Punching People and the Perils of Increased Police Presence [Updated]
by Latoya Peterson
Two days ago in Seattle, a police officer trying to arrest a woman for jay walking found himself in a sticky situation:
Seattle police say the punch came after the young woman became verbally and physically abusive after a jaywalking stop. Seattle police say it all started after an officer observed four women jaywalking across Martin Luther King Junior Way South. When the officer attempted to stop them, voices and tensions escalated. The officer was attempting to handcuff a 19-year-old woman when her 17-year-old friend tried to intervene.
In the video, you can see the 17-year-old push the officer. That’s when the officer pulls back his arm and punches the teenager in the face.
Seattle police say the officer believed the girl “was attempting to physically affect the first girl’s escape” and when she came at the officer, he “punched her.” As a crowd of people gathered around the officer and suspects, one of the witnesses videotaped the incident.
Eventually the officer managed to handcuff the first suspect as well as the girl he punched. The 19-year-old woman was booked into King County Jail for obstructing an officer. The 17-year-old girl, who was punched, was taken to the Youth Service Center for investigation of assault on an officer. Both females were cited for jaywalking.
The video has touched off a firestorm of controversy surrounding the officer’s conduct and if the officer was justified. Monica Potts, over at Tapped, argues yes. But I’m not convinced.
The facts of the case are pretty clear. Kids were jaywalking. Officer comes over attempting to arrest kid. One kid, unwisely, decides it would be a good idea to shove the police officer. Officer punches kid.
Monica argues:
Most people are probably unfamiliar with police procedure manuals, but there’s a point at which the use of force is justified. And that point comes sooner than people think. According to most patrol guide rules and legal precedent, officers can use physical force to arrest someone who is physically resisting, and they can use force to subdue someone who has become violent with them. That means officers are allowed to punch people. They’re even allowed to punch women. Officers aren’t obligated to get pushed around or injured when lawfully arresting someone, even if it turns out those arrests don’t hold up in court. Should he have punched this particular woman in this particular instance? It’s really hard to know without having been there. But I think we should, in all fairness, acknowledge that at the moment an officer is faced with two people who are ready to fight, he might not be able to have a mental debate over the subtle gradations of force that would be merited to get the situation under control — he had to act quickly, and was trained to do so. [...]
We’ve decided, as a society, that officers are authorized to use force to keep the peace. We’ve also decided that they can issue tickets for jaywalking, and then if that situation is escalated for some reason then they can arrest the jaywalker. Arrests are violent things. Women sometimes get arrested. We can’t put them in a cocoon. Police departments are usually pretty bad about responding to allegations that they acted inappropriately, but they sometimes have a point in that many people don’t understand what an arrest really looks like. Many more don’t understand the procedural rules that dictate when and on whom police can use force.
But just because something is common procedure, does that make it right? I’m not feeling the justification here. Was that kid in the wrong? Hell yes. But there’s a power dynamic here that tilts the scale in favor of the police officer. He, as a trained member of the police force, has a lot more rights and avenues for recourse than the average citizen. He also has the discretion to do things like punch people in the face, arrest people, and carry a gun. It is often argued that with rights come responsibilities – and what’s happened in so many communities, particularly communities of color, is that the police take some extreme liberties with these additional rights, which leads to community distrust.
The Seattle Weekly starts shading in the background:
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