A Letter To The Editor 9-5-14 Another View Of The SU Incident

This has become a lynch mob. I have watched the videos provided and based only upon what you can see and hear, you can only draw one conclusion. I'll go into that later. Lets break it down one piece at a time.

The first video - no sound. a large crowd is moving along. Just because they are moving along doesn't mean they are complying with the law. They could be yelling and screaming profanities. That's called Distrubance of the Public Peace. We can't tell. There is no audio. What I can tell you is what I see. I see the officer run by half of the crowd and grab one student by the arm. Based on allegations made here in comments, this officer may have problems with college students - but we have seen no evidence of that. What we do see is that if that were the case, he could have grabbed any one of the students he came into contact with first. But he didn't. He went around several and took custody of one. That leads me to believe that the one taken into custody had broken the law. OK.....there is absolutely no evidence to conclude that the student did absolutely nothing wrong....so let's go on to the next issue in that same video. The officer has hold of the student by the arm....but the student doesn't have the appearance of one who is complying. He is facing the officer and backing away. An officer in this instance would be ordering the subject to turn around and put his hands behind his back to facilitate handcuffing. THAT's the proceedure and there is nothing to indicate that this isn't whats going on here. There is video footage showing the student backing away from the officer while facing him. That is not compliance and THAT would would be the action which would trigger the officers next action - take the suspect to the ground. Now - on to the second video. With sound this time. One officer is handcuffing the suspect while another officer is trying to assist but has to deal with another distraction - a crowd expressing anger toward the officers. You can hear one individual above the other. "He wasn't doing anythin wrong!!!" Loudly and angrily - over and over again. The officer is yelling......"Back off!!" This is a very, very dangerous situation. The fact is that one person with the intent to harm another can cover 21 feet before the intended target can even defend themselves against the attack. That's a fact. Google it.These officers are in a bad position at best. They know it. If that crowd became assaultive to those officers, the officers wouldn't stand a chance. They know that as well. Most people would run from a situation in which they face an angry, yelling crowd. But these officers can't. They are duty bound to stand their ground and finish doing what they started - keeping the peace. Inside, their instincts are to do what they must to keep themselves from harm....and they can't run - like many here making hateful comments under "Anonymous". These officers warn these individuals many times to back off yet they continue to yell - until other officers arrive and the odds change. I've been here many times. As other officers arrive, some of the less intoxicated members of the crowd realize that it is in their best interest to leave - others opt to stay and do what, in their mind, is the minimum in compliance to prevent their arrest. Yet they continue to yell and become disorderly. The officers have seconds to make decisions that we can debate on this blog - and we have - for minutes, and hours, and days. These decisions will affect the course of events that follow. Will someone be arrested? Sprayed? Shot? Not just members of the crowd.....the officers as well. The dynamics of human combat are unpredictable. Each decision made has consequences that are estimated by the officers to have the best outcome for all involved. EVERYONE. The officers made the decision to arrest a number of others who continued to yell. This was done to get them out of the equation so that they couldn't continue to enflame the situation any further. It worked very well. All but those arrested went home. Based upon the available audio and video, the officers did their job and did it well.

Now we have another issue. The court of public opinion. This isn't a first amendment issue. We all have a right to our opinion. But now, because of the coverage of Sbynews, these officers will likely be thrown under the bus by politicians who feel as though they must make an example of them to appease those on the front door of town hall with pitchforks and torches acting in a manner consistent with angry mobs of centuries ago demanding that those suspected of witchcraft be burned at the stake. AND if it were to go to trial, an untained jury pool would be unobtainable locally. I'm not faulting Sbynews in any manner. The good things accomlished by this blog have been immeasurable. I'm saying that the times in which we live are rapidly changing into dangerous times indeed. The comments made here have an incredible impact and with such a powerful media and with the unaccountability of anonymous comments, it's likely that these officers will be thrown under the bus, their careers ruined, and their lives changed forever. Other officers on the job and totally uninvolved with this will be even less likely to risk their own safety for the citizens they serve because to do so would likely lead them to a similar fate.....or worse. Maybe they will second guess their own reactions to a deadly situation and they will be killed or seriously injured because they don't want to be fired, sued, or jailed due to some public outcry from a populace uneducated in the law and inexperienced in making split second decisions that can cost them their lives. But Whatever. These people will soon get the type of law enforcement they deserve.