Posted: Tuesday, 13 May 2008 11:09AM
Time For Cops To Kick A Bad Habit
Steve Corbett Reporting
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Jackasses kick.
Good cops play fair, remain calm in the midst of chaos, and restrain suspects without injury whenever possible.
Of course sometimes cops kill in self-defense. Sometimes cops injure people in self-defense.
And sometimes cops die in the line of duty.
By and large, though, cops can be trained to restrain suspects so that the system is protected as well as the rights of the accused.
But actions always speak louder than words.
And bad cops always distinguish themselves by their inability to control themselves.
WNEP news video recently captured a troublesome example of a cop gone wild during the arrest of a violent robbery suspect.
OK, so he just went a little wild.
And I’m not sure if he was, in fact, kicking at a suspect to protect his colleagues by maybe kicking away a weapon. I don’t know if he connected or if a weapon was found at the scene.
I also don’t know if he was kicking because he was afraid, pumped and didn’t know what else to do. If that’s the case, the Wilkes-Barre officer should be officially reprimanded and sent to training so he knows exactly what to do in a situation like that. Then he should be required to practice those techniques so he doesn’t forget them and is prepared for the next time.
There’s always a next time.
And nowadays too many cops are not trained and do not practice the tried and true tactics of unarmed martial arts. That lack of expertise endangers them, their colleagues and the very people they are paid to protect.
The video is disturbing because the suspect looks like he’s already on the ground. In fact, before the kick, the video shows him trying so hard to flee that his forward motion propelled him head-first down the steps.
Most of the fight had left him. And two other officers already had their hands on him. That alone, assuming they were trained and practiced their restraining techniques, should have been enough to cuff their man and take him into custody.
Enter the third officer.
He is seen running toward the scene.
Once there, instead of reaching or standing by in case he’s needed, he appears to be placing a well-placed kick somewhere in the vicinity of the suspect’s body. He then actually looks around, as if to see if anybody noticed.
Somebody noticed.
An alert photographer caught it all.
And now the video appears for the world to see – a world that more and more views American cops as out-of-control jackasses who kick and punch and wield riot sticks, making it very clear that we can’t all get along.
The Wilkes-Barre incident is not Rodney King.
It is not the most recent Philadelphia police beating in which three black suspects are dragged from a car by a mob of white police officers and beaten mercilessly as they lay on the ground.
A beater’s dozen have been suspended from the police department pending investigation.
In Wilkes-Barre, though, Police Chief Gerry Dessoye defended his officer by describing the “technique” as a “sweep kick,” as if his undisciplined officer was Chuck Norris taking down a Hells Angels hit man.
Since a vehicle obscured the actual “sweep kick,” we need to know more about what exactly happened. An independent state police investigation should take place by investigators from Harrisburg and not state trooper drinking buddies from the Wyoming barracks.
If not, a private defense attorney should launch an inquiry to decide if the “sweep kick” was warranted or if the technique violated criminal statutes on the books to protect life and limb.
If not, one kicking cop might make jackasses of us all.
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Corbett
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