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this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023
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Politics
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Once they get him stopped, get him out of the vehicle, and have his hands up, he's surrendering. He got multiple conflicting commands....and with the presence of the dog he was rightfully concerned they were going to have it tackle him...that's exactly what happened. So his concern about the dog probably caused him to ignore a command or two, because he was fearing the dog attacking him. Take the dog out of the equation and he probably surrenders peacefully and obeys commands. Conflicting commands and the presence of the dog are absolutely the problems here.
They will be put on paid leave and any lawsuit filed will be thrown out because of qualified immunity...even though the dog never should have come out of the holding vehicle. Could have a case of excessive force, but I doubt it. All of it will be excused as part of the police work, even the mauling.
The scenario you describe, and a limitless spectrum of other possibilities that could exist during any encounter, are the source of so much frustration for me when these events come up.
The person being interacted with could be exceptionally fearful, panicked, on drugs, drunk, having a medical event, deaf, experiencing mental health issues, severely autistic, or just stupid.
YET that person, who could be ANY of those things or more, becomes a justified target for violence the moment they fail to comply with an order that they may not be capable of understanding, or may be too deep into their own circumstances to understand or even process.
Meanwhile, the police they interact with who are (presumably, ostensibly) sober, well trained, mentally well, have backup available, and have a number of different options available to them, will always get a free pass for taking the opportunity to deploy that violence until and unless there's enough public outcry to force some action, and sometimes not even then.
How does that not strike anyone who reads it as an unacceptable framework for policing?