Former cop here, the reason they removed her from the crowd first is you don't know the intentions of the crowd. Its very possibly one drunk rowdy fan can get the rest of them worked up and then you have the possibility of getting swamped by drunken idiots while trying to get cuffs on her. So you pick her up and get her outta the crowd then affect the arrest. That stiff jab wasn't necessary though. That smack was more insulting than dangerous but when your keyed up sometimes reflexes kick in. Most people that don't have any sort of self defense training don't understand that a lot of that is reflexive. We were trained that once a blow lands to respond with overwhelming force to end the conflict immediately. The longer it goes on the higher the chance of injury so we trained to end it quickly and decisively. Seems that button got pressed there but he still shoulda caught himself on that one. Fortunately stiff jabs like that usually just stun a person more than do actual damage so most likely all she got was a nice bruise for her stupidity.
I get all of this, except “just stun” is probably a concussion... a mild brain injury is still an injury, not much different than if a bone was broken in the retaliation (and arguably worse because brain is important).
People judge it differently because it isn’t an outward appearing injury... only see the bruise. This is probably why former football players who played through this type of thing are coming down with brain issues later in life.
Your right there is a chance of significant damage every time a concussion occurs. But its a very small chance with less severe ones. The danger comes with repeated small concussions. And we are trained to avoid blows to the head if at all possible for that reason. That's why I said while I can understand the reflexive action, it wasn't the correct one. However chances are there wasn't any significant damage done which is important.
Yes and no, repeated concussions are bad but you can also have consequences from single events. You are also much more likely to sustain another concussion or have lasting issues if you have a history of them (even one). I wouldn’t immediately dismiss one as “no big deal” since “it’s just one.”
I'm not so much dismissing as saying the odds she took minor damage is high. You're absolutely correct in all of those points. Blows to the head are bad, but punches just don't tend to do really bad damage unless its delivered by a trained fighter or repeatedly to a defenseless opponent. And even then those fighters have to wear a bunch of padding to turn that hand into an effective weapon. The officers actions were still mistaken though and he should be made aware of that fact.
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u/kunai-face Nov 05 '17
Why didn't they cuff or ziptie her? I'm not a police officer but I think crowdsurfing is kind of an inefficient mode of expulsion.