A new video appears to support brutality claims against three Prince George’s County police officers shown beating of a Maryland student after the Maryland-Duke basketball game.
Prosecutors are investigating the matter and this video is likely to be the central feature of any trial.
The video shows the student taunting and then talking to police. However, beyond being perhaps a bit obnoxious, the student does not appear to be doing anything warranting arrest let alone such a beating.
AY,
ELPD prefers to stand off and fire tear gas. Also, if you were ever in East Lansing when they tried to crack down on Cedarfest, they brought in state cops and other out-of-town police. It seemed like ever other car was a police cruiser with 3 or 4 cops in it…
But again, I will say, no one beats children as well as the People’s Republic of East Lansing and then have the courts up hold it as necessary. I have never seen any better equipped officers in Riot Gear unless you discount the SS-Waffen because they were tied to the Nazi’s.
I do not think that the US Armed forces is better prepared than East Lansing’s Police.
AY and Buddy,
Replace ‘veterans’ in your argument with a racial or ethnic or religious group – would you still make the argument without anything more than ‘common sense’ to support it?
AY,
Certainly police officers should be held accountable for this sort of behavior (Blackwater/Xe should be held criminally accountable for their actions, too) but are the military contractors/police that are prone to this sort of excess more likely to be combat veterans? Do you think that veterans should be smeared this way without evidence? I don’t.
Slarti,
Maybe they were pissed off because they could not get into blackwater/Xe and are taking it out on the average US citizen. Things they can do there and get away with and are held accountable here for the same Conduct.
Buddy,
A higher rate of excessive force complaints against police officers who were veterans than non-veteran officers. Evidence (not just your ‘common sense’ opinion) that combat training involves training soldiers to react in ways that would be inappropriate for law enforcement officers would also suffice. You are making a negative generalization about a group of people – to me this is something you should be able to back it up – if you can’t answer the objections that Chris and I raised, maybe you shouldn’t have said it in the first place.
In the absence of evidence to support your position
What kind of evidence would you like to see, specifically?
How much would you accept?
I am going on common sense, but if you want more what exactly, specifically do you want?
Buddy,
In the absence of evidence to support your position, I have to agree with Chris here. I think your position reflects the attitudes that I think were the problem in the vietnam era. If you want to protest and unjust war (or unethical or criminal actions taken by members of the military not acting under direct orders) I think that’s great (I’ll even join you), but to disrespect our soldiers who are putting their lives on the line out of a sense of duty, honor and a desire to serve our country is wrong. Likewise, making an unsupported generalization about soldiers serving as police is wrong (replace ‘soldiers’ with an ethnic or religious group or some other profession and ask yourself if you would make the same kind of statement. Abuses by our military following the chain of command are heinous and those originating the orders should be rooted out and punished, likewise abuses by individuals acting on their own in the military are heinous and the individuals should be punished, but painting the vast majority of brave men and women with that brush is wrong too.
Buddy,
So then show me all these instances of combat veterans using excessive force. Show me something that shows that you aren’t just making assumptions about combat veterans being cops. I highly doubt that you can prove that a combat veteran is more likely to do such things than say a college graduate.
You have to have some rational for cases such as the one above, so you assume it must be a combat veteran. When you find out that he was not a veteran then he must be the exception. My guess is that you know very little about being a combat veteran, or many veterans themselves.
What jobs would you approve of for combat veterans? Can they be doctors or lawyers? The answer is yes, as long as they meet the criteria to fill those positions. Should be no different for law enforcement.
This is a fair question. My answer:
If a veteran’s job in the military involved doing, or training to do, things that would be considered excessive force or police brutality or unConstitutional police behavior, then that person should never be a police.
If a veteran’s job in the military involved doing, or training to do, things that would be considered medical malpractice or unConstitutional doctor behavior, then that person should never be a doctor.
If a veteran’s job in the military involved doing, or training to do, things that would be considered legal malpractice or unConstitutional attorney behavior, then that person should never be a lawyer.
So how does this play out?
well, we know that the combat troops are trained to do (or at least not to avoid) collateral damage and collateral indignities to Iraqis that would not be considered acceptable in the USA. Hence, combat veterans should not become policemen in the USA. There are plenty of other careers out there.
Are US military medics, or other military soldiers trained to commit medical malpractice. Probably not. Most presumably aren’t trained to give medical treatment, outside of first aid, at all. Presumably the medics are trained to practice good medicine and not bad. Doctors are good to go.
As far as US soldiers who get legal training, I don’t know. Are they systematically trained to lie when possible to avoid delicate situations involving potential violations of the Rules Of Engagement? Did they write the torture memo? If the answers to either of these questions are yes, then they shouldn’t be lawyers in the USA.
@Slartibartfast
My numbers would have to be close, not too long ago they had a NY cop that spilled the beans about quotas. In that story they admitted to a half a million people a year stopped & rousted around for no good reason other than them having to fill a quota.
And that is just in New York. I think Chicago may even be worse. And when you add in every major city in the rest of the country, it starts looking REALLY scary! Plus for every story that actually reaches the news media, I would have to think there are more that never do. (I know that has happened around here.)
Buddy,
What jobs would you approve of for combat veterans? Can they be doctors or lawyers? The answer is yes, as long as they meet the criteria to fill those positions. Should be no different for law enforcement.
Also, nobody ever said the guy in this video was a veteran. So how is this video symbolic of anything having to do with veterans?
Yeah man, that happened to a friend of mine. The officer said he just fell after he shot the guy. He was promoted after that little incident to desk sergeant. Of course, not the guy that got shot because he is dead. The cop dude.
Like an New Orleans Police Department Captain once said to me: “He fell.”
I wonder if the video taper will be arrested as in this newer Maryland story?
http://jonathanturley.org/2010/04/14/maryland-police-officer-pulls-gun-during-traffic-stop-and-then-arrest-motorcyclist-for-filming-the-incident/
it is messed up!
AY,
Pete’s was still there last I knew (I drove by it last summer). In high school me and my friends would go to 7/11 and get a candy bar and big gulp for lunch and then go to Pete’s to play video games – I generally played elevator action until I got too good to finish before lunch was over. And I’ve been known to play the sliver ball from time to time…
Slarti,
That I understand, I was there at the time. Hey, do you know if PinBall Pete’s is still in business? What a great place. But you are probably a gamer as opposed to a baller….
“You really can’t judge the military as a whole based on the actions of a few idiots. Or would you also be willing to judge all lawyers based on the actions of the gambling lady on another thread? Every profession has idiots right?”
I think there is a systemic problem with combat veterans becoming domestic police. I think this vid is symbolic of that. Do you think it is not?
AY,
Yup, they’d have tear gassed the whole crowd!
I still remember my ex-wife calling me from Brazil and asking me about the EL cops marching down Grand River firing tear gas (she had seen it on CNN international).
I was a MSU grad student for the second EL riot (after losing to Duke in the final four in ’98) and a friend and I wanted to make T-shirts saying ‘I got gassed at Michigan State’.