Hiku said:
KiigelHeart said:
I'm interested to see how the hearing goes. My guess would be 3rd degree assault at tops (judging by this clip) because I don't see anything suggesting it was the intent of the officer to cause serious injury. Pushing somebody backwards with a batong isn't considered excessive force per se, especially in crowd/riot control where de-escalation is done beforehand by ordering people to disperse. In this situation, the use of force can be considered excessive and reckless though considering the man's age. He doesn't look like a fragile elderly man though, I would've thought he's in his 60s and officers had no way of knowing his exact age. A fit man who's 60-70 is more than capable to put up a fight. Hell, a 85-year-old granma nearly stabbed my buddy with shears once. And the officer doesn't push him as hard as cops are trained to.
Point of bringing up this video wasn't to justify officer's actions, it's just to add context. And (imo) it gives a reason to futher question the way the man falls down, because he was clearly looking to get something on video. Also considering how worked up he got those protesters I'd say he doesn't come off as a harmless, fragile elderly man. He also knows well he shouldn't approach the police at that point.
I'm not an expert on US justice system and law but 3rd degree assault seems reasonable to me. The whole thing is more of a bad choice of action which leads to much worse outcome than intented and anticipated. We'll see.
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Have you considered why criminal negligence is a thing, and why intent is irrelevant there? If someone drinks and drives, they can't just look at the intent and give them a slap on the wrist just because they didn't mean to crush that 3 year old baby. The knew the risks when they drank and then got behind the wheel.
Everyone knows that old people are fragile. A simple fall that doesn't even phaze a 20 year old can shatter the bones of a 60 year old, and they may never heal from it properly.
This situation was completely avoidable. The officer did not have to risk the elderly mans health and safety like that. This wasn't a crowd or a riot btw. It was one old man standing in front of him. You can't hold a civilian protster and police to the same standard here either when one of them is trained to handle these situations and is paid by us to handle it as their job. And it's not asking much to not recruit idiots that push over old people first chance they get.
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Eh, intent is a level of negligence as far as I know. How can you say it's not relevant? Some crimes can be punished only if there was intent, it was done knowingly. Some can be punished because of recklessness and gross negligence.
I don't know about US law but here, if you accidentally crush someone with your car, whether you were drunk or not, you won't be charged with murder. It wasn't your intention to kill anyone but your actions showed gross negligence, you will be charged with involuntary manslaughter. A slap in the wrists compared to murder or intentional homicide I know, but that's finnish justice system for you. If you want to kill someone here, get drunk and crush them with your car. If the police and prosecutor fail to show you intended to do it, you'll get away with a slap.
vivster said: We shouldn't fall into the false equivalency of violent protesters and violent police. Those are by no means equal. Brutality by police is magnitudes more disturbing and morally wrong than whatever the protesters did. They are not beholden to keep up the law or protect citizens, policemen are. So not only should police be punished the same for their crimes, but even harder. Any wrongstep in their duties should yield immediate dismissal from the force. If you cannot follow the law you should be in no position to enforce it. That's not even mentioning that any police officer who is not able to deescalate a harmless situation without violence is unfit for their job anyway. |
Well, police are beholden to keep up the law and how they do their job is largely dictated by citizens themselves. This sometimes means split-second decisions on limited information of all the details. Law doesn't give you a definitive rule to every possible circumstance. Ultimately it should be up to court to decide what is considered the use of force and what is considered excessive force or brutality. And no, I don't agree any wrongstep in duty should yield immediate dismissal, some are surely better handled with disciplinary action or official warning.
Last edited by KiigelHeart - on 21 August 2020