A new videotape has raised questions of excessive force in Colorado. The video shows Michaella Surat, 22, was thrown to the ground with such violence that it could easily have caused serious head and face injury. The sorority girl was arrested after she allegedly struck an officer who has responded to a fight involving Surat’s boyfriend. Surat is a junior at Colorado State University. The smiling mugshot below does not show any obvious injury to Surat, but the video (also below) is quite chilling.
The incident occurred near Bondi Beach Bar in Old Town Fort Collins. Surat tried to leave with her boyfriend but police said that he was not ready to go (but that she was). She then allegedly “shoulder checked” a bouncer and police officer, which was declared to be a battery. The description of the “check” does not sound particularly serious but it turned quite serious in the following moments. Surat faces charges of third-degree assault and obstructing a peace officer.
Kate Kimble, Fort Collins police spokeswoman, said that the take down was a “standard arrest control” to subdue Surat. It is hard to see from the video why such a violent move was needed in dealing with the woman who did not appear to present any serious threat to the officers.
This is not the first such controversy in Colorado. In 2015, this eerily similar scene was captured on a security camera:
The concern in such films is that a take down can be used to cause serious injury while justifying the act as a standard arrest move. Particularly when the suspect is not a serious physical threat, legitimate questions are raised about both the means and the motivation behind the level of force used in the arrest.
What do you think?
Here’s an interesting article showing that some depts. do have a higher record of use of force than other, similarly situated depts. It turns out there are factors to account for the higher use, one being that it appears certain officers are the primary users of force. Steps can be taken to reduce use of force with training.
“In late January, the city finished a review of OPD’s force policies, something it initiated after the Sentinel had begun asking for use of force records.
In its self-evaluation, the city found “revelations,” according to its 20-page summary. The primary one: A small number of officers accounted for a high percentage of excessive force claims.
On Jan. 29, Mina issued a department-wide directive about force: “Excessive force will not be tolerated,” it said.
The city and department implemented another fix: Beat reassignments.
Department managers urged many officers to move to lower-stress assignments, away from downtown weekend shifts and those in entertainment districts, where department data showed officers used force the most.
The department also fixed its “early intervention” program, designed to flag officers who use force five times in three months or 12 times a year. In its earlier investigation, the Sentinel found 11 cases in which officers should have been flagged but were not. The department blamed a software issue and fixed it, it reported.
Another change, according to Mina, was a greater commitment to training officers to de-escalate conflicts.
Adams, the UCF professor, said that whatever the agency did to reduce the number of times officers use force, “I would encourage them … to keep doing it and try to get that number to go lower. That’s in their interest.”
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-orlando-police-use-of-force-2015x2015orlando-police-officers-hit-kicked-ta-20161021-story.html
This is just one example. There were many more when I began researching use of force and alternates to it.
Off topic. The Great War! is on PBS right now. “Our” public broadcast system, paid for with public money in part, is glorifying war. The bigot Woodrow Wilson is made a hero. All the men and boys who go off to war are glorified.
If your kids are watching then you must give them some alternative things to read. War is not great. WWI was followed by WWII and neither was great. Maybe we did have to oppose Hitler. Our ally was Stalin in WWII. The world is so complex now that no one understands all the factions and where they are located.
Hurry on down to Viet Nam. Be the first guy on your block to have your boy come home in a box.
@desperatelyseekingsusan, April 10, 2017 at 5:39 pm
“Did it ever occur to you that The Atlantic is staffed by people who write for a living, don’t know much, and lack the chops to actually read and evaluate the ‘research’ they refer to?”
Why, no, desperate person, it never occurred to me that they might (gasp) write for a living, nor really to question them in any way. I guess I just assumed that they were latter-day Delphic Oracles. Thank goodness you intervened before they killed again.
But you’ve got me attentively curious__ exactly what did they get wrong about the research into domestic violence and LEOs’ contribution to it?
I’m sure you wouldn’t just assert something like that without some specific counter-evidence in mind, like some psychic without portfolio.
I’ll wait.
desperatelyseekingsomething, April 10, 2017 at 5:36 pm
“Progtrasn manufacture urban legends, then insist we make public policy per their imagination.”
It’s very difficult to disagree with you that Progtrasn and their imaginary urban legends are the single gravest threat to lawn ordure in the Union of States.
Fortunately for everyone but the Progtrasn and their sympathetics, we have a new Attoney General cum enabling anti-terrist legislation who appears on track to make John Mitchell look like Peter Pan, herself.
We may also take heart in the fact that the barbed wire on top of the FEMA Camp fences are slanted in, not out.
Today, Progtrasn, tomorrow, Guests of Amerika.
http://www.thecommonsenseshow.com/2012/11/12/cbs-news-admits-fema-camps-are-real/
It is a Western State. If it was my daughter I would call the cop out and have a gunfight. One, two, three, draw! I would aim first at the head and then at the lower body as he goes down. There is not enough private retribution in this country.
@Ryan Stevenson, April 10, 2017 at 4:53 pm
“I recently saw a a softball pitcher shoulder checked by a coach I didn’t hear anyone screaming battery…”
Well, you apparently didn’t see the video of the linebacker-sized sorority girl in question, or you’d understand the police officer’s need to defend himself so vigorously.
You also don’t seem to have considered the possibility that the Dick Butkus look-alike* could very well have had a bad case of dandruff, which would have only added to the terrible danger to the officer posed by her shoulders.
Please try to think these things through a little more carefully before you go offering up a criticism of someone with extremely limited accountability to anyone and who simply wants to do with a certain elan his job of maintaining public order in the face of hulking threats to it.
* In case you’ve forgotten how ferocious was Marvin Butkus and how he inspired fear even in opponents with high morale, as did the Colorado State sorority sister, go here:
https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=hp-avast-s&p=dick+butkus#id=2&vid=7250186e972ff9dbe93acdf448b5e6df&action=click
Debbie,
Is there full video evidence of the entire episode where the police needed to be called in the first place? What transpired prior to this video being recorded? Did this escalate TO the take down or did this LEO just happen to walk up to this “sorority” girl to practice this take down maneuver?
We see all manner of people doing stupid stuff and when it doesn’t involve law enforcement we readily label them as Darwin candidates. All of a sudden, when someone chooses to do something stupid (like resisting arrest), then the stupid people are treated as saintly Einsteins set upon by LEOs.
Sorry Darren Smith, Slow the video down, pause and take a screenshot of what hits the ground first. It’s her head! Her legs are up in the air and the officer’s hands are well above the contact point. He’s not “protecting her head” at all! Also, it seems odd that the supposed “mugshot” has her wearing a completely different outfit. Wonder if they found a pic on line and used it instead. While this may have been a “standard” take-down, it was – too me – obviously – excessive in the circumstance.
She’s in jail garb, and not injured. Her hand and arm are underneath her head in the video.
I recently saw a a softball pitcher shoulder checked by a coach I didn’t hear anyone screaming battery they said it was part of the game a shoulder check doesn’t condone the amount of force that was used when other methods were available to the officer he chose a violent approach and an excessive approach when there was other officers in addition to himself at the scene excessive force should not be justified because the error of this officer to say this is a common practice then it’s one that should be looked at as an uncommon solution
Had they been playing softball then your point would be valid.
@desperatelyseekingsomething, April 10, 2017 at 10:30 am
“We benefit from a police force with elan and high morale, which means we don’t have twits with JD degrees second-guessing everything they do in the heat of the moment.”
If we don’t have “twits with JD degrees second-guessing” a (monolithic?) “police force with elan and high morale,” then what is it we DO have that seems to trouble you?
Are you recommending that we dispense with judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys as ‘second-guessing twits with JD degrees’ and leave everything to the inspired (by their elan and high morale) judgement of the police, or are you simply a little confused by your authoritarianism regarding how the US criminal justice system is supposed to actually work?
I’m recommending we allow the police to do their jobs and not have them filling out paperwork to please lawyers. I’m pointing out that lawyers manufacture rules of engagement which have nothing to do with the actual experience of order maintenance. This country saw a catastrophic decline in the level of public order between 1960 and 1980 driven in large measure by replacing punishment with social work, understaffing police forces, making a hopeless mess of evidentiary rules, and acting in various ways to wreck the morale of police forces. We’ve managed over 30+ years to institute a partial restoration of public order and now progtrash in the legal profession wish to destroy that in a pretentious exercise in virtue-signalling.
You’ve had few cases which were the source of public controversy in the last five years which were not demonstrable nonsense from the get go or when you took a closer look. (The Eric Garner case is an example of this. The man was subject to an ordinary police tackle for refusing to obey a lawful order to respect state and municipal ordinances. He had a heart attack because he was a very ill man, and, no, it’s not reasonable to expect police officers to have the medical records of random people on the street committed to memory). It’s a reasonable wager this officer could have dealt with her more elegantly; lawyers have no special insight into that.
Public order we need. A mess of lawyers inventing p’s and q’ for cops whose work they do not understand is something we do not need.
@desperatelyseekingsusan, April 10, 2017 at 1:47 pm
“Neither of your answers is correct.
“The legal profession is destructive.”
Thus spake the digitally programmed robot or its poikilothermic, humanoid equivalent. 🙂
Had this been a male, nobody would be questioning it. Having a vigina doesn’t mean you can treat a police officer like that and expect to be treated like a flower.
Vagina
That’s so funny that you felt a need to offer a correct spelling. You say Vigina, I say Vagina. Let’s call the whole thing off.
Bob – a vagina is nothing to take lightly. 😉
The video of Ms. Surat was missing from the original article so I added a version of the video. I will discuss the topic at hand and not the video in the hospital.
I was not able to find a video that contained more footage of the scene and so my comments will be limited. I will assume that there was probable cause to arrest her and that she had committed a form of minor assault–the shoulder check–to her boyfriend and a police officer. My interpretation of the shoulder check definition is most likely similar to that used in hockey, a forceful strike using the shoulder to knock a person down or set them off balance.
Ms. Sarat is shown resisting arrest at a moderate level. She is pulling away and preventing the officer from handcuffing her. It appears the officer is attempting to use wrist twisting to gain compliance. This is a standard use of force for this level of resistance. It is not working and a different control technique is needed to effect her arrest.
Since this was not effective, to overcome her resistance the officer moves to take her to the ground. Taking a suspect to the ground is a standard use of force when previous control methods do not work. The control method used by the officer appears to be where he, using his left arm grabs the wrist of Sarat and pulls it downward and outward while at the same time applying a downward force using the side of the right arm to the shoulder of Sarat. In this move, a spinning force is used while both pulling and pushing her. This maneuver is named differently but I’ve known it as a spinning takedown. When performing this the procedure is to keep holding a suspect with the arm using the wrist hold is to both keep retention of a suspect and to prevent him/her from going face first into the ground. (since in maintaining the hold the person effectively spins either onto their opposite side or can be lowered down.)
The speed for which a person goes to the ground is not a determinate factor in deciding whether or not this is an excessive force.
Some are probably judging whether this was a slam to the ground as evidenced by the “thud” sound that can be heard. If one were to listen closely, it becomes apparent there are two such sounds and that they were made by her oversized shoes striking the ground and not Ms. Surat’s head. In her booking photo she shows no apparent injury.
While the video might appear shocking, I do not believe a formal review of the use of force will hold it to be excessive.
That seems to be a very reasoned explanation of the events Darren. Of course many here would have preferred the officer simply ask her to “pretty please” comply with his requests.
Darren,
I know this is your line of work and I respect you laying out the mechanics of this. Still, I don’t see the need for this level of violence. It also still looks to me that her head was pushed down hard on the pavement. Even if not, I don’t understand why the officer could not do the job with far less force. Her shoes alone make her an easy target to get off balance.
I wish police would be less prone to go to the harshest set of tactics possible right away. There are situations that do seem to require harsh, aggressive tactics. This isn’t one of them, IMO. I suppose a court case will get to what actually happened.
It might look more brutal than it was. Why am I having trouble ginning up any sympathy for the victim?
I bet nothing comes of it. You have to have injuries.
There is a lesson to be learned here. First of all, the police did not just show up and attack someone. They were called because of a fight between this woman’s boyfriend and another individual. There would have been no “takedown” if all the individuals involved would have cooperated with the police and not become physically aggressive with them!
If people are perfect they’d probably never have trouble with the police. The take down victim was not only a woman but a very thin one & was wearing oversize high heels which made her even easier to take down than the typical thin woman. What the cop did was wildly unnecessary.
What the cop did was wildly unnecessary.
Unnecessary for what purpose?
Unnecessary for the purpose of proving he’s a thug with a badge.
FWIW, the officer in the Colorado Springs incident (hospital video) was disciplined for excessive use of force and later left the department. For the subject of this blog entry, we should be careful about making too many judgments based on 10 seconds of video which didn’t begin until well after the encounter started. It appears at the beginning of the video that the woman is already resisting arrest, and I’m guessing there’s a reason the camera came out in the first place (i.e., something had already happened that gave the videographer such joyous anticipation). I’m confident correct decisions will be made based on testimony of all involved and all witnesses. This is Fort Collins, after all, not the bastion of the “far right” or in danger of going “police state” by any stretch.
Reason camera came out is people know they better document any encounter with the cops, because they all stick together and lie and file fake reports. what else do you need to see and know
because they all stick together and lie and file fake reports. what else do you need to see and know
Progtrasn manufacture urban legends, then insist we make public policy per their imagination.
What Would the Cops Look Like If You Lived in a Futuristic Authoritarian Police State?
Matt Novak
Today 7:20am
http://gizmodo.com/what-would-the-cops-look-like-if-you-lived-in-a-futuris-1794166838
@mespo727272, April 10, 2017 at 11:31 am
“The legal answer is that the cop used reasonable force after being battered. The moral/ethical answer is that this bully cop ought to be fired for overreacting to a feeble attempt to challenge his authority. He’s a ‘hair trigger guy in a slow squeeze job’ as my boy scout firearms instructor once said. Smart guy.”
This should help put in perspective police brutality with respect to both civilian men and women:
Police Have a Much Bigger Domestic-Abuse Problem Than the NFL Does
“Research suggests that family violence is two to four times higher in the law-enforcement community than in the general population. So where’s the public outrage?
“As the National Center for Women and Policing noted in a heavily footnoted information sheet, ‘ A third study of older and more experienced officers found a rate of 24 percent, indicating that domestic violence is two to four times more common among police families than American families in general.’ “ [Emphasis added]
“Think about that. Domestic abuse is underreported. Police officers are given the benefit of the doubt by colleagues in borderline cases. Yet even among police officers who were charged, arrested, and convicted of abuse, more than half kept their jobs.” [Emphasis added]
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/police-officers-who-hit-their-wives-or-girlfriends/380329/
Did it ever occur to you that The Atlantic is staffed by people who write for a living, don’t know much, and lack the chops to actually read and evaluate the ‘research’ they refer to?
Incidents like this occur daily. Only the one’s taped come to Nations attention.
Cop’s know they have immunity and act with impunity
Gorsuch would not be fazed by this- because the Founders used similar tactics when ethnically cleansing the Native American population and bringing reluctant propery aka slaves to heel.
bill mcwilliams – the so-called Native Americans had slaves, too. They also practiced genocide. In fact, there was quite a trade in slaves going on between Indian tribes. Sacajawea was stolen from the Shoshone and was a child bride when her French/Canadian husband bought her from the tribe sold her (or maybe the tribe she was sold to).
PS
Are you trying to justify the Holocaust against Native Americans – and kindly provide evidence for your claims about Native American slave holders. I’m aware that Native Americans were enslaved, but not that they were slave owners. Are you saying it was widespread – or merely that you heard about one or two alleged incidents?
There was no holocaust against the aboriginal population or anyone else living here.
dds – “There was no holocaust against the aboriginal population or anyone else living here.” That is true, generally, except for California where they did their best to kill every Indian in the state. You know how liberals are.
Paul, Georgia was particularly vile. You might also look at the 14 states in which there are no state or federally-recognized reservations:
Arkansas
Delaware
Georgia
Illinois
Kentucky
Maryland
New Hampshire
New Jersey
(North Carolina recently added a federal Cherokee reservation)
South Carolina (has only a state reservation)
Ohio
Pennsylvania
Tennessee
Vermont
Virginia (has only state reservations)
West Virginia
https://www.infoplease.com/images/indian9.gif
bill,
When the Cherokee walked the trail of tears, their black slaves accompanied them. This is something you can look up. It is also true that black people could and did own black slaves in the US as well as Africa. However, slavery was usually white slave holders with black slaves.
There was genocide as you say. Deliberate attempts to wipe out populations of Indians through the use of disease was practiced. There are military (and even Catholic priest’s) diaries to read about using blankets to spread disease.
Bill – Native American slavery was practiced by a variety of tribes, but not all. It was especially common for captives of war and sex slaves. Humans have always fought over and taken resources.
Here is a quick link to extinct Native American tribes and what happened to them. Sometimes it was plague brought by Europeans and sometimes it was Native American enemies.
Contrary to popular belief, tribes did not gentily starve when the game moved on, and tribes did not choose to live in harsh deserts with lower life spans. They were not strong enough to hold the better hunting grounds. And Native Americans were not a bunch of 2017 San Franciscans living in the 1600s with tolerance and gender equality. You will recall that some tribes scalped their enemies and proudly displayed the grisly trophies in their homes. Dear, do you know where the bear fat is? Look near the stinky scalps. No? Ask the sex slave we bought from last fall…
I’ve read a contemporary account of two girls rescued from slavery among Native Americans and it was grim.
It is anachronistic to apply today’s values to hundreds of years ago. Modern Native Americans do not take scalps or slaves any more than other citizens do.
bill mcwilliams – I could answer your question about the Indians and slavery, but I already did. If you want more information try your computer and your local library.
billy mac – your comment makes no sense whatsoever. How do you relate Justice Gorsuch to the Founders to the treatment of the American Indians? Is this just because he is an originalist, and judges the constitution based on what it actually says rather than how he feels?
Foxtrots –
It’s my opinion that Gorsuch wouldn’t have a problem. Was that too difficult for you to discern?
Your own opinion that he judges the constitution based on what it actually says rather than how he feels is ridiculous. It’s only judicial activism if a right has been denied. Don’t you know how right-wing
judges operate?
Well, it’s not my opinion because I don’t follow the legal profession. However, it was attested in testimony before the Senate during his confirmation hearings.
I am still wondering why your opinion is that Justice Gorsuch would not have a problem, either with the police treatment in this case, or the abhorrent treatment of the American Indians 200 years ago.
Or maybe you just like to come on comment boards and fling poo.
FFS
Speaking of flinging poo – you’ve flung enough, haven’t you?
Three Spots On The Wall, by Who Flung Foo, copyright 1973.
It’s one of his usual binges of free-association. At least you didn’t get served the 9/11-twoofer drivel.
As far as civil rights go, there is ample evidence for concern:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=18850
a salient couple of paragraphs from Kyle Barry. ” He is Policy Counsel with the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund, who opposed Gorsuch’s nomination.”
The discussion goes on to include cases of police brutality and Gorsuch’s record indicates he will be for the police much as Under-Toads would be for the Spanish Inquisition.