American Police Brutality
 

In April 2008, a woman named Mary Brooke Oberwetter attended Thomas Jefferson's 265th birthday, but got arrested because she was dancing to the music on her headphones. Demonstrating against this, some people went there on May 29th to dance and were subsequently arrested and also recieved some pretty rough treatment by the police.



This has roused accusations of police brutality and oppression, but anyone who doesn't live in a cave isolated from the world's media will know that it's not exactly the first time something like that has happened.

Just a couple of examples here. In the first one here, the arrest happens about halfway in.



And in the following video, a chief of police seems to have managed to permanently brain damage a girl with his taser.



I dare say none of this would have happened here as the role of the police and the mentality is very much that they are a service to the people. With that comes a different mentality (I believe) and they don't carry guns or tasers. I realize that things are different in the US and having that kind of force available may be necessary, but from the videos I see and how they for example tase people who don't comply (who wouldn't run from a taser?), it makes me think american police are a bit too willing to use excessive force.

What do you think?

Just as with anything else, you give a few people ultimate power over the masses, and half of them will abuse it. It does happen quite frequently, I have witnessed excessive force by police at least once in my time.

We hire retards to be cops here i strongly believe



I'm not even trying to use an immature term, i think they are actually retarded

I'd say for the most part all cops get a bad rap in the US, even though they really are here to serve the people. I feel like foreigners have a warped view of the US in general and believe things are more prevalent than what they really are...Things like school shootings, police brutality, etc. I'll be clear and say I don't defend things like police brutality, but I do view America as everyone else's whipping boy most the time (for instance the Osama thread which is a joke)


That being said, it does happen. With power comes abuse in pretty much anything I can think of. I'm not excusing it whatsoever, I'll be clear on that. There's one video that I am too lazy to find that makes me sick and pissed off where a woman was detained for DUI (I think) and she is acting a little out of hand. The camera is covered up and when it's back on, she is just covered in a pool of blood. It's quite obvious the officer beat her in the face while she was cuffed and she has to be taken to the hospital. It's disgusting.

I feel like sometimes cops only escalate a situation when they use their force. It is definitely needed for cops to have weapons here, and I consider tasers beneficial when used properly, but most of the times the use of one only sends the crowd into a frenzy and causes more outrage. I don't hate all cops, nor do I love all of them. A lot of them just acquire a sense of higher standing over their years on the job and become dickheads. I'm not from the city. The cops here don't do much but drive around aimlessly for hours. One time me and some buddies were at the park after hours smoking cigars and 3 state troopers stopped us and a police motorcycle which was pretty hilarious. But anyways, back to brutality... I feel like brutality needs to be punished, but it seems like the fraternity of law enforcement always tries to cover up things for their other officers. Some sort of higher level should step in to oppose strict punishments whenever it happens.

better slight police brutality than the rampant crime and corruption that we have here - though the police here's been known to use force in extracting confessions

I don't think police are much worse here than other countries. Although it is a huge problem in this country. I will say most police officers have to deal with pretty ****ty circumstances on a daily basis and most can handle it in an appropriate, legal manner. The problem is when you have over inflated egos of government officials that order cops to use necessary force to "keep the peace". Whether it's people dancing in the streets listening to music on their head phones or WTO protests in Seattle.

I can not stand the use of tasers. They are overused, dangerous, and unnecessary. Any cop that doesn't feel like talking down an individual is given a license to essentially torture people. This kind of police brutality in the USA has gotten the attention of human rights groups like Amnesty International. There have been almost as many death from tasers in the past ten years as there have been from executions.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/as...10482011en.pdf

Searchable Execution Database | Death Penalty Information Center

That video really pissed me off.

I actually thought the cop was fairly civil in that video. He at least talked to them first and gave them some warnings, he also had a bad ass take down move.

I also feel like people instigate the situations in a lot of cases. If a cop is going to arrest you unjustly, wear the cuffs and don't resist and take it up with a legal approach if you want to. In the video, those people weren't going to be prosecuted or fined or anything. I'd be pissed too for spending a night in jail but if an officer tells you that you will be arrested for doing something, then you do it anyways right in front of them, resisting arrest isn't going to exactly help your cause. I'm not saying ignore your rights, I'm saying choose to defend them in a better way which doesn't include resisting arrest and making things harder on yourself. They are gonna cuff you either way.

I think you're missing the point. Dancing is not illegal. What a sickening video. This isn't Dubai. That's retarded. I mean... "What constitutes dancing?" One dude got arrested for shuffling in place, moving his arms like a windmill. Some of those cops were making some pretty interesting maneuvers. Taking down a college student? I might call that dancing. It's very unreasonable of them not to explain what law they are being arrested under. Dancing in public law? Why did that officer TOUCH that couple that was slow dancing? How can you pull two people apart. Under what jurisdiction?

Explain. Please. I'm flabbergasted.

I agree with you 78.7%, though it's the powers that be that put those officers in that position. Regardless of their reasoning behind what they were doing, all they were doing was dancing quietly. They weren't moshing or having a hootenanny.

I realize that and don't agree with the reasoning behind the arrests in the first place. But be realistic and smart if you are in that situation, you know what I mean? It's like, if you are one of those people you basically have two choices after you have danced and they are gonna arrest you. Either go quietly, or resist. If you resist, you're only risking more harm to yourself and giving the police a justification for using more force on you.

They're doing whatever they felt was right to them. They knew they were probably going to get arrested before they even went there. They were testing "the system", to see if it was dumb enough to arrest someone that was doing something non violent and non disrupting. The disruption didn't happen until the officers starting the arrests. The only resisting I saw was when the one protester grabbed the arm of the other one while he was being arrested.

It's unconstitutional.

Like the guy said he couldn't believe they were acting like that at the Jefferson Memorial. Jefferson himself would have vomited watching that.

Plain and simple, agreed.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

- Thomas Jefferson

everyday, what we see on tv/media are violence, fighting, UFC/boxing sports, movies about wars, and you expect the people to be kind?

We have the same problems in Canada. It's not just American cops.

Students accuse cops of brutality

Also, Toronto police have a very bad reputation after their behaviour towards peaceful protesters at the G20 global summit last year. They also blocked an entire intersection for 4 or 5 hours straight during this time, mostly filled with innocent bystanders.



Another account of police brutality during the summit:

A second look at G20 police assault - thestar.com

Although I respect the good cops who don't engage in this type of behaviour, it's the bad cops who bully people that make me question that. Some people are just outright bullies, and those are the people who are going to abuse their authority and beat people and whatever if they get hired as a cop.

I understand that, from an outside perspective, it's easy to view police in the US as one monolithic thing but an important thing to keep in mind is that police vary a lot from region to region here. Different municipalities and different states train their police differently from each other and have different standards for who they hire. The city I live in, Philadelphia, no doubt 100% conforms to your view of American police. Here they are often corrupt, out of shape, power-tripping beneficiaries of nepotism. In other parts of the country, however, that is not the case. My wife, for example, used to live in Raleigh where, apparently, the police are required to have a certain level of education, to stay physically fit and overall are the kinds of community servants that you describe.

People who seek power are most often those who should never possess it. Case in point, I know someone who is desperately working at becoming a police officer, who has a short temper and an attitude and who I know for a fact would abuse his power in any instance where he felt the person he was dealing with was incompetent or had an attitude.

When you rely on a fascist, para-military force to implement law what else would you expect to see but violence? Is it really not that well known outside of North America that the United States has and will continue to develop, endorse, and implement campaigns of domestic terrorism through its agencies?

I see no positives, benefits, or justification for the continued existence of such a thinly-veiled police state that currently plagues the U.S.

If I was there and they closed it down, I would have said out loud "THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS"

the guard/cop gave them multiple warnings. All they had to do was listen to him and move away.

The third guy in the white shirt was resisting arrest AND he was ignoring the warnings that he was given the first time.

Those three fucked it up for everyone

If that third guy wasn't resisting arrest the way he was, then he wouldn't have been taken down in that fashion. I see nothing wrong with that at all.

This is a far cry from being a police state. People are being so over dramatic.

Lol...I think most of them were arrested for impersonating dancers cause what most of them were doing was not dancing. Especially the guy with the shades,white-t and head phones. He looked more like he had a bad case of the crabs rather than dancing. White people trying to dance lol

=( i cain dance and im white *wipes her tears* lol

lol im white as well but I cant dance at all...when I try it resembles a wounded duck trying gimp around.

I think this was the main facet of their ill-advised "protest"; that we as free-thinking American citizens have the right, and some say responsibility, to question the police and the laws of our country. We live here, we built America into what it is, and we are responsible for the cultivation of change. Without resistance, we wouldn't have a sovereign state, we wouldn't have civil rights, and we wouldn't have the cherished freedoms we rarely take advantage of. It's as though the Sedition Acts are still in place, and as long as do-nothing legislation like this is passing there will be those who choose to express their discontent. I fully support these guys, regardless of how idiotic they've appeared and how poorly planned their actions were.

I think the people at the Jefferson monument loved the attention they were getting because they felt they were being "martyrs" (even though they were just childishly acting out). Originally, the cop was very calm and asked them nicely to stop what they were doing. Would it have killed them to stop dancing? I understand it was to make a statement, but that is such an asinine reason to stage a protest. If they really had a problem with with the law, then maybe they should have brought it up in a hearing, court, etc. I'll say this much though... I can sort of see why dancing on a man's monument can be a bit disrespectful, but... I certainly wouldn't make a law against it.

Also, I don't think it's fair to label the entirety of the U.S. police force as being corrupt or prone to brutality. It varies locally. Our police department is pretty bad, but the one in a town next to us are very kind, fair, and work to serve the community.

I was once detained for 2 hours for taking a photograph on privately owned property, just because the dumb local cops had nothing to do that night. I later called the owner of the property and they said they couldn't give a crap what I did on their property.

I also feel like if people break social norms, they're the target of officers who use disturbing the peace in the wrong context. Basically, you either behave and be a nice little citizen or you'll get a time-out. For example,



That being said, I don't think police brutality and abuse of power is as widespread as people might think. The United States is very large, and in the age of media we can receive reports of incidents which happen in several different parts of the country at the same time. It's sort of like the stranger danger paranoia that's swept the country - even though random kidnappings are quite rare, media reports nearly every incident and so they appear common.

I think there are many sincere, good hearted individuals on the police force in America, but since it's such a large force there are abuses of power.

There really is nothing you can do to cops. They're untouchable and that's disgusting to me. I think that as time goes by, and as police get better and better technology, we will only be forced to submit to them more. The problem is that cops aren't afraid of us, and i think that they should be, or at least we need a better way to fight back against them should they get out of hand.


Jaywalking? Really?

If they planned a protest they should have known ahead of time that when you do civil disobedience you will be getting arrested. If you are protesting something specifically all you have to do is obey what the silly cops say and continue with your protest/action. Yes, they are able to question the cops and find out what they did wrong but they went about it in a horrible way.

No, the problem is citizens are afraid of the cops for some stupid reason and there ARE things that can be done even if you do them and they fall on deafs ear for that point in time you can continue to do things until the cops get in trouble for it. One of the main things that can be done is the same thing that so many of you are posting about. Almost everyone has some sort of recording device so catch their actions. In this day and age there is very little they can get away with. It was much worse in the past where they would only have to rely on eye witnesses and those complaints/reports would get thrown out no matter how many eye witnesses but with video footage they can't do that.

I don't think that police brutality is as huge an issue in the states as people make it out to be. Looking back through history at different police forces that have existed, it's hard to make a case for police in the States being anything other than human. They aren't perfect and they often aren't the cream of the crop, but they have a job and they do it.

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

I love that. Did you make it up or quote it?

I can't make up my mind, let alone a quote. John F. Kennedy

I'm one of these guys who thinks cops can slap people around from time to time if it's called for and if they don't get caught. The thin blue line needs to operate in a wide gray area when it comes to maintaining the social order. ;)

I have a pretty strict sense of morale which means a lot to me and I'm appaled when I see people who are supposed to enforce rules who don't. To comply yourself to the rules you are supposed to enforce and uphold is something I feel one should be able to expect from any person whose job includes enforcing rules and if they can't do that, they shouldn't be allowed to have that job, whether it's on a forum, in a kinder garden or on a police force.

I think most people agree.
That's why police officers (in the states, at least) get routed when they fuck up. I'm not sure what your perception of it is, but we don't exactly get terrorized by law enforcement or anything. Every bust isn't a Rodney King. I guess it may seem that way when the only media you see of police performance is negative performance, though. I mean, I can assume that no one publishes videos or reports of police being courteous and NOT abusing their authority.

that doesn't sell newspapers or get advertising dollars for stations during their news segments.

Truth.

one of the main reasons I don't like to read the paper or watch the news.

It's all about the money and then on top of that, they don't report the full story. They report what they want you to hear/know about. You still have to go behind them and research it to find out the true ****ing story they should have reported in the first damn place.

The media frustrates me.

The unfortunate thing is that the media reports are pretty much the only gauge for people to use. I mean, no one can get the entire full story about the situation... we're only privy to what's reported, and what's reported is usually the sensationalist wow factor, which is inevitably negative.
I don't deny that law enforcement has some bad seeds who do some bad things... but I'm definitely not going to use that as a mold for my opinion of every other officer out there. And I definitely don't think that the law enforcement policies are reflected by those that take it too far. Call me crazy, but I've been living in my own country long enough to know that's just not true. It happens, yes... but it's dealt with, and is by no means the standard.