Log In
Register
Home
Topic RSS
Read the original blog post
(202 votes) 9:09 pm
October 21, 2011
Offline
ok i am with concerned neighbor and birdman i think… i saw the interview and he looked fine physically, but the pile on seemed excessive .. if it was my son i would be pissed as hell. but if my son had been doing something leading up to it somehow i would be pissed at him for putting himself into that dangerous position, while having THREE outstanding warrants for his arrest! THAT is a case of dipsh8titis which i guess a young kid could be excused for but not the father standing by his side. not excusing cops behavior but not my hypothetical son either.
i will wait for this meeting at vnc and say let the chips fall where they may. the guilty need to be punished and if it is the cops so be it. i like the police i have dealt with but if there are bad apples or bad methods it must be corrected, i have NEVER felt otherwise. the difference with a police force as opposed to gangs or thugs is there is recourse… even if it isn't always correct, there is a process that you don't have with the criminal element. that is why i prefer police to no police
11:06 pm
July 5, 2009
Offline
i have NEVER heard "skateboarding on the wrong side of the street" to be a crime, or even get pulled over for it or stop for it.
the police went over-board on this for sure.
im interested to see what the investigation says the reason they approached him in the first place.
12:16 am
October 7, 2010
Offline
concernedneighbor said
I am NOT defending the actions of these officers – but the problem with videos like this is that we have no context. We have no idea what precipitated this dog pile. We don't know why one officer couldn't handcuff him and we don't know why it then took 4 officers 60 seconds or more to get him cuffed. Shock, fear, surprise, and adrenaline can cause a totally innocent suspect to tighten up and instinctively pull their hands forward into a fetal type position – and this can be misconstrued by officers as resisting arrest and even possibly reaching for a weapon. Sometimes it's worse for folks that are totally innocent because they have no idea what/why this is happening where a guilty suspect knows what's coming and has likely been cuffed before. We also don't know the full story on why he was chased down. It could have been total wrong place wrong time and the officers totally blew it. Could have been he was mixed in with a group of 'bad kids' on the boardwalk and appeared to be with them and they cops made a really bad judgement call. Or he could have been tangentially involved in what ever was going down and the officers legitimately needed to detain him. If he did nothing wrong except skateboarding on the wrong side of the street and the video tells the whole story then I think we all agree the officer that's seen punching him deserves much more than a reprimand. If there's more to the story then we need more facts before we can decide. The Rodney King video showed a horrific, inhumane, and totally inexcusable beating but the officers were initially found not guilty because there were 30 minutes+ of the incident not caught on tape that contributed to/affected how the officers handled that situation. Again – I am absolutely NOT justifying or defending the Police's actions in either situation – I'm just saying we may not have all the facts yet. Whether we'll ever get the 'whole story' is an entirely different question.
Here's the issue with police and use of force. What precipitated the event is not at all relevant. He could have been belligerent and even threatening to the cops just before the event, and it doesn't matter. What matters is the nature of the situation when the force is applied, which in this case seems to be way over the top.
Look at it this way. A guy is waving a gun around threatening to shoot the police. He changes his mind and lays the gun on the ground, raising his arms above his head and turning his back to the police in an act of surrender. The cops then shoot him in the back. Even though he was armed and dangerous only moments before, at the time he's shot he is no longer a threat so the use of deadly force would be excessive in that moment.
What concerns me is the decision to punch someone in the head being viewed as "only a punch." I just don't consider that a reasonable measure to subdue anyone, for the simple fact that it can be lethal. Had the cop decided to shoot him instead, would we be having this discussion about whether the use of force was excessive?
I'm sure the cop who threw the punch isn't necessarily a bad guy, but I'm also sure he is guilty of making a poor decision in that moment. Unfortunately, stupid can kill someone just as quickly as malice can. The cops won't cut you any slack if you break a law through simple stupidity. Excessive use of force can't be tolerated, nor should it be in this case.
I know what I saw and heard on the video. I know the criteria for excessive use of force and in my mind that's what I witnessed in this case.
1:26 am
July 31, 2011
Offline
concernedneighbor said
…the problem with videos like this is that we have no context. We have no idea what precipitated this …there were 30 minutes+ of the incident not caught on tape that contributed to/affected how the officers handled that situation.
Hypocrite.
2:07 am
July 31, 2011
Offline
Bird Man of Venice said
Here's the issue with police and use of force. What precipitated the event is not at all relevant. He could have been belligerent and even threatening to the cops just before the event, and it doesn't matter.
Ah, but you see, Bird Man, Con here feels differently…REmember the "Venice Woman Going Off Big Time on LAPD" video? The one where you don't see what's happening until about 40 minutes into it?
concernedneighbor said
If I was a cop in the RHCP incident I would have taken a baton to the side of [Loulou's] head. I think they showed amazing restraint being confronted by a raving lunatic.
concernedneighbor said
Next time I'll say taze. Being tazed would have been a fitting end for the totally irrational self centered temper tantrum [Loulou] threw.
Con is "amazed" those cops DIDN'T use lethal force on me. Or at the very least, taze me.
Oh, and Con, if you don't think a baton to the side of the head is potentially lethal force, then I suggest you google "epidural hematoma" and educate yourself.
2:10 am
May 28, 2009
Offline
skateboarders.. called " punks" by the old and dying are hated for enjoying a nice smooth section of asphalt…when the 4 wheeled figure out they are not a welcome part of society.. they should be banished to pelican bay for that racket… i for one would like to see skaters charged as gangmembers… maybe venice needs an injunction . no more than 8 wheels at a single location…
7:19 am
July 8, 2010
Offline
Does anyone know if it's true this kid had four outstanding arrest warrants?
7:42 am
February 16, 2011
Offline
dexter said
skateboarders.. called " punks" by the old and dying are hated for enjoying a nice smooth section of asphalt…when the 4 wheeled figure out they are not a welcome part of society.. they should be banished to pelican bay for that racket… i for one would like to see skaters charged as gangmembers… maybe venice needs an injunction . no more than 8 wheels at a single location…
Really? REALLY??? My friends and I skate. We are all employed professionals in our 30's and above. Therefore we should be charged as gang members because we all enjoy the same form of recreaction? Dude, please tell me you're kidding. LAPD way over reached the bounds of decency on this kid, and that's the bottom line.
8:53 am
January 25, 2012
Offline
shantyirish said
Does anyone know if it's true this kid had four outstanding arrest warrants?
What I read is that his father acknowledged that he did -- says they were for curfew violations a couple years ago
9:28 am
February 17, 2010
Offline
Please stop fighting on this site its getting old- Why dont you just go to the VNC meeting and speak directly with the Police to get the facts?
10:15 am
October 25, 2010
Offline
One of the givens is that the kid "wiggled" against the officers putting on the handcuffs. That is an obvious instance of resisting what the officers were doing, arresting him. The kid was resisting arrest.
Officers are not supposed to stop arresting a person when they resist. They are not supposed to sit down and try to convince the person to comply. They are obliged to escalate the force they are applying until the person being arrested complies. That escalation of force can include blows from fists or from batons. The officers piled on probably as part of the escalation of force to make the kid comply, but maybe they used excessive force, more than was actually necessary.
The question to be determined was whether the force applied was according to the continued resistance by the person being arrested or not. Given that the kid did resist arrest, was the level of force applied due to the kid's behavior or to an overreaction by the police officers. Were the injuries from a punch or from a combination of three bodies trying to make a third immobile resulting in crushing. These questions are unclear but a lot of posters are trying to answer them based upon their reactions to what they see.
I don't like police using excessive force to punish people who annoy them as sometimes happens. I don't like people demonizing police as part of a general ethos of trying to spread disrespect for authority of a political system with which they find to be unlike what they would prefer. The police will exist to enforce their version of rightful behavior after the revolution. We live in a world with seriously disturbed and violent people who will harm others except for the intervention of police, so we cannot afford to just demonize them at every opportunity.
12:01 pm
October 7, 2010
Offline
Long_time_resident said
One of the givens is that the kid "wiggled" against the officers putting on the handcuffs. That is an obvious instance of resisting what the officers were doing, arresting him. The kid was resisting arrest.Officers are not supposed to stop arresting a person when they resist. They are not supposed to sit down and try to convince the person to comply. They are obliged to escalate the force they are applying until the person being arrested complies. That escalation of force can include blows from fists or from batons. The officers piled on probably as part of the escalation of force to make the kid comply, but maybe they used excessive force, more than was actually necessary.
The question to be determined was whether the force applied was according to the continued resistance by the person being arrested or not. Given that the kid did resist arrest, was the level of force applied due to the kid's behavior or to an overreaction by the police officers. Were the injuries from a punch or from a combination of three bodies trying to make a third immobile resulting in crushing. These questions are unclear but a lot of posters are trying to answer them based upon their reactions to what they see.
I don't like police using excessive force to punish people who annoy them as sometimes happens. I don't like people demonizing police as part of a general ethos of trying to spread disrespect for authority of a political system with which they find to be unlike what they would prefer. The police will exist to enforce their version of rightful behavior after the revolution. We live in a world with seriously disturbed and violent people who will harm others except for the intervention of police, so we cannot afford to just demonize them at every opportunity.
The police are absolutely allowed to use "reasonable" force in making an arrest. Blows to the head are not usually considered to be reasonable force, unless the police officer is being actually assaulted by the suspect and needs to defend himself. As I've said a couple of times now, blows to the head are considered to have the potential to be lethal. That's something that seems to be getting overlooked. In essence, the police chose to use deadly force to arrest a kid for riding his skateboard.
All over the world, police successfully arrest struggling suspects everyday without resorting to head blows. In this particular case, the kid had been swarmed (an acceptable tactic) and was overwhelmed. He was on the ground on his stomach and was not posing an immediate physical threat to the police officers who had him in physical control. It's possible he was resisting being handcuffed, but it was inevitable that he would tire with that many cops wrestling him and would have been successfully restrained in a matter of minutes. For whatever reason, this cop chose to use lethal force in this situation.
Usually when police must use a baton, it's directed against arms or legs to disarm or disable an individual. Police are not inclined to strike the head with a baton. The same applies to the use of fists. In instances where blows must be administered (and I'm not convinced this was one of those instances) the blows are usually delivered to the torso. This can cause injury to the suspect, but has a much lower chance of delivering a fatal blow.
From the video, it appears that all of the police officers wrestling with the kid were acting properly, with the exception of one individual who piles on and delivers a significant blow with a closed fist that you can not only clearly see, but also clearly hear on the video. That cop needs to be off the streets, at least for the period it will take for him to be retrained in use of force.
