It was a black, unmarked Camaro (not a car commonly used as police cars, at least in my region), and the officer had his emergency lights (most likely mounted on the inside, possibly with alternating headlights) activated, but no siren.
You can see the biker’s “oh, shit” moment right before he pulls into last intersection when he looks in his rearview and realizes it’s a cop. If he had been truly on a 5 mile high-speed police chase and not just expecting some asshole playing birddog, he probably wouldn’t have behaved the same way when entering the intersection.
Also in the vid, note the adeptness and professionalism of how the officer handles his firearm when out of the holster.
Or just a lot of dead civilians because cops would just shoot anyone first since the possession of a firearm seems to be a free ticket for the cops to shoot you.*
*(but only if you’re a minority or a drug addict or a poor person)
I am actually fine with everything except the kicking. Knocking the bike over isn’t great, weapon probably wasn’t necessary, but kicking someone who is clearly not resisting so hard that you break their collarbone?
Also, why is that no police, ever, can simply say “I made a mistake this time, my apologies citizen. I’ll strive to do better on the next one.”
I mean, what the fuck. Why is it always, always, always
close ranks
never admit mistakes
pretend you are superhuman and perfect all the time
fight any claim otherwise to the fuckin’ death with the full force of the courts that are in cahoots with the cops already by definition
Sick of that shit. Just owning up to a mistake every now and then – like the rest of us human beings – would go a long way towards fixing relationships between the communities and cops.
unfortunately it is likely because we live in such a litigious society and taking responsibility and apologizing is a liability, which sucks. I agree with your sentiment about owning up and taking responsibility, I wish it would happen more often. As it is, insincere formal apologies only come after court rulings as part of PR press statements, not from the offender to the victim.
Because the police are alternately pants-pissing yellow cowards (“I shot the unarmed black man in the back as he ran away because I feared for my life”), or authoritarian jackwagons who can’t get off unless they’re choking out someone who is powerless to stop them (“He was resisting arrest as I broke his arm, then started kicking him in the head! Why doesn’t anyone care about how traumatic it was for me to maim, then kill the victim?”)
Yeah. That cop has no business carrying a firearm. Especially since he was aiming it at his victim with his finger on the trigger before he decided whether or not to shoot the guy. That’s a violation of two of the most basic rules of firearms handling.
If he can’t follow 2 out of 3 basic, simple, vitally important rules that you can even teach your preteen child to follow, then he needs to have all his firearms taken away, any CWP revoked and him blacklisted from firearms purchases until he takes remedial safety classes. It should be that way for everyone, really.
If we catch you mishandling a weapon, then you shouldn’t be allowed to have one until you can prove your competency. Just like if you mishandle a motorcycle, or a car, or even fucking food in a restaurant.
I don’t think that’s a purely american phenomenon.
Down here in argentina the exact same bullshit happens. I once rode a cab where the driver had a sort of police baton, which he used to beat motorcyclists with. A complete and utter asshole.
Settlements and judgements for the plaintiffs in police brutality cases like this one should come directly out of the police retirement and pensions funds.
Also, out of the offending officer’s pay. Make them pay their own judgements. It’s not like my employer would pay for my judgement if I kicked someone breaking their collarbone while doing my helpdesk job. And the union wouldn’t pay my dad’s judgement if he, for instance, horsewhipped someone with some electrical cable on the job either. What makes the police so special? The pig lost. Time for him to pay up. Maybe it’d make the fuckers think once instead of zero times before they try to fuck with people.
Not to mention holding it horizontally TV gangster style instead of vertically like anyone properly trained in firearm handling would. Also notice how it points all over the place as he executes his kick maneuver. amateur.
I would love to see this enforced at ranges. Yes, they’re the place to train, and gain experience, but I’ve seen far too many “holy shit, are you serious?” moments of dumbfuckery at a number of ranges. The place I frequent now is run with an iron fist in terms of safety and monitoring, which apparently a lot of people aren’t fond of (reading online reviews of the place), but I’d rather be at a place where the dumbasses get stopped ASAP rather than not (since I live in a suburban area, and can’t easily just go out to the back 40 to plink away).
Um, his finger wasn’t on the trigger. I watched it again at quarter speed. His finger was on the side of the frame. Which is a good thing because we tend to tighten our fists when we do things like kick something. That is one of the shifts in training from around the 80s where they kept fingers off the trigger until read to fire (which was more of an issue when they shifted to semi-auto pistols).
Now, I agree he didn’t even need to have it pulled at this time, but I can’t fault him for trigger discipline.
I’m pretty used to seeing nobody ever practice proper trigger discipline ever because nobody seems to ever get in trouble for violating all the rules of safe firearms handling. Of course in media they treat them like toys, so when I see youtube videos of guys playing with their new guns at the range it never surprises me that they treat the gun as if it’s a toy.
If the officer suddenly decided lethal force were warranted, placed his finger on the trigger and fired within a split second while continuing to hold his gun in the same position, what could happen to the fired bullet, that ejected casing, and the recoil to his weapon? That’s the sort of form frowned upon during qualifications.
IMHO, Officer Hero’s been watching too much TV and let his rage-o-hol and adrenaline cocktail take over. In drawing his firearm, he probably did not intend to fire his weapon but instead to be tough and scare the shit out the guy.
I am not a cop, so I don’t know if the way he as holding it was sound practice or not. It appears he had it pulled in so that it was out of the immediate reach of the victim. However, no, it isn’t a traditional stance and he wasn’t aiming. He was using it as a means to exert authority, it appears. I still feel he had no reason to draw it in the first place.
Did he or anyone offer up a reason he hit the cycle in the first place? If it was an unmarked car, was that his excuse to get the guy to stop?
