Punching People and the Perils of Increased Police Presence [Updated]

The incident comes a month after an officer was caught on tape threatening to “beat the fucking Mexican piss” out of a robbery suspect he then stomped on the face. King 5 says Seattle police have decided not to review tape of this latest arrest, but we’ll see what happens later once this thing circulates.

UPDATE: Deputy Chief Nick Metz told King 5 that police have concerns about the video.

“You obviously have to take into context everything that occurred from the point that the officer did make contact with the individuals until the situation ended. As I said before, we have some concerns about the tactics the officer used and employed at the time. Again, we did feel what occurred did deserve a review by the Office of Professional Accountability,” said Metz.

And there was a 2002 feature written by the Seattle Weekly, also documenting the efforts to decrease tensions between the police and the community.

Just because the officer has the discretion to do something, it doesn’t mean that’s the tactic that should be employed. If their own department “has concerns,” why are some of us so quick to justify the officer’s actions?

Police work relies on a lot of factors to be effective – community trust is one of them. And as a person who doesn’t have much, if any, police contact in her daily life, I am struck by all the narratives in my own community in DC. A situation happened last year (that Renina was there to observe with me) where I called in some friends for back up. We’re all educated and work in either advocacy or media – we all knew how badly things could go. I asked the first officer on the scene what was happening and he nastily replied he didn’t have to tell me anything, he owed me no explanation. The next officer on the scene came, apologized for the first officer’s conduct, and explained the situation. As we waited for a resolution, my friends talked about some of their experiences. How they expect to be fucked with, because that’s just how the police are. Another friend, a Latino male who works with youth, talked about the time where simply giving dap to one of his friends ended up with him being slammed against the wall and dick checked, with no further explanation or apology after no drugs were found around them. (“I was walking while Latino!” he said, still pissed three years after the fact. “Talking about me throwing shit into the bushes when my hands were full of books!”)

Police are supposed to work in service of the public, kind of like teachers. But if a teacher punches a kid that pushed them, we say the teacher was in the wrong – even though the kid was physically violent. It’s that power dynamic, again, the idea that someone with increased training and authority should work to de-escalate the situation, instead of retaliating. I don’t doubt that there are situations where teachers may be justified in decking someone. But they can’t do it without severe penalty. Yet, this idea that police are in service of the public doesn’t seem to factor into the justification of these types of actions, though the stakes are far higher. The worst of it is that this situation arose out of a desire to make residents safer. I’m waiting for a verifiable source on this, but apparently the officer was stationed near the school because motorists were concerned about the safety of the kids jaywalking after school. The idea was to ticket the kids so they would stay out of the streets and use the cross walk. Yet, somehow, this assignment started with the idea to keep kids safe and ended up with a seventeen year old being punched in the face, and both girls being arrested.

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