Read "Danglehorn," and more short fiction, scripts, and very little poetry at Laugh at Yourself First.
pauljuser.blogspot.com
There probably are acceptable times to beat a seventeen year old girl into submission. Say she's a wanton murder about to perform a ghastly execution on an innocent bystander. Go ahead, action hero, knock her out. Beyond that, I can't see any reason that would make it acceptable to pause to consider the situation, wind up, and jack a teenage girl in the jaw. As the Seattle cop struggled struggled and choked one teenage girl that was resisting arrest, her friend tried to push the officer away. This man armed with a gun and trained in hand-to-hand combat felt so threatened by the situation he needed to take out the second girl fast and effectively, fist-to-jaw style. The cell-phone video is on the net for you to form your own opinion, but the response I received to my outrage was in defense of the officer, who was only doing what he needed to pacify a suspect. After all, it's common knowledge that you don't jaywalk in Seattle.
I'm not saying we can't forgive the guy. He did get hit first, and the girls were resisting arrest, and one or both of the girls probably did do something to instigate or escalate the situation unnecessarily, and the girl's history reveals this is not her first physical confrontation with a police officer. This guy thought he was doing his job. He thought he was doing the right thing. Unfortunately, the officer was wrong. Seventeen-year-old girls rarely look like anything else, other than maybe sixteen-year-old girls, or sometimes eighteen-year-old girls, so I can't imagine the officer mistook her for an adult man, with whom this action may be more explainable, if not acceptable. Punishing a guy that got pissed off and made a mistake is not the important issue. Instead, a precedent needs to be set to deter the next guy who thinks he's doing his job. After all, isn't that the theory our entire justice system is based on? Thanks for reading.
-Paul
printisbetter.blogspot.com
pauljuser.blogspot.com
There probably are acceptable times to beat a seventeen year old girl into submission. Say she's a wanton murder about to perform a ghastly execution on an innocent bystander. Go ahead, action hero, knock her out. Beyond that, I can't see any reason that would make it acceptable to pause to consider the situation, wind up, and jack a teenage girl in the jaw. As the Seattle cop struggled struggled and choked one teenage girl that was resisting arrest, her friend tried to push the officer away. This man armed with a gun and trained in hand-to-hand combat felt so threatened by the situation he needed to take out the second girl fast and effectively, fist-to-jaw style. The cell-phone video is on the net for you to form your own opinion, but the response I received to my outrage was in defense of the officer, who was only doing what he needed to pacify a suspect. After all, it's common knowledge that you don't jaywalk in Seattle.
I'm not saying we can't forgive the guy. He did get hit first, and the girls were resisting arrest, and one or both of the girls probably did do something to instigate or escalate the situation unnecessarily, and the girl's history reveals this is not her first physical confrontation with a police officer. This guy thought he was doing his job. He thought he was doing the right thing. Unfortunately, the officer was wrong. Seventeen-year-old girls rarely look like anything else, other than maybe sixteen-year-old girls, or sometimes eighteen-year-old girls, so I can't imagine the officer mistook her for an adult man, with whom this action may be more explainable, if not acceptable. Punishing a guy that got pissed off and made a mistake is not the important issue. Instead, a precedent needs to be set to deter the next guy who thinks he's doing his job. After all, isn't that the theory our entire justice system is based on? Thanks for reading.
-Paul
printisbetter.blogspot.com
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