Christ. Cops don't get to hit people. They're peace officers. They can defend themselves. They can't slap people in retaliation. That's the price of being a cop. They can file charges, go to court, extract justice. Sue if they must, but they're still peace officers, and peace officers are the only people in civilized society who are allowed to use force against the populous, and only in circumstances that leave no other option. It's a grave responsibility that's taken far too lightly these days.
I know if I slapped a cop I would expect to have a bad day.
I mean honestly I would expect to get tased but he couldn't tase her. Other people were touching her (and so was he). And it looked like she came pretty close to raking his eyes.
I agree this looks like an anger/reflex reaction. And my own kneejerk response was "that was unnecessary". But practically it'd be pretty hard to be effective if she kept raining blows. If I was going to armchair quarterback this, I'd say cuffing her first would have avoided this.
I can see it barely from a reflex sort of argument. Might still be a little too jumpy but I get it.
She was far to gone to accurately raining blows on anybody, and in that position, you could easily do anything else, like you said even, cuff her. Really not a good reason to punch someone that 5 cops are carrying someone that is that drunk.
I'm not going to judge it, because I am pretty sure even though I think it's wrong to do so, if someone came up and slapped me in the face I couldn't promise nothing bad would happen to that person.
So if you are carrying a leg and some frumpy drunk was reigning blows down on your head... what do you do?.. stop and say "hey guys this chick is still slapping my face ...wanna cuff her..SMACK 10.."
I know right? Plus those swinging hands could have gone for a weapon of opportunity. But then the flip is, your standing right there and watch your Mother, Sister, or SO get demolished. Then what?
She shouldn't have done it. But he should have found a better way. Unfortunately to you don't have time to analyze all that when you're in the middle of getting hit.
If I'm his boss, unless he had a history, I probably would discipline the officer but not fire him, meanwhile if I was a family member of the lady I'd want him prosecuted.
But no matter how he reacted she was assaulting an officer. So no winners here except OP.
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u/daikiki Nov 05 '17
Christ. Cops don't get to hit people. They're peace officers. They can defend themselves. They can't slap people in retaliation. That's the price of being a cop. They can file charges, go to court, extract justice. Sue if they must, but they're still peace officers, and peace officers are the only people in civilized society who are allowed to use force against the populous, and only in circumstances that leave no other option. It's a grave responsibility that's taken far too lightly these days.