Busted down to picking up empty shell casings on the firing range it is, then. (or ought to be).
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That's a balanced and well throught through post, Guardian.
Sounds to me like the little turd buckets were trying to set Sal up.
First -- regarding the use of force. I don't have a problem with it. The officer tells the kid to give him the skateboard; I don't blame him. The kid's already showing an attitude; a skateboard can be a great weapon (would you want to take a skateboard to the face?) or provide a means of immediate escape. The officer had every right to control that skateboard during the encounter. When the kid refused to surrender it, he used pretty reasonable force to control the kid, and to keep him seated. A simple takedown, and a push. And, if you can't tell, I feel he had justification.
I don't think so. They have a history of filming officers when they get yelled at by them, and admitted they where in the wrong.
How is that different then someone admitting they where in the wrong when caught speeding or running a stop sign? If my history with the cops was full of instances like that, I'd probably be tempted to flip a camera on when one approached me too.
Tony Santo, 15, taped the incident last summer.
Bush said he and his friends often have run-ins with police for skateboarding. Santo said he sometimes uses a camcorder to tape the interactions with police because they find humor in getting yelled at by officers.
Thats only a good analogy if you intentionally run stop signs so you can film the cops. The kids said they film the police because they enjoy laughing at them yelling at them latter.
But none of us are privy to this officers worthiness based on 2 internet videos.
I agree, but there will always be situations like this. If out of thousands of taped police encounters there is only a few "bad ones" that should be a good thing. However those few always get publicized and the rest are ignored. Unless we expect to entirely eliminate all bad encounters [which is impossible] what are we to expect?
Im not saying that we should ignore these types of stories but the impression of law enforcement the media creates out of these situations is out of whack with reality IMO.
One thing I'm curious about is the terminology used here. In my country and in Europe we have 'police officers' in the States you have 'law enforcement officers' and I'm curious to know what differences people see between them as I think it has bearing on this thread.