Just restrain them enough and handcuff them and take them to the station.
Hi Michie,
Right! But in a situation where you attempt to reach out and restrain an offender and they start pushing and pulling and struggling...how much is enough? Will it be enough for the officer to just step back and say, "Hey, stop making this difficult so I can get these handcuffs on you." You see, that's the problem. We aren't there and we don't feel the strength of the fight or the words and slurs being thrown about out of disrespect and belligerence. All we see is someone standing 30 feet away with a phone taking a video and all it records are the actions and sometimes, if it's close enough, the words. The police officer finds himself often in what he believes to be a fairly difficult struggle. I mean police officers are just human beings and most of us don't do well in a physical fight against another human being. Fights don't really work out like they are portrayed in the movies. One swing and you just knock somebody into submission or unconsciousness. Struggles can be very physical and as soon as the physical struggle starts, then the police officer has to be mindful that if he's overpowered, the offender might get his weapon and shoot him. I mean he doesn't know one way or the other what's going to happen if he gets overpowered, but it is, I'm sure, a fairly scary situation to find yourself in.
So yes, I agree. Restrain the offender just enough to get him/her handcuffed. But that isn't always just as simple as it sounds when you just speak the words. Many people are growing up with a fairly blatant disrespect for the law and so, just like we deal with unbelievers, someone who has no respect for the law can make themselves quite an armful if it comes to the pushing and shoving of trying to get them restrained. Unbelievers will argue with us till the cows come home about how wrong we are and what BS it is that we believe. Now we can just turn around and walk away in a discussion with an unbeliever, but police officers, once they start an incident with a suspect have to see it through. Let's not forget that the teens were breaking the law, no matter what your personal feelings are about smoking and vaping, the police don't get to hem and haw about whether or not the law is righteous, although I'm sure sometimes they'd like to, but their job is to stop people from breaking the law and in most cases arrest them or issue a citation to them for their offense.
Now, I'm firmly against what happened to George Floyd and I'm firmly against any police officer shooting someone over some minor infraction and certainly a suspect, for a minor infraction should never be shot in the back. But if you actually work the job, I think you'll find that getting someone restrained can be a fairly arduous task. Especially when you're dealing with someone who has no respect for authority.
Listen, the police officer should have just been able to say, "Hey, it's illegal to vape here and you need to put that away." And the offender respond, as he's putting the instrument in his pocket, "Yes sir, officer. I'll move on to somewhere else." But that isn't always how such police contacts work themselves out. I'm completely against what happened to George Floyd, but neither do I want the pendulum to swing to the highest orc of the other side. Where we tie our police officers hands to the point that they become fearful of actually doing their job for fear of repercussions.
God bless,
Ted
