Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Society

“Because I feel like arresting you”: Minneapolis Police Officer Threatens To Break Leg Of Suspect In Videotaped Abusive Stop

Screen Shot 2015-05-06 at 7.49.57 PMA Minneapolis police officer has been relieved of duty while his department investigates a profanity-laced video in an encounter with a man at a car stop. During the abusive confrontation, the officer threatens to break the legs of a suspect if he attempts to escape.

The stop in South Minneapolis was captured on video below and the officer can be heard saying “Plain and simple, if you [expletive] with me, I’m gonna break your legs before you get a chance to run.” It is still unknown what led to the arrest. Indeed, the young man can be heard asking why he was being arrested and the officer responds simply “Because I feel like arresting you.”

Some accounts say that the officer is Officer Rod Webber who has been put on paid leave while an internal investigation.

The videotape is another example of the value of videotape in the proving of police abuse. We have been following the continuing abuse of citizens who are detained or arrested for filming police in public. (For prior columns, click here and here). Despite consistent rulings upholding the right of citizens to film police in public, these abuses continue.

116 thoughts on ““Because I feel like arresting you”: Minneapolis Police Officer Threatens To Break Leg Of Suspect In Videotaped Abusive Stop”

  1. Pogo

    Speculative piffle? Look around. Societies prosper and develop the more educated they are. More education improves the human condition. It is, of course, all a matter of degrees. Some training is more specific than other training. However, when you place them side by side, only someone with blinders will discount the value of education, experience, or maturity.

    These cops that are performing these acts of wanton and unnecessary violence should not be cops. You can explain all you want but to allow them to continue is not in the best interests of society. It seems that our peer nations have found other ways to achieve a substantially lower level of violence, incarceration, and general mayhem than what the US is becoming accustomed to and in some cases supporting.

    Your responses seem to be fueled by anger. Perhaps you understand the anger in the officers better than most. Surely you don’t condone it.

  4. Bam Bam, you’re trying so hard to disprove a point I wasn’t even trying to make. Read, dear soul, and see for yourself.

  6. Pol pot hated educated people and killed them en masse. Maybe he hated himself, as he was educated?

  7. Shuler

    Try to follow. I will go slowly for you.

    Pay attention.

    I am not anti education. I respect and value education, more than you will ever know. I treasure my years of undergraduate and graduate courses. It was an honor and a privilege to attend these classes. I do not take the opportunity, that I was fortunate enough to experience, lightly.

    Now, here comes the part where I lose you.

    Hang on. Not so terribly difficult.

    If one is addressing problems of police brutality, I do not necessarily believe that a four year college education would alleviate those alleged abuses. Personality disorders or anger management problems, if those are the root causes of the abuses, are not treated with a class in physics or biology. Simple concept. It’s not about devaluing education. As in my example, highly educated people have, in more than one instance throughout history, committed some of the most heinous of atrocities. Their FORMAL education did not spare the victims of those atrocities. Look at what happened in Cambodia. Read the history of what a highly educated person did to his fellow countrymen. A formal education, while valuable, does not guarantee the absence of evil behavior.

  8. Even better! Here’s to the lowest common denominator. Soon Mexico will be chasing away Americans from their borders, the way things are going.

    Thanks for such an engaging blog. Have a good night, all.

  12. I. Annie,
    Forgive my interjection, but couldn’t we call it “Third World” or just “Backward” or “Primitive?” Things the human race should have evolved beyond by now, except greed took us all off track for the benefit of a few and the suffering/death of millions.

  13. I do agree with you BamBam, that the educated don’t have the market on ethical, moral, or righteous behavior, but then again neither do the uneducated. My brother, the Milwaukee cop, got a Master’s in Psycholgy while he was working full time and it allowed him to get a position with MPS counseling troubled cops and setting up such programs in other city’s PDs. I think this trend toward less education is a mistake, it’s the opposite of elitism, what would that be called?

  14. Bam Bam “My point was to show, by example, how an advanced degree does not guarantee ethical, moral or righteous behavior.”

    Lack of education unequivocally damages society more than anything. Please refute?

  16. I. Annie

    I never mentioned Hitler, himself. Please read what I wrote more carefully. I specifically mentioned the Nazi elite, many of whom were highly educated with advanced degrees. They were often the very people in charge of various aspects of the regime. My point was to show, by example, how an advanced degree does not guarantee ethical, moral or righteous behavior. There are many articles, written over the years, that speak of this apparent inconsistency. The contrast between the unspeakable behavior, demonstrated by the Nazi leaders, and the level of education and culture, to which they had been exposed. This is not an original thought on my part, but one which has been discussed over many years. If it is too difficult for Schuler to grasp, that is, as I stated, unfortunate.

  18. Total FAIL response. 😉

    Have a good night.

    Thank you, I. Annie. 🙂

    Best wishes to all for more peace and understanding. Better treatment to all living beings, whether or not they have money that human money-addicts demand but that the earth does not need.

  19. Shuler

    I’m far from ignorant. Your answer, however, is not an intelligent response to my last remark. Actually, it’s nonsensical. Unfortunately, you are not as enlightened as you believe yourself to be. I recommend more education. You seemed to have missed a few lessons if you didn’t comprehend my last example.

  20. It was the peasantry that embraced Naziism more than the educated. Jews were extremely educated and cultured, part of the reason they were hated by the peasantry. Hitler was a house painter, not an elite.

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