits the crime? She borrowed her grandmothers car without permission which of course deserves serious punishment. She’s a teenager! Yeah she mouths off! That’s what teenagers do. They have very little respect for their elders, especially the law. I’m sure you don’t have any children, definately not a girl, because if you did, you would want to rip this officers balls off, shove them down his throat, and then lift him by his hair until he regurgitates them back onto the other officer who clearly had no problem with this happening. He deserves to be in jail. This is the problem with your precious johnny law, they have too much power. And you have no business saying she deserved it, you don’t know her, therefore have no idea what she deserves. Take your pathetic conservative interests elsewhere.

Mat says:

Ok, there are a lot of assumptions in your argument, and a whole lot of he said/she said going on. I’m asking for facts and you have given absolutely none other than hearsay. No, I’m not from Seattle, but I can tell you that the cops that are in my city do not act that way because they’d be fired in a heartbeat. If you’re getting harrassed as much as you claim, then maybe you should hire a lawyer to deal with it. Once again, I’ve heard enough of these “stories” and then find out later on that 95-100% of it is total bullshit.

Am I saying that all cops are perfect? No, because there are bad apples in every bunch. But to say an entire police force is like that is absurd to say the least.

My point stands: if you’re going to mouth off to a cop, then expect consequences for those actions.

Mat says:

The BS is in the fact that I see 30 seconds of videotape. I don’t see what happened before or after and I don’t even see why she was arrested in the first place. That’s what I call facts.

You’re telling me that you couldn’t raise an outcry about this? Sorry, but if a cop pulled even a tenth of what you claim, the guy would be off the force in a minute.

Your basic attitude describes the problem in a nutshell. All the people you hang around call cops pigs. Ok, let’s look at it from the perspective of the cop, since it’s obvious that you have done nothing from the sort.

You’re a cop patrolling what I can only assume is a dangerous neighborhood. You’re surrounded by hostile people who are probably armed. I’d also be willing to bet that some of your friends are packing, am I right? How would your attitude be? It’s not the just the words that the cop is concerned about but the threat behind the words. It’s akin to a soldier walking into a warzone. If I were the cop, I’d be constantly on guard, so I can totally understand that.

My guess is that the guy is on charges because the public in Seattle has been worked up into a frenzy over this (which is precisely what the media wanted by showing this). If the guy didn’t go to court, you’d have riots a la Rodney King. Someone has to be the sacrificial lamb in all this and my guess is that this guy will be it. So we have mob rule in Seattle. Awesome.

Ok, it’s obvious that you hate cops and my guess is that you probably equate cops as “whiteys” which also equals bad. Am I right?

This is something that really annoys me. People expect the police to help them out in troubled situations, but then treat them like shit the rest of the time. Then they wonder why cops act the way they do. It’s a dangerous job that they do and it’s probably one of the more stressful things to do. Your attitude doesn’t really help matters. Sounds like you’ll make a model citizen later on in life.

Shaniquequa says:

Mat,

First off I live in Seattle. We don’t have dangerous neighborhoods. Just poor ones. There’s a BIG difference between poor and dangerous. And none of my friends carry weapons. We all are kinda like hippies. We don’t start fights, we don’t carry guns or knives, we don’t cause trouble. Police cause trouble with us by profiling. And for to stereotype me proves ignornace. I’m not against whitey at all. I go to a mostly white school, I live in Seattle that is mostly white, and I’m half white. And I have friends of different races. And if you must know I’ve had an equal amount of trouble from black AND white cops. So you don’t need to jump to assumptions about me.

It’s assumptions like yours which is why cops stereotype us who are poor and treat us like shit. Just recently my friend’s cousin got shot walking down the street and the police won’t even solve the murder because they feel he was a gang member which he wasn’t. My friend’s cousin was a inspiring producer and he was always trying to increase peace in high schools and neighborhoods. He was very passionate about non-violence but all the police saw was a black man who was living in a poor area. So they said he was involved with gang violence (even on the news they said that) and they just refused to help my friend and her family with the murder.

I don’t hate cops. I hate fucked up cops. I have met a couple cops that actually do what their job says but many of them became cops for asshole reasons. Plus I don’t hate “whitey” either. I actually love whitey. White guys are the best and plus if I hated white people, wouldn’t that mean I hate myself since I look more white than black to begin with. But I didn’t wake up and decide I hated cops. After being hit on, checked out, and harrased a number of times, it’s hard to still have hope for them.

Kerry says:

My dearest Mat,
Of course I don’t want to live in a society where no one cares about the law. But I also don’t want to live in a society where the law doesn’t care about us. I realize that there are good cops out there who actually respect the badge they wear and understand the meaning behind it. I also know that there are really bad, ugly dirty cops who beat up on people because they feel that the badge they don actually allows it. It’s like mentally unstable assholes who go into the military for the sole purpose of killing people.
You have to understand how ridiculously racist, not to mention sexist, you sound. “She clearly started it” is NOT A PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE REASON FOR BEATING UP ANYBODY, let alone a 15 year old girl. The police should have issued a female officer to handle the young girl in the first place, not 2 large men. It’s a sensitive issue and your precious perfect Seattle PD should have handled it better from the start. And look at you, HYPOCRITE, who is fighting with another 15 year old girl. How does this make you feel? Because from where I sit, you’re nothing but a dickless pussy who doesn’t have children not because of our crazy society, but because you have clearly ran off every potential relationship you have ever had in your life. You are a disgraceful human being.

Shaniquequa says:

First off Mat, this is the only friend I’ve had that has been arrested and it was for something most teenagers get in trouble with since who knows how long. Doesn’t mean she’s a bad person. You can’t tell me as a teenager, you didn’t do something stupid.

I’m 17 and I can look back on many of the dumb things I did. Like shoplifting, drinking, and experimenting with drugs. Does that not make me a bad person? No it makes me someone that has done dumb stuff and has learned from it and I’m pretty sure my friend has learned from this to avoid getting arrested again. Still doesn’t mean she deserved to get hit.

And it’s funny you judge my neighborhood because you don’t know much about it or where it really is now do you. There’s two high schools in that neighborhood and you know what that means? School battles which means fighting. It doesn’t necessarilly have to be gun violence. High schoolers fight and that’s what he was trying to stop. And my cousins family TRIED to cooperate. They said they would participate but the cop turned them away anyways.

And I don’t know what bubble of the world you live in but people get shot in neighborhoods all the time. It happens. It’s not like Seattle is a thug area, we’re not Central LA. Even in the rich mostly white neighborhoods in the Washington area and almost any other state I could think of, people get shot, kidnapped, raped, etc. Stuff happens and it can happen anywhere to anyone. It’s minds like yours that believe that bad things can’t happen to privledged people when in fact, it happens equally to them. Me for example, I’ve been living in poor neighborhoods all my life and I’ve never been shot. Wow, a shocker. People can get shot anywhere and I’ve walked high middle class neighborhoods and would still have to deal with the things like getting kidnapped and getting sexually harrased by a guy on the street. That’s just how our society is and it sucks. And we get a shooting in a poor neighborhood like what, every three or something years. Yeah when you’re in a dangerous neighborhood, it happens on a day to day basis.

And you are being hypocritical. You’re saying I’m just defending my friend and I’m excusing her behavior but yet, you not knowing the cops OR the girl, you’re excusing the cop’s behavior.

Shaniquequa says:

I’m not saying me shoplifting or her going to jail is not a big deal, it just happens. I shoplifted in the past like many other people have done. Why because I was a little kid and dumb. Now if I was still shoplifting and going to worse crimes it would be a big deal. Just like my friend. This was her ONLY time getting in trouble and if it got worse, than yes it would be a big deal. If she puts it behind her and move on, then I think it’s just a life lesson. I feel a person must make mistakes to learn. And I never said I’m still doing it, I said I did before and then I stopped. That’s why I don’t find it a big deal because it didn’t get worse and I knew when to stop. And Mat, I’ll stop being an asshole to authority when they stop harrassing me.

And yes I do consider things that happen in my life the norm. How can I not? I’ve been in fucked up positions all my life. I’ve been bullied and harrased at 12, suicidal at 13, experimented with drugs at 14 and I became an alcoholic, raped, abused, and I suffered from aneroxia at 15. Now I’m 17 and my life is pretty safe.

I’m sorry but I haven’t met many kids that haven’t gone through crap and I go to a school full of rich kids. And I mean RICH kids. I know one of my friends that lived in a wealthy part of Seattle and she was brutelly raped and in rehab by the age of 14. Actually half the girls at my school have been in abusive relationships, threatened at gunpoint, and raped. So to me, it seems like traumatizing things happens to MOST people. I have rarely met a person in my life time who has had a clean life unless I think back to elementary school. And to me, I feel you have to do dumb things and go through hard times in life. If you don’t, how are you suppose to learn?

And for you to say I’m not normal because I’ve been through crap is really dumb.

Shaniquequa says:

You make it out like I put myself in every position. Yes I decided to drink and do drugs at first but I didn’t decide to go out and get raped or abused. A guy who told me he loved me did it to me. He raped me on numerous occasions and abused me to a day to day basis and wouldn’t let me leave because then he would come to my school or show up at my house and even my hang out spots. But yeah I totally made the option to make that “mistake” on purpose. Just like I magically wanted to commit suicide for no reason and the girls that bullied me and beat me up in middle school, I put on myself. Like I said, I don’t know where you live but you need to know that in certain people’s lives, things are normal to them. I wish I didn’t go through everything I did but it happened, nothing I can do about it. Just like my friend. She made a mistake, she can’t take it back.

P.S. I’ll totally stop being assholes to the cops and let them stare at me chest, check me out, and flirt with me even when I say I’m not interested.

Mat says:

hjm,

First of all, thank you for serving.

“You argue the segment was very short and we did not see the whole context. Tell me, what context could it be okay for him to do that knowing that she has no weapons and was not advancing toward the officer? I understand innocent until proven guilty, which is why he is on paid administrative leave… (speaking of a waste of tax dollars, we have to pay for him not to work. Fantastic.) Just run by me a few scenarios that would make those actions acceptable. He is an adult with a gun/pepper spray. She is a 15 year old girl who has been searched for weapons…”

Well, that’s precisely the point isn’t it? She can still bite him, no? Or something else? As you’re a soldier, you of all people should understand the idea of unarmed combat. Let me give you an example. A couple of years ago when I was working at a bookstore (it occurred a couple of hours before I was scheduled to come in), there was a retarded girl that came in with a supervisor (who happened to be a small woman). This girl was, as the store manager put it, “though short was built like a fridge.” Two girls near her in one of the aisles were giggling about something. Although it was not directed at her, the retarded girl thought it was and she went totally berserk and went after them. My store supervisor had to deal with it (this guy was athletic, in his 40’s) and managed, after great difficulty to wrestle her to the ground, all the while being scratched and bitten (and slugged at least once). He and two other huge guys had to hold her down by sitting on her until the cops arrived (all the while while she’s trying to buck them off and screaming that she was going to kill them). It took two cops who were pretty big dudes to drag her to the cop car. Needless to say, because of blood involved, my store manager had to get an AIDS test.

I reiterate that you never know the situation that you’ll get in and who knows if this girl would get an adrenaline rush and start something (the girl involved didn’t seem all that small in stature). Yeah, it might have been a little excessive, but one needs to subdue quickly, no?

“The girl started it? Are you kidding? I am sure that (to use the child abuse example again) parents who hit their kids are provoked by their children in some cases. But they still go to jail. It is why 15 year olds are NOT charged as adults. THEY ARE 15. They don’t have a very developed world view, moral code, etc. That is like saying if a 15 year old acts in a certain manner, it permits the police to.”

From the videotape, the girl clearly started it. She said something and then flung her shoe at them. That’s provocation. You can argue semantices, but the bare, pure facts are there for all to look at. I think there’s a distinct difference between disciplining a child and beating it, but we seem to have gone in the opposite direction by not giving guidence to kids at all these days. I could also argue that kids are treated more and more like adults, and should be treated as such. Kids can be dangerous. Take what happened in Pennsylvania last week with the 11 year old shooting the woman to death. Think it’s ok if the cops stood by while an 11 year old was blasting away at them? Seems to me like that’s a good way to get some cops killed. Kids aren’t kids anymore, and if you read anything that Shaniquequa said about her life on this post, you’d understand that. Kids shouldn’t be dealing with that sort of thing, but to her, it’s perfectly normal. Still think it’s ok?

“Who can blame cops? They have a shitty job? Are you insane? Yes, being a police officer is a stressful job and it is not easy no doubt. I have the utmost respect for those who take the job of protecting the public. HOWEVER, that doesn’t give them a right to channel this aggression in a criminal manner. (If kicking your shoe at a cop can count as “assault” what he did to her is attempted murder.) They have resources available for officers who are suffering from work related stress. See the program “Safe call now”. (safecallnow.org) Just one example. Plus, they get government health benefits and can see psychologists if necessary. Or is everyone who commits a crime that is mentally ill exempt from punishment? And does that extend to war veterans? Victims of rape who suffer PTSD? No. Sure, work related stress explains the violence witnessed on the tape. But the notion that is absolves the officer of any guilt is ridiculous and if you believe it does you are a person of questionable character.”

Whatever the realistic idea of what she did, in a legal sense, yes it could be argued in a court of law that it was assault. Think that’s silly? Well, lawyers managed to get OJ off, did they not? And that was for actually killing two people. We’re a violent society, what can I say? But it’s one that we have consented to. And who said anything about being mentally ill? Once again, read the initial passage. I explained reasons why it would happen, not that I condoned it. What I did say is that I reserve judgement on this because I’ve seen all to often that the media manipulates what it gives to the public (you know, kinda like the war effort). As for being of questionable character, well that’s merely an opinion. I feel otherwise.

To be honest, we seem to be a society that condones an incredible amount of violence, but at the same time not being able to handle it in a psychological case. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a pacifist. I find that to be utterly unrealistic given the world at large. Since you want to take a larger view and look at it from the military POV, I’ll put it another way. We tell our soldiers that they need to go out and “kick butt,” but then through ridiculous rules of war and popular opinion we hamstring their ability to fight. In other words we train soldiers, fill them up with fighting spirit and then suddenly tell them that they can’t do it. You think that isn’t going to eff them up mentally and confuse the hell out of them? To a lesser extent, that’s what police go through. We tell them to do a job, and then take away their ability to do so (kinda like giving them handguns and go deal with drug dealers armed with AK-74s). Tell me that isn’t a screwed up society.

Shaniquequa says:

How is it the parents fault? They can’t stop bad things happening to their kids. I know my parents did an okay job with me. Whenever I did anything bad, they punished me. Whenever something bad happened to me, they settled it. Now no they don’t know that I was a drunk and they didn’t know I was raped or abused but only because I kept it from them since I don’t want them to be hurt by anything. I’m pretty sure if they knew, the would take care of it. But nothing is wrong with the parents, it’s what you get into once you leave your parents.

My parents always teach my as much about the world as they can but they also always tell me they can’t hold my hand through life. I need to grow up and that’s what I did. No I didn’t go through the perfect cookie cutter life that you find normal but I did grow up and I do have an almost promising future ahead of me that’s better than most people’s. But what do you expect parents to do. Keep a tracking device on their kids and follow them around to make sure nothing happens to them? They can’t do that. If anything all the decisions lay on the teen not the parents. And from what I’ve seen, many of the people that go through shit end up having better lives because they turn out street smart.

Like my boyfriend who’s only 19 knows more than many older people I know and he has more common sense. Why because he went through a lot of crap. Some people just need to learn the hard way.

Mat says:

Kerry,

As for the GOP, that remains to be seen. The ball keeps on bouncing and we don’t know where it will end up. She did start it by being arrested. What part of that did you not get?

Shaniquequa,

You have your own issues and it’s obvious that you’re a know-it all. If you’re saying that your 19 year old is smarter than most people who more of a life experience, I don’t know what to tell you. That seems to be the average attitude of your generation. You all now everything there is to life, so why worry? Well, you will understand soon enough. I can’t tell you since you don’t understand me. That’s all I have to say about that.

Tomare Utsu Zo says:

Mat, in regards to “No, I’m not from Seattle, but I can tell you that the cops that are in my city do not act that way because they’d be fired in a heartbeat. If you’re getting harrassed as much as you claim, then maybe you should hire a lawyer to deal with it. Once again, I’ve heard enough of these “stories” and then find out later on that 95-100% of it is total bullshit.” Apparetnly you DIDN’T take my advice to go and look at what cops are doing now adays. So here is another video to tell you just how “profesional” Cops are. http://www.thewrestlingtalk.com/search/Cop%20Fatally%20Shot%20Handcuffed%20Man%20(CLEAR%20VIDEO).html

Your a fool to trust cops.

Dick Bush says:

Matt you are clearly a closet homosexual, if not schene himself…And schene as soon as you hit the prison yard, the prison yard is gonna be hitting you so grab a belt loop and tie your shirt in a knot.

John says:

Well matt, You seem to be blind to reality. It’s time to step into the real world and wake up from your delusional thoughts. The video posted, shows a 15 yr old girl beat by a police officer. What if it was your daughter? Then what? How in the world can you defend the police? It’s people like you that wants to keep the police brutality ball rolling.