Seattle Cop Punches Girl in Face! - Page 5

They're not telling us everything here. I'm sure these people are all muslins. What with the violence and whatnot

Hmm. A couple of things: Never, ever push/provoke a cop. Police don't respond well to such behavior anywhere, not just in Seattle. The women were in the wrong at that point, however. . . What sort of trained cop couldn't handle a jaywalking situation? How did it even elevate to that point? Loved the President of the Fraternal Order of Police saying the cop behaved appropriately and did nothing wrong.

Not that TV accurately portrays cops...

But cops on TV shows punch people all the time...nobody seems to care about that. Sure, TV cops aren't beating up skateboarders or people who happen to be filming them doing something questionable (notice the cameraman in this video doesn't get attacked...) but when when people push, it seems to be SOP to push back.

Even if the TV cops are an awful portrayal, hasn't everybody seen enough law and order to think that going at a cop is going to get you punched (even if its not actually the case).

That's the thing. We don't know what happened before this, but at that point the situation was out of the officer's control. Law enforcement officials are trained to first get control of the situation, then straighten things out. That may mean first putting everybody in cuffs, then figuring out who's at fault, or whatever.

It's easy to say that it's just a couple of teenage girls, but the officer had no idea what they may have had in their pockets (knives, guns, needles). There isn't a cop in the country who's going to assume that an assailant -- and make no mistake about it, these were assailants -- isn't armed. Get control first, then figure it out.

Could he have handled it differently? Likely. In the video, I thought I saw the handle of a taser on his belt as he was swerving in front of the camera. That would have been far better than punching her. But these girls were clearly out of control, and some method had to be used to obtain control.


It's "only" a jaywalking situation if that's all that's happening. Here, there was far more going on. Unfortunately, unless we see uninterrupted and unobstructed video from the beginning, there's no way for us to know how well or poorly he handled the situation. Perhaps his attitude precipitated their responses (though they both have violent priors, if I understand correctly). Perhaps it was all them. The fact that there was no backup on the scene tells me this happened quickly, whatever it was.

If a cop is set on giving them a ticket (maybe he was going to warn but not after they behave poorly) and they start to just walk away...he is going to be on guard.

First, he has to catch them to give them a ticket since its not like a parking ticket where they have your ID info...if you turn and run and get away, you get away free.

When you start walking away from a cop you already start acting strangely...then your friend gets in and gets all uppity...

Of all the cop videos that should be a big deal, this isn't one of them