More and more modern policing is becoming indistinguishable with common thuggery. Less effort has been put into protecting and serving and more effort has been put into beating and subjugating. Scenes like this, at one time a rare occurrence, are becoming expected behavior when interacting with a police officer:
Greenville officers approached a man at a Walmart parking lot on Saturday. The man appeared to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and didn’t respond to police questions or instructions. Eventually, the officers followed the man inside the store, where they attempted to detain him. The deputies claim the man resisted, though video footage of the incident certainly makes said resistance look passive, rather than violent. But once the two cops had the man on the ground, one of them immediately began punching him in the head. I count at least 20 blows.
Hitting somebody in the head 20 times isn’t an appropriate way to apprehend them. There are far more effective and less dangerous methods of physical restraint. What really gets me though are the reactions of the witnesses. They did plead with the officer to stop but none of them intervened. I understand not intervening when a violent thug is beating on somebody, it is dangerous for your person, but there are times when it’s necessary and this is one of those times. The man being beating by the officer was in immediate danger of death or great bodily harm and that officer should be in a cage on charges of aggravated assault.
The problem with intervening is that then the thug gets to shoot you and get away with it.
At the same time if we don’t take up the cause of defending ourselves and each other from the police people will continue to die without the murders facing any consequences.
Admittedly it’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. But the people have to rise up eventually and say “Enough is enough!”