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At what point, if any, does police violence against minors become okay?

Star Pupil

Star Pupil

Old soul
Joined
Apr 30, 2011
Location
Valhalla
Specifically when the violence has to do with teens with attitude problems.

Yesterday I saw this story on my Facebook feed. I could only shake my head...surely there are better ways to deal with disrespectful teenagers other than trying to forcibly remove them from their desk and throw them around the room. Especially when you're a 300 pound officer with supposed training in how to deal with people. Do they not train them on how to handle minors, teenagers without common sense?

It reminded me of this incident in Suburban Texas where a police officer pulled a gun on a bunch of kids in swimsuits. This was at least a tiny bit understandable since there were a lot of kids around, not really listening to the police officer and getting in his face. While it could have been handled differently, I was not completely appalled because the kids should know to simply not to resist a police officer. I also didn't know the whole story.

But this recent event, there was only one girl who had recently lost her mother. I know a lot about grief, you are not yourself after someone close to you passes away. I don't know what struggles she was going through that made her so "disrespectful" to her teachers and the police officer in the classroom, but I do not believe anything she did warranted such treatment.

What really makes me sick though, is that the same people who were on the side of the police during the pool party incident, jumped again on the side of police violence. But the reasons the police officer at the pool had for his violence, are seemingly absent in this case. People are blaming the girl for being disrespectful and not listening. She deserved being hurt like that simply because she was not obeying the officer. She was not breaking any laws, she wasn't a threat. It was easy enough to just ask for assistance removing her from her desk and handling her in a manner that was a little more human than the officer demonstrated.

But no, those people further go on to blame society today. Mainly the younger generation. Police Brutality is not the problem, it's the entitled brats of this generation that are. They need to be taught to obey the police! And then there was this gem, that made this story so personal to me. So hurtful. "Kids these days don't respect anyone and think they are untouchable because they don't get disciplined enough by a belt."

Ugh.

Just ugh.

I'm just wondering what everyone here thinks. Because I don't think, at any point, police violence against minors who aren't even armed or dangerous is okay.
 
For starters, the initial video you're looking at is actually a cropped and edited version so that it makes better news. I looked into it, and found this which is pointing out, to me anyway, why this is NOT brutality.

She was asked to leave the classroom by her teacher, her principal, was given every oopportunity to just get out of the desk. In the longer cut of the video, you can hear the officer stating "I'm gonig to get you up." And then her starting to flail and resist his efforts. So, you have now resisted arrest, so now you've broken the law.

Any time me, or any of my circle of friends, regardless of race or age have had any dealings with the police, when they ask you to do something well within their purview (Move along, step out of the vehicle, wait here for a few moments so I can talk to you) We damn well do it, and then it's over. As for handling minors with common sense, that only applies when the minors themselves are applying common sense to the situation. If they are being utterly unreasonable, unreasonable things are likely to happen to you. It sucks. But frankly it's the way the world works.

I honestly don't approve of people who bring up the eelt as their quick and easy solution to dealing with kids. I also don't believe that the belt is inherently a bad option. It was a method of absolute last resort while I was growing up, and I think it only came out 2-3 times in my life, but by Gods, you knew damn well you'd crossed a line when it came out. It set a very clear boundary, with a hard and fast cause and effect. Obviously I know others who were not so fortunate in their parents who relied on the belt more frequently, showing that like any power, it can be abused.
 
I knew the video was cropped but I couldn't find an article with the full thing so thank you for that.

Even after knowing that she has broken the law by saying no to a police officer, she is a MINOR. A teenaged girl. And I'm not bringing race into this, this has nothing to do about race.

Anyways, I can see why an adult would have unreasonable things done to them for being unreasonable. But just as kids are not trusted to handle adult situations with other adults, like sex for example, how are they expected to handle being in the presence of a higher authority when some kids just aren't taught to respect authority?

I'm too biased to comment on disciplinary actions regarding a belt, I cannot give my opinion being a victim of abuse.

But, we're talking about a minor who has just been through a recently traumatic experience. Of course she's going to be unreasonable, she is probably confused and hurting inside.

I think there is a problem with empathy, more than I think there is a problem with kids with attitude.
 
This is going to sound pretty blunt, but it's the best way I can think of to make the point.

I understand she's going through a hard time.

From a societal standpoint, no one cares.

We make allowances for your grief. That allowance, especially for a minor, is an excused absence. If you do not feel that you are able to properly function within the bounds of a normal situation, we allow that you not be there for it.

If you walk in that door, sit down at that desk, we expect that you'll have at least basic agreement to how a person is to behave. If you don't, then we will treat it no differently then they would any other time. It's unfortunate, but it's reality.

And to be honest on this, I'm starting to question the validity of the time frame in losing her mother. Every other article that I've come across that mentions it at all states that shhe is in foster care, and ahs been for some time. That being said, I fully understand that losing your mother is not something you just...get over, or shake off. You carry it for the rest of your life, one way or another. But the world will not make exceptions for your new weight. We expect you to keep moving.
 
That is definitely not true. The fact that this police officer was fired(from what I have read) proved that he was in the wrong and that people DO care. If I remember correctly I even read that the teacher did not agree with his actions.

But again, that is why I said what I said in my last statement. The problem is that we lack empathy.

It doesn't really matter if she had lost her mother the day before, or years before. Foster care is horrible and sometimes you just want to be left alone because of how great the pain is from feeling like you don't belong, but she is a child and she is required to go to school.

Edit: He was fired.
 
Police violence against minors becomes okay if that minor has already inflicted true damage on an officer. Read: A punch, kick, slap, reaching for their belt, or failing to cede control of a situation are not true damage. Stabbing, FIRING a gun, or especially violent throws/holds/strikes are, and should be met with containment efforts. Everything prior to that - EVERYTHING! - Including threats, brandishing weapons, refusing to obey orders, or running must be handled with utmost consideration for the power and weight the position carries, and the responsibility to protect even the people they are in conflict with.

This isn't just minors, frankly. With adults I could see a bit more leeway for breaking limbs to deal with an emergent situation, but officers should be willing to absorb harm before dealing any of their own. They're a shield.
 
Yes, that is highly more reasonable. What the officer in this story did was inexcusable. He could have simply picked her up and moved her out of the chair. I didn't see at any point where she lashed out or tried to harm the officer, just a lot of flailing from being handled like she was a sack of potatoes. There was no escalation, it was just her sitting in her chair. Resisting arrest does not mean "yay I get to disregard this persons well being and abuse them by slamming them into the ground".
 
Hmm, well my interpretation of the video is that it lacks too much information to discern the appropriateness of the actions taken by the police officer. People who state that 'force' is never okay are being unrealistic, and while I don't condone assault that's intended to harm, physical force does have it's uses, and always will. I'm personally just as appalled with those condemning the police as I am with the defenders, and all things considered.... neither amounts to very much.

Firstly the officer was called there by someone. It wasn't some random act of violence, and it wasn't a case of biased suspicion. She was clearly infringing and her personal circumstances and age aren't a factor. I don't really see what else the officer could have done. He'd been called in to remove the girl and she clearly wasn't moving. It's not like he could have just shrugged his shoulders and walked off, and talking to her was in my view not going to work either.
Compare it to a shopping mall. Shopping hours are over, and there's this young teenage girl who's planted herself down in the mall, refusing to leave. Talking to her yields no result, and as far as anyone can tell she's got no intentions of moving any time soon. Empathy is one thing, but if you want to play the empathy card, spare a thought for the workers at the mall who have to stick around without pay just cause some brat wants to be difficult? It's the same situation in the video. Classrooms are hard enough to manage as it is, the girl was a nuisance to the teacher by not following instructions, and a distraction to the other students. If you genuinely think 'leaving her alone' was a possible alternative... you've got no idea how classrooms work. xD Might as well ask all the other students and teacher to leave and find another classroom with that logic.

I don't really buy the empathy for her deceased mother argument either as I view it as a tack-on excuse. People who are in mourning don't sit in public places and try to be a public nuisance. In most cases they'll seek to be left alone, and draw as little attention to themselves as possible. "I'm going to sit here and be a nuisance" to me indicates a greater intent to be troublesome, and frankly I hate it when people play the race, gender, age, sexuality, etcetc card to derail an issue. The officer might have been in the wrong, but the girl however was definitely doing something she shouldn't have been doing.
The only reason I can imagine her wanting to stay there would be if the classroom held some sort of sentimental connection to the girl's mother... but I doubt that's the case.

Too much speculation also distorts the story. Just reading the article it says she was unharmed, rug-burned, and that she also need a cast for her injuries. In regards to social attitudes there's not really much anyone can do without being accused of being wrong. For example; can you imagine the backlash the teacher would get if he said he thought it was appropriate? The officer got fired, but considering the whole 'minors' argument and attention it's gotten it'd be too hard not to fire the man. I mean hell, there's a high possibility that someone dug up the deceased mother story and tacked it on to promote a certain view.
I watched something awhile back regarding gay marriage in Canada where overcorrection had led to reversed discrimination where people who get discriminated against for not supporting gay marriage. It's the same case here I think, and the entire argument is morally hateful, and there's no way it can become a productive discussion. You're either a child-beating monster, or a screechy coddle-y mama.


Furthermore I dispute the appropriateness of the term 'minor'
Legally it's perfectly acceptable, but there's a huge difference between an infant, child, and adolescent. Even those who are pro-belt-belting wouldn't endorse a six-month old infant getting beaten with a belt (I'd hope).
I see the condemning argument as inappropriate as it's selectively picking.
If you want to go with a legal perspective, she's a minor... but she also refused to follow lawful instructions and hence deserved to be removed from the premises. The amount of force used is debatable, but regardless she needed to be removed.
If you want to go with a moral perspective then I contest whether she could be considered a minor since she knew full-well she was acting inappropriately, and the protection exists for those who can't make proper decisions.



Overall I know I seem pretty pro-police in this case, but truth be told I'm not really on either side. Just arguing against the girl because the topic condemns it. The biggest issue with arguing cases like this is an unwillingness to admit any significant wrong-doing on either side. I'm not going to blindly jump to the girl's defense just because she's a minor if she was doing something wrong. If it was unprovoked, and unreasonable to assume then sure. Condemn the police all you want. But the girl was misbehaving, and I'd like to hear a practical solution to what could have been done before we start burning witches.
 
So, what you're saying is, you can see several hypothetical situations where the officer's behavior was warranted, and you think it's possible one of those situations was in progress?

Or do you think refusing to submit to an officer's command is grounds for physical attack?

The majority of your post seems to be under the assumption we're on the officer for removing the girl too roughly. I'm on that officer because he made a switch from 'removal mode' to 'battle mode'. You can see it clearly - He picks up the desk, her arms go wide, and suddenly he's 'containing a threat'.

Here's some 'practical solutions' - Call father, brother, aunt, friends, or church instead of cops. PULL the desk out of the room, instead of bodily lifting an entire person. Sit down next to her on the floor and talk quietly about what she's going through. Or, easiest of all; Absorb the threat. Do not retaliate. Complete the task without injuring your charge. If she wants to hit, be hit. If she wants to kick, be kicked. A youth in distress WILL lash out, and violent retaliation from authority does damage for decades.
 
Raika said:
Overall I know I seem pretty pro-police in this case, but truth be told I'm not really on either side. Just arguing against the girl because the topic condemns it. The biggest issue with arguing cases like this is an unwillingness to admit any significant wrong-doing on either side. I'm not going to blindly jump to the girl's defense just because she's a minor if she was doing something wrong. If it was unprovoked, and unreasonable to assume then sure. Condemn the police all you want. But the girl was misbehaving, and I'd like to hear a practical solution to what could have been done before we start burning witches.
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Both parties were wrong, I never claimed the girl was right and excusing her behavior. I'm just saying that the situation could have been handled very differently than what it was. Like Trygon pointed out, the officer had many options and he chose to be an aggressive, violent asshole about the situation.

The solution is to stop thinking that violence is the only way to handle a situation. Either officers need to be trained better at deescalating situations, or people need to stop saying "Oh police violence is okay because they broke the law", that way there is no confusion when they have to make that decision.

He was fired. He was wrong. Was she not wrong? No, but guess what, she was the MINOR. I will keep using that word, not as an excuse, but because most of society knows kids do stupid things regardless of whether or not they know that what they're doing is wrong. Of course they know that. But we wouldn't have juvenile detention centers if we thought that being an adolescent who knows right from wrong is the same thing as being an adult.

This whole discussion is about the amount of force that was used on her, not her being right. Two wrongs do not make a right. Her attitude did not warrant the amount of force used on her in the least.
 
Also, she's not the one in the position of Responsibility Manager for the community. People misbehave - That's why we have police. When police misbehave, it's therefore a much larger problem.
 
Well... here's my two cents.

There was a situation like this when I was in high school years ago. A kid, a tenth grader if I remember correctly, was told to leave the room (for some infraction) but did not leave, even after the assistant principal came into the class, so they called in one of the sheriffs who was working at the school. He asked the kid to leave but the kid kept refusing and got a little belligerent when the officer tried to speak with him about why he wouldn’t leave. It was nothing like striking the officer or getting verbally abusive, but he was cussing and getting loud. Officer ultimately made the decision to remove the kid from the room and he got resistance; the kid was pulling away, trying to resist being put in the cuffs (I believe they were just doing it to keep everyone safe, prevent him from running away while they called his parents but they could have actually been detaining him).

However.

The officer never struck him or threw him to the ground. He, and by this time the assistant principal was helping physically control the student, was keeping him upright and still talking very calmly, explaining what he was doing every step of the way. The kid was walked out on his own two feet.

Was the girl disobeying the officer? Yes. Did she deserve to be yanked out of a desk and thrown to the ground? No. Did the officer involved deserve to be fired from his position at the school? Yes.

Using physical force of that magnitude is only necessary when the officer’s life is in immediate danger. A girl slapping or hitting an officer is not that kind of danger. A police officer should know that. Does that mean he should have let her hit him? No. The whole ‘absorbing’ thing… No. An officer should not have to put up with being hit or kicked. That’s assaulting an officer and resisting arrest, and you go to jail for it.

Still, she should not have been treated that way. She is a child. Whether you think she was raised right or not, whether she was grieving for a loss or not, science has proven that children’s brains are not finished developing. They are prone to more instinctive and irrational thoughts and actions than adults. It’s a fact of life. So, they are generally treated differently than adult counterparts. And since this officer was working in a school environment, he would have known that. It would have been a part of his training. When she started resisting, he should have called for backup immediately for assistance. He should have restrained her in the desk, not thrown her to the ground. He should have put her in cuffs, waited until backup arrived, and then either get her to walk out on her own or they could carry her out in a safe and secure position so no one was hurt.

An officer causing intentional physical harm to ANYONE is inexcusable. They are trained to use only the force necessary to complete the task/arrest/whatever and no more. In that video, the officer used the kind of force on that girl that I would only expect see the police use on a knife wielding crackhead under the influence of PCP that was actively attacking them. It was wrong. It was plain disgusting.

I support the police. I admire them for taking on a job that is dangerous. I know that out of the dozens of horror stories in the news there are thousands of officers that do wonderful and kind things every day. But this officer, this ONE in particular, deserved to be fired from his position at the school. If he hasn’t been cut from the force, he needs to be.

Ultimately, while the girl should have listened (hindsight is a bitch), her behavior did not warrant that reaction. Period.
 
Hmm well I'm not all too familiar with the American schooling system, but judging from what Tune Mizu said above, I'm assuming that schools in the US have a police officer stationed at the school by default? The local schools where I live don't have such systems in place, and the circumstances would differ significantly in my mind depending on how the officer got there. If he's essentially school security and can get there in a few minutes that's one thing, but if someone actually called the police and had them intervene, that to me indicates a much more serious case.

I can't agree with the 'backup' option as I don't think it's reasonably viable. Police resources are finite, and you can't have several officers dealing with one problem child who isn't being a threat.

@Trygon
I distinguish between physical force, and physical assault. As I mentioned previously I differentiate between the act of physically pushing and shoving, with someone physically punching and kicking. The intent and severity of the action is different, and lumping it together as 'physical attack' skewers things. I disagree (from the clip) the amount of force that was used, but at the same time I do understand the importance of removing potentially dangerous obstacles when detaining someone. Collision with the desk or chair could lead to much more dangerous injuries if the struggled continued with them.

..........

As for the solutions, again I'm not familiar how the school policing system works over there, but calling family/faith isn't the police's job in this case, that's the school's responsibility, and frankly should of been attempted before police authority was involved (assuming the officer wasn't school based). A major issue with social attitudes at the moment is the belief that all things can be resolved through communication, and this just isn't true. While negotiating and defusing a situation is most desirable, there are other factors in play, and while there was no immediate harm forseeable, it's not fair to delay the education of students because one girl refuses to do what she's supposed to. The situation did require a speedy resolution.

As for absorption, that's one issue we'll probably never agree on. While I agree that police are a shield for the public, they aren't a meat-shield which should be abused. If being kicked, punched and spat on is part of their job their wages need a significant boost. Personally I don't care if about a person's age, gender, race, and whatnot. I don't perceive hitting a woman as being anymore wrong than hitting a middle aged white man. Nor do I perceive the shoving around of a minor as being any worse than a grown adult.

@Pittooey
Modern day neurology generally agree's that a child's brain isn't fully mature until the age of 20, with many cases stating that it could be as late as 25 when a brain fully matures. Furthermore other research indicates that a brain isn't fully done developing until the age of 30~40.
With these things considered I don't see why being a minor is so important since a large majority of the people misbehaving as them "do(ing) stupid things." What you're saying is right in terms of social attitudes towards violence, but reading it from another perspective it's actually quite insulting to say that kid should be be excused because they're incapable from discerning right from wrong. That skill is actually developed at a much younger age, and it's more a behavioural issue that a developmental one.

Also, "He was fired, he was wrong" pretty much resolves the case of the police officer in my mind. The question that matters more is what will happen to the girl. Will she also be penalized? Will she receive some sort of mental support? Or will tomorrow just be another typical day?
 
Why are people so surprised that I expect cops to get hurt? It's a dangerous job. I don't see any of you handwringing over the meat grinder in North Dakota, and those people are getting paid a damn sight less without anything even slightly comparing to the job security and lateral freedoms of being a cop. More physically demanding working oil sands, too.

There are dangerous jobs in society, and sometimes the pay doesn't quite match up. That doesn't excuse people halfassing it, especially when 'halfassing it' in this context means 'bodyslam a child/deploy tasers on a crying individual/EMPTY THE CLIP'.

It's a great ideal that society will one day be bloodless, but until it is, cops (And every other job with a monthly fatality stat) are volunteering their blood to keep the machine running. They need to accept that in some extreme circumstances, bleeding and even dying is what they're there for - So someone else doesn't have to.
 
The cop started out ok. He tried to use joint manipulation to stand her up. But appeared to be improperly trained. After she fell backwards he threw her across the room.

There is a standard for dealing with a noncompliant person. Zones where you are allowed to strike or grab. You have green zones yellow zones and red zones. You use joint manipulation and pain compliance in green zones for simple noncompliance yellow for someone that is offers an immediate threat of minor to moderate injury or if you are unable to gain control through use of green zones and red when responding to the use of deadly force or to prevent such actions. The throat and neck are to be used when the officer reasonably believe that there is an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm.

For a seated person you use pressure on the bracialplexuswhile pushing forward and manipulating the arm backward and upward to gain control of the non compliant person. The officer only got half of it right and when it dodnt work he immediately went for her neck and pulled backward then tossed her.

All in all regardless of how direapectful she was the LEO is a professional or he is supposed to be a professional. He is held to a higher standard or is supposed to be.
 
I think police violence in general should be absolute last resort only - minor or not.
Unless there is someone shooting up a place that poses an immediate danger to the lives of the officer or others, then there should be no call for any kind of violence.

Just my two cents.
 
I pretty much agree with you. There is a time and a place for it. And cops need to learn how to deesclate situations not esclate them. And when the time comes for exclation of force they need to employ it properly.
 
Princess Pittooey said:
Specifically when the violence has to do with teens with attitude problems.

Yesterday I saw this story on my Facebook feed. I could only shake my head...surely there are better ways to deal with disrespectful teenagers other than trying to forcibly remove them from their desk and throw them around the room. Especially when you're a 300 pound officer with supposed training in how to deal with people. Do they not train them on how to handle minors, teenagers without common sense?

It reminded me of this incident in Suburban Texas where a police officer pulled a gun on a bunch of kids in swimsuits. This was at least a tiny bit understandable since there were a lot of kids around, not really listening to the police officer and getting in his face. While it could have been handled differently, I was not completely appalled because the kids should know to simply not to resist a police officer. I also didn't know the whole story.

But this recent event, there was only one girl who had recently lost her mother. I know a lot about grief, you are not yourself after someone close to you passes away. I don't know what struggles she was going through that made her so "disrespectful" to her teachers and the police officer in the classroom, but I do not believe anything she did warranted such treatment.

What really makes me sick though, is that the same people who were on the side of the police during the pool party incident, jumped again on the side of police violence. But the reasons the police officer at the pool had for his violence, are seemingly absent in this case. People are blaming the girl for being disrespectful and not listening. She deserved being hurt like that simply because she was not obeying the officer. She was not breaking any laws, she wasn't a threat. It was easy enough to just ask for assistance removing her from her desk and handling her in a manner that was a little more human than the officer demonstrated.

But no, those people further go on to blame society today. Mainly the younger generation. Police Brutality is not the problem, it's the entitled brats of this generation that are. They need to be taught to obey the police! And then there was this gem, that made this story so personal to me. So hurtful. "Kids these days don't respect anyone and think they are untouchable because they don't get disciplined enough by a belt."

Ugh.

Just ugh.

I'm just wondering what everyone here thinks. Because I don't think, at any point, police violence against minors who aren't even armed or dangerous is okay.
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Look into the work of Phillip Zimbardo and the Stanford Prison Experiment.

Or even better get his book, "The Lucifer Effect"

His work sheds alot of light about why people in positions of power tend to abuse that power through a study where 16 students were given the positions of "Prisoner" and "Guard" and locked in a prison for 2 weeks (The guards were on a shift pattern) and what happened is incredibly disturbing, but sheds great insight into how evil develops in previously normal people.

(Through Situational and Systemic forces)
 
This is how I feel about the American society that I have to live in:

My government has the right to kill me
If I protest the fact that the government has the right to kill me
Then I can be classified as anti-social
If I am classified as anti-social, then I have given the government the rational reason
If and only if I was killed by the government for the reason I was killed.
 
Odd. No one even mentioned that the other 30 kids in the class were being deprived of an education. And in another video you can see the clapping once the cop gets her out. The cop over did it in the end. A better solution might have been to relocate the class to the library or another room leaving her sitting there. Once the room is cleared, have the assistant principle tell her she is expelled and to not bother coming back to school (I'm sure there is some procedure he'd have to follow). Call her guardian/parent. Turn off the light and leave her sitting there.
 
I've lived in a bad area most of my life, even today I live next to a halfway house. I've seen police being attacked with knives, with blunt pipes, had large dogs sicked on them and worse, and often times by kids younger than 18, sometimes an older person, usually a "friend" or relative of the kid will use the kid to attack the cops believing the cops can't do anything to defend themselves.

Since I grew up in such an area where gang violence is everywhere and hard drugs flow like a river and yet found myself being addicted to video games and my computer (which people have tried to steal multiple times) and because of this, I see what the police have to deal with daily, I've seen and been around the kinds of people who wind up getting shot by the police, it's no surprise.

Violence against minors is often a necessity of being a police officer, if you want to go home to your kids and wife, odds are you're gonna have to whip out your baton and lay the smack-down on this 12 year-old coming at you with a giant kitchen knife.

it's not pretty and we'd all like for the police to be 100% perfect at all times, able to shoot the gun out of the hand of an assailant at 70 meters in 0.6 seconds. but the fact is the police are human, humans who have to deal with the absolute WORST o our society on a daily basis, people who have had others try and kill them and understandably get scared when people are trying to KILL THEM! and honestly I'm sick of these inhuman expecttions some have of the police.

as the old saying goes, spend a day in their shoes and see what you'll say the day after.
 
Look at it the other way. How do you remove her without violence? She has been repeatedly asked to leave. There are 30 other kids whose education is being impacted. How do you remove her? If a person will not cooperate with the police to either simply move along or be arrested, what can the cop do? Give me your hands so I can cuff you. NO. OK - now what?
 
To answer the major question, I have to be frank and say that there is no set point for EVERY case in which I would say it's okay or not okay for a cop to become violent with a minor. Every situation is different in all of the variables and honestly, there is no way for me to put a line down.

In the particular video shown of the girl in the classroom, I saw a cop that wasn't using the right methods. My husband's been trained in pain manipulation for uncooperative people and I think he should have been trying harder at that. He also put a LOT of other students at risk in the way he got her out of the desk because he could have really injured someone else. In that particular case, that kid deserved what she got. The ENTIRE story that I saw showed that the teacher had asked her to leave, the security personnel had asked her to leave, and then they resorted to police since she was obstinate against listening to anyone else. She was under 18 but that doesn't mean she has the mental capacity of a child. She has the ability to make a decision and say Oh, you know what? Maybe I should leave before this DOES escalate.

They gave her options and she chose the path of it being escalated so I have zero sympathy on the fact that she was injured in being taken from her desk. Could it have been done better? You betcha. But I'm not the type to Monday morning quarterback a situation.

Coming from the wife of a police officer, I have a firm belief that they DO need more training on handling situations with non-violent or less-violent tactics. The only class my husband went through on that was when he went through Basic Law Enforcement Training (BLET) and that's it. He took three classes - one about the use of a baton called pressure point control techniques, subject control and arrest techniques, and hand-to-hand fighting which was a compilation of the other two classes and was essentially putting what he was taught to real life.

I also spoke with my husband about this while writing and he had this to say:

The only time that I would get violent with a minor is if they started to get violent with me. If they want to throw punches like an adult then they're going to be treated like an adult and taken to the ground. But, I will say that in my classes one thing they told me is that there are two groups that will escalate to deadly first: women and minors. When dealing with the police these two groups are known to escalate towards extremes because they already feel more vulnerable than a man and we are taught to proceed with caution because it has been known for them to get deadly quick. Minors are even more so dangerous because they still don't completely grasp the reality of consequences.
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He hasn't ever been put in a situation in which he's had to get physical with anyone under the age of 18, but he has watched pretty much all of the videos of where it has happened. He agrees with me that the officer in the classroom video should have employed different techniques before resorting to what he did and that he frankly should have cleared the area of other people first because minors, especially ones agitated as she was, are extremely unpredictable.



I see issues on both sides of the field:

One, whether you want to accept it or not, we do have a society that is being raised with less and less respect for law enforcement. People have a mentality now of where they feel like they can get away with anything. Between the time in which my father did a form of law enforcement and my husband, the differences are extremely vast. My husband has to worry about a whole hell of a lot more than my dad ever did and the attitude of the people is more or less resentment.

However, the former is a result of this: law enforcement now is extremely fucked up. There are so many bad seeds that are still in the garden and they're making a poor name for the cops that just want to do their job and keep the communities they and their families live in safe. The 'brotherhood' protects these bad cops and nothing ever really gets done until the public is the one to cry out against them and demand a change. My husband has not had ANY further training or refresher courses in handling non-compliant subjects in over two years. This is the standard for most departments.

The problem can be fixed by addressing the issues within law enforcement itself and working on improving law enforcement training and procedures.
 
A minor can do just as much harm to you as an adult. If the minor wants to play big boy games than the minor can be struck down like a big boy would. I have no problems at all with the Police or anyone else going full force on these animals.
 
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