Video of Long Beach’s Finest.

[XBoxBoy]

Painful to watch as they beat this guy and taser him repeatedly.

[spdrun]

I’m normally against capital punishment, but I’m more than willing to make an exception for people who are supposed to be protecting us abusing their power to that extent.

[paramount]

You can bet the unions will protect the long beach cops involved.

[Mishpacha House]

I turned the sound down to avoid any extraneous commentary and to try to surmise what was going on.

Without the benefit of sound, it looked as tho’ cops were trying to cuff the guy. Whenever a cop got close enough to put a hand on him he would kick them back.

(I assumed) One officer was using his baton on the guy’s leg(s) just for that reason.

I play it back with sound and come to much the same conclusion.

Most of this is assumption based on observation.
We don’t know how or why the guy was in the street. For all we know he robbed a little old lady and ran over a kid trying to get away.

The cops were telling him (repeatedly) to roll onto his stomach…he refused.
The guy was obviously being obstinate.

“roll onto your stomach”

not hard to avoid a lot of what was going on there.
Do what the cop tells you to do and you won’t get tazed. Don’t try to kick the cop when he tries to roll you over to cuff you and won’t get a baton on your leg.

[no_such_reality]

Actually the guy had been fighting in the street.

None of that matters, nor does being obstinate. There is a fundamental problem when the cops continue to use force on a person who is on their back in the street. You have a cop swinging a baton at your knees when you’re on your back and you won’t behave like a docile little cow that does whatever order they bark, you will attempt to block blows.

The cops need retraining. It is obvious as you watch police response that they been trained to use overwhelming force and IMHO, the cops have been trained to ESCALATE situations instead of defusing situations.

[spdrun]

No: they need jailing.

[no_such_reality]

[quote=spdrun]No: they need jailing.[/quote]

Yes they do, I mean LEA in general all across the state appear to continually escalate confrontations instead of defusing and they need a new training program.

[spdrun]

That’s like saying that humans need a training program so as not to end up like Charles Manson. Some training is needed, but there apparently are also some real psychos out there who need locking up. Or a stay in the “green room” at San Quentin.

[drboom]

[quote=Mishpacha House]The cops were telling him (repeatedly) to roll onto his stomach…he refused.
The guy was obviously being obstinate.[/quote]

Bootlickers always find a way to justify these things.

The cops broke bones in his arm so badly he needed surgery, among other things. Is there some reason why they couldn’t stand back and let everyone cool down for a minute? The guy was on the ground after being zapped, he was unarmed, and there was overwhelming force present.

The suspect has a history of mental illness, as is so often the case, but our police are trained to respond to every situation in paramilitary terms so the outcome is predictable. Does anyone think beating a sick person with a stick will make them less ill? How about semi-controlled electrocution? What about the corrosive effect this kind of legally sanctioned torture has on society? Does it promote respect of the law and those who enforce it?

Psychiatric nurses routinely execute safe takedowns of violent mentally ill patients, why can’t the cops?

[spdrun]

Because being a nurse requires some sort of social conscience and the ability to think with more than one’s nightstick.

[mike92104]

I agree with the outrage. Cops need to use force to defend themselves or other, but there is no justification in using violence to force someone to submit to your will. He was obviously not going anywhere, and I don’t have a problem with paying the officers for a little more time to avoid beating citizens.

[paramount]

[quote=Mishpacha House]
Do what the cop tells you to do and you won’t get tazed. [/quote]

I disagree with this, cops use tazers to coerce and even against peaceful/legal protesters among others.

Sheriff Andy Taylor was pure fiction people. So was Deputy Fife.

Look at it this way: The gov’t is not unlike the Mafia, and cops are the crime boss hitmen.

[CA renter]

Copying over a comment (by commenter Shawn Allen) from the video, because I think he makes some good points:

“I can’t form an opinion based on the limited stuff I saw; I definitely know that there’s plenty of abusive cops but things I hate about a good portion of these types of videos:

1)It’s always someone who has been previously resisting & not wanting to obey simple commands

2)Usually someone drunk and/or on drugs or mentally unstable

3)Video does not capture everything in context but the part of the “beat down”

Definitely need more of those wearable cams on cops nowadays!”

———————-

We also need to understand that cops do not know whether or not someone is armed, or if they’ve murdered/raped/beaten multiple people, when they arrive on scene. They DO need to take precautions, and I would argue that a cop deserves more protection than a violent criminal.

That being said, based only on the limited material shown on this (admittedly) very disturbing video, it most certainly looks like the cops went beyond what was necessary to get the job done. The man apparently had a broken arm, loose teeth, etc. and was in pain. He might not have been able to roll onto his stomach due to his injuries.

I agree with NSR regarding the need for a LOT of training in how to de-escalate a situation. It is very clear that, in many situations, cops do indeed make a bad situation much worse.

[scaredyclassic]

At least they didn’t beat the living shit out of the people with the video camera. That’s mitigating.

[spdrun]

The fuckers were probably too enwrapped in their little roid rage episode to notice. (And yes, steroid use among cops is depressingly common.)

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