There's no such thing as excessive force in America - Page 2

Jack by the hedge · 5th October 2016, 10:22 AM

Seems to me that the instant the guy mentioned harrassment the cop assumed he was phoning for backup and they might be ambushed. That's why he grabbed the phone and it all went downhill from there. I suppose he should have insisted the guy not use his phone in the first place.

It also seems likely to me that whoever called the police to say someone was trying to break into a house with a shovel was probably right. Stuck outside with no key, I might have tried something similar myself just to see if I could open the garage door without doing any damage.

Cl1mh4224rd · 5th October 2016, 05:08 PM

Originally Posted by Jack by the hedge

It also seems likely to me that whoever called the police to say someone was trying to break into a house with a shovel was probably right. Stuck outside with no key, I might have tried something similar myself just to see if I could open the garage door without doing any damage.

I once locked myself out of my apartment. I was leaving, locked the regular lock, pulled the door shut, reached into my pocket to pull out my keys so I could lock the deadbolt, and realized something was wrong.

Eventually I remembered that I had left one of my windows unlocked. I managed to open it up from the outside and crawled in.

If anyone even saw me, I guess it was long enough to realize what was going on. Otherwise, I'm sure I would have come back out and been greeted by a couple officers.

(I now pull my keys out of my pocket and hold them in my hand before I even cross the threshold.)

Mumbles · 5th October 2016, 05:08 PM

Originally Posted by Jack by the hedge

Seems to me that the instant the guy mentioned harrassment the cop assumed he was phoning for backup and they might be ambushed. That's why he grabbed the phone and it all went downhill from there. I suppose he should have insisted the guy not use his phone in the first place.

It also seems likely to me that whoever called the police to say someone was trying to break into a house with a shovel was probably right. Stuck outside with no key, I might have tried something similar myself just to see if I could open the garage door without doing any damage.

Given his conduct before the phone, I'd say Cole does not deserve the benefit of the doubt on his conduct immediately after. It was obvious that he was simply trolling for a reason to arrest and abuse Yourse, and the phone was simply the excuse he took advantage of.

Thermal · 5th October 2016, 06:32 PM

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

Bull, since when does a burglar try to open a garage door then go sit on the front porch?

He said which neighbors knew him, they made no effort to check with them and once he explained the pronunciation he cleared that up. My surname can be pronounced more than one way as well.

Burglars don't sit on front porches, that alone should have at least made the cops less suspicious.

Both cops were very casual with Youse at first, Cole was even laughing and joking with him. Regarding sitting on the porch, ya ever heard of intoxication? Lit up bad guys do a lot weirder stuff than that. The cops were in the process of verifying his identity, I would guess they hadn't yet conducted a door-to-door investigation before things went south. Cole was definitely the bad guy here and, as posted earlier, this wasn't the first time.

ddt · 5th October 2016, 06:53 PM

Originally Posted by Jack by the hedge

Seems to me that the instant the guy mentioned harrassment the cop assumed he was phoning for backup and they might be ambushed. That's why he grabbed the phone and it all went downhill from there. I suppose he should have insisted the guy not use his phone in the first place.

I think it's more likely that Cole at that moment realized he didn't need any witnesses to his harassment, and simply didn't realize throughout the exchange there were already two cameras recording the incident.

PhantomWolf · 5th October 2016, 10:20 PM

It becomes more and more apparent that the US needs to create a Federal Police Training Program that all officers need to go through and that allows then to weed out these sorts of power trippers on the way. If all Police Officers were trained to the same Federal Standard nation wide, before being trained in their own State Laws and requirements afterwards, we might start to see a lot less of these sort of incidents.

Jack by the hedge · 5th October 2016, 11:53 PM

Originally Posted by Mumbles

Given his conduct before the phone, I'd say Cole does not deserve the benefit of the doubt on his conduct immediately after. It was obvious that he was simply trolling for a reason to arrest and abuse Yourse, and the phone was simply the excuse he took advantage of.

My impression is that Cole assumes throughout that Yourse is a burglar and keeps provoking him, hoping he'll keep talking and get his story wrong or lose his temper and provide an excuse to arrest him. Cole's already decided the situation will end with Yourse being arrested. To him it's so obvious that he and Yourse both know they're playing a game of trying to catch the bad guy out that when it escalates he never bothers to explain to Yourse why he's attacking him.

The only thing I'd say in mitigation is that his belief that Yourse was trying to force entry to the house was probably true.

Carnivore · 6th October 2016, 05:34 AM

Originally Posted by Jack by the hedge

My impression is that Cole assumes throughout that Yourse is a burglar and keeps provoking him, hoping he'll keep talking and get his story wrong or lose his temper and provide an excuse to arrest him. Cole's already decided the situation will end with Yourse being arrested. To him it's so obvious that he and Yourse both know they're playing a game of trying to catch the bad guy out that when it escalates he never bothers to explain to Yourse why he's attacking him.

The only thing I'd say in mitigation is that his belief that Yourse was trying to force entry to the house was probably true.

This makes sense to me. One thing that bothered me was that in the aftermath Cole came off as sincere in assuming Yourse should have expected what happened. I had wondered whether there might have been some aspect of his training or experience that would lead to him automatically assuming the phone call was a threat but your explanation fits all the facts.

jimbob · 6th October 2016, 03:22 PM

Originally Posted by Jrrarglblarg

Cops don't "generally" act like that in the U S either, but international media really doesn't put the sample size in larger context.

To me, it's not the sample size, it's the fact that the extreme examples are illustrative of situations that are very rare, and are well and truly investigated in other countries.

To say nothing of the various police forces with systemic problems (Baltimore, Ferguson, to give examples of the most well-documented ones).

An analogy. At work, we were discussing a solution to a customer complaint, which we fixed. We had a defect rate of 0.5ppm, which both the customer and us considered unacceptable due to the potential costs. This was not in a life-critical application.

We had to investigate and explain what went wrong, how it went wrong, what our containment plan was, and the long term fix, and how we verified it.

One quality approach that is increasingly popular is to regard quality failures as ultimately management failures. That approach could and should be translated into justified police complaints.

deadrose · 6th October 2016, 04:46 PM

Interestingly, the post I made this afternoon about a Seattle cop references an incident where nearly the same thing happened here. Probably the only reason the victim wasn't beaten and arrested was that a witness happened by, who verified his identity, and more importantly that he was the son of a county councilman.

The Norseman · 7th October 2016, 09:27 AM

Originally Posted by The Big Dog

huh:

There's no such thing as excessive force in America

Mayhap you wish to reconsider?

lol No. One is simply a thread title, illustrating what the OP believes about the country in general while using a specific case which is to highlight the OP's statement. You're the one who added a whole lot of 'reading into it' into it about naming a specific person as dictator of "America". And why use scare quotes around "America"? Wouldn't the scare quotes around "dictator" be more apropriate?

Originally Posted by Mumbles

In theory, this may be true. In practice, this is far from the first time that I've heard/seen a cop simply walk up to a (almost always black or Hispanic) person and simply start off with an amazingly hostile attitude, that ramps up to outright violence without cause. Usually, it's far faster than this as well. And it's not like we haven't seen, say, Sandra Bland, this teen who was pepper-sprayed in the back of a cruiser after being restrained, and so forth., and so forth.

As I've said, the main difference is that there are more cameras and social media to spread the word these days - the practices themselves go back decades.

Oh, for sure, I'm in complete agreement. I was merely saying that even force is authorized with a specific intention of a series of escalations which were completely and ludicrously ignored in this case.

Originally Posted by Argumemnon

That's rather cryptic. Can you elaborate?

Please, no.

5th October 2016, 05:08 PM	#42
Cl1mh4224rd Philosopher Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 9,778	Originally Posted by Jack by the hedge It also seems likely to me that whoever called the police to say someone was trying to break into a house with a shovel was probably right. Stuck outside with no key, I might have tried something similar myself just to see if I could open the garage door without doing any damage. I once locked myself out of my apartment. I was leaving, locked the regular lock, pulled the door shut, reached into my pocket to pull out my keys so I could lock the deadbolt, and realized something was wrong. Eventually I remembered that I had left one of my windows unlocked. I managed to open it up from the outside and crawled in. If anyone even saw me, I guess it was long enough to realize what was going on. Otherwise, I'm sure I would have come back out and been greeted by a couple officers. (I now pull my keys out of my pocket and hold them in my hand before I even cross the threshold.)
Cl1mh4224rd Philosopher Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 9,778

5th October 2016, 05:08 PM	#43
Mumbles Philosopher Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 7,335	Originally Posted by Jack by the hedge Seems to me that the instant the guy mentioned harrassment the cop assumed he was phoning for backup and they might be ambushed. That's why he grabbed the phone and it all went downhill from there. I suppose he should have insisted the guy not use his phone in the first place. It also seems likely to me that whoever called the police to say someone was trying to break into a house with a shovel was probably right. Stuck outside with no key, I might have tried something similar myself just to see if I could open the garage door without doing any damage. Given his conduct before the phone, I'd say Cole does not deserve the benefit of the doubt on his conduct immediately after. It was obvious that he was simply trolling for a reason to arrest and abuse Yourse, and the phone was simply the excuse he took advantage of.
Mumbles Philosopher Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 7,335

5th October 2016, 06:32 PM	#44
Thermal Philosopher Join Date: Aug 2016 Posts: 8,885	Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger Bull, since when does a burglar try to open a garage door then go sit on the front porch? He said which neighbors knew him, they made no effort to check with them and once he explained the pronunciation he cleared that up. My surname can be pronounced more than one way as well. Burglars don't sit on front porches, that alone should have at least made the cops less suspicious. Both cops were very casual with Youse at first, Cole was even laughing and joking with him. Regarding sitting on the porch, ya ever heard of intoxication? Lit up bad guys do a lot weirder stuff than that. The cops were in the process of verifying his identity, I would guess they hadn't yet conducted a door-to-door investigation before things went south. Cole was definitely the bad guy here and, as posted earlier, this wasn't the first time.
Thermal Philosopher Join Date: Aug 2016 Posts: 8,885

5th October 2016, 06:53 PM	#45
ddt Mafia Penguin Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Netherlands Posts: 19,576	Originally Posted by Jack by the hedge Seems to me that the instant the guy mentioned harrassment the cop assumed he was phoning for backup and they might be ambushed. That's why he grabbed the phone and it all went downhill from there. I suppose he should have insisted the guy not use his phone in the first place. I think it's more likely that Cole at that moment realized he didn't need any witnesses to his harassment, and simply didn't realize throughout the exchange there were already two cameras recording the incident.
	__________________ "I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people." - "Saint" Teresa, the lying thieving Albanian dwarf "I think accuracy is important" - Vixen

5th October 2016, 10:20 PM	#46
PhantomWolf Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 19,091	It becomes more and more apparent that the US needs to create a Federal Police Training Program that all officers need to go through and that allows then to weed out these sorts of power trippers on the way. If all Police Officers were trained to the same Federal Standard nation wide, before being trained in their own State Laws and requirements afterwards, we might start to see a lot less of these sort of incidents.
	__________________ It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. -- JayUtah I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. -- Charles Babbage (1791-1871)

5th October 2016, 10:22 AM	#41
Jack by the hedge Safely Ignored Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 9,818	Seems to me that the instant the guy mentioned harrassment the cop assumed he was phoning for backup and they might be ambushed. That's why he grabbed the phone and it all went downhill from there. I suppose he should have insisted the guy not use his phone in the first place. It also seems likely to me that whoever called the police to say someone was trying to break into a house with a shovel was probably right. Stuck outside with no key, I might have tried something similar myself just to see if I could open the garage door without doing any damage.

5th October 2016, 11:53 PM	#47
Jack by the hedge Safely Ignored Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 9,818	Originally Posted by Mumbles Given his conduct before the phone, I'd say Cole does not deserve the benefit of the doubt on his conduct immediately after. It was obvious that he was simply trolling for a reason to arrest and abuse Yourse, and the phone was simply the excuse he took advantage of. My impression is that Cole assumes throughout that Yourse is a burglar and keeps provoking him, hoping he'll keep talking and get his story wrong or lose his temper and provide an excuse to arrest him. Cole's already decided the situation will end with Yourse being arrested. To him it's so obvious that he and Yourse both know they're playing a game of trying to catch the bad guy out that when it escalates he never bothers to explain to Yourse why he's attacking him. The only thing I'd say in mitigation is that his belief that Yourse was trying to force entry to the house was probably true.

6th October 2016, 05:34 AM	#48
Carnivore Salad Dodger Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Manchester UK Posts: 1,885	Originally Posted by Jack by the hedge My impression is that Cole assumes throughout that Yourse is a burglar and keeps provoking him, hoping he'll keep talking and get his story wrong or lose his temper and provide an excuse to arrest him. Cole's already decided the situation will end with Yourse being arrested. To him it's so obvious that he and Yourse both know they're playing a game of trying to catch the bad guy out that when it escalates he never bothers to explain to Yourse why he's attacking him. The only thing I'd say in mitigation is that his belief that Yourse was trying to force entry to the house was probably true. This makes sense to me. One thing that bothered me was that in the aftermath Cole came off as sincere in assuming Yourse should have expected what happened. I had wondered whether there might have been some aspect of his training or experience that would lead to him automatically assuming the phone call was a threat but your explanation fits all the facts.
	__________________ "It's backwards thinking like this that made me leave Manchester. You Guinness swilling, Marmite blaspheming animal." - Malfie Henpox

6th October 2016, 03:22 PM	#49
jimbob Uncritical "thinker" Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: UK Posts: 21,531	Originally Posted by Jrrarglblarg Cops don't "generally" act like that in the U S either, but international media really doesn't put the sample size in larger context. To me, it's not the sample size, it's the fact that the extreme examples are illustrative of situations that are very rare, and are well and truly investigated in other countries. To say nothing of the various police forces with systemic problems (Baltimore, Ferguson, to give examples of the most well-documented ones). An analogy. At work, we were discussing a solution to a customer complaint, which we fixed. We had a defect rate of 0.5ppm, which both the customer and us considered unacceptable due to the potential costs. This was not in a life-critical application. We had to investigate and explain what went wrong, how it went wrong, what our containment plan was, and the long term fix, and how we verified it. One quality approach that is increasingly popular is to regard quality failures as ultimately management failures. That approach could and should be translated into justified police complaints.
	__________________ OECD healthcare spending Expenditure on healthcare http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm link is 2015 data (2013 Data below): UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending

6th October 2016, 04:46 PM	#50
deadrose Illuminator Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: the wet side of the mountains Posts: 3,254	Interestingly, the post I made this afternoon about a Seattle cop references an incident where nearly the same thing happened here. Probably the only reason the victim wasn't beaten and arrested was that a witness happened by, who verified his identity, and more importantly that he was the son of a county councilman.

7th October 2016, 09:27 AM	#51
The Norseman Meandering fecklessly Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 8,376	Originally Posted by The Big Dog huh: There's no such thing as excessive force in America Mayhap you wish to reconsider? lol No. One is simply a thread title, illustrating what the OP believes about the country in general while using a specific case which is to highlight the OP's statement. You're the one who added a whole lot of 'reading into it' into it about naming a specific person as dictator of "America". And why use scare quotes around "America"? Wouldn't the scare quotes around "dictator" be more apropriate? Originally Posted by Mumbles In theory, this may be true. In practice, this is far from the first time that I've heard/seen a cop simply walk up to a (almost always black or Hispanic) person and simply start off with an amazingly hostile attitude, that ramps up to outright violence without cause. Usually, it's far faster than this as well. And it's not like we haven't seen, say, Sandra Bland, this teen who was pepper-sprayed in the back of a cruiser after being restrained, and so forth., and so forth. As I've said, the main difference is that there are more cameras and social media to spread the word these days - the practices themselves go back decades. Oh, for sure, I'm in complete agreement. I was merely saying that even force is authorized with a specific intention of a series of escalations which were completely and ludicrously ignored in this case. Originally Posted by Argumemnon That's rather cryptic. Can you elaborate? Please, no.
	__________________ A government is a body of people usually - notably - ungoverned. -Shepard Book