This should be a short post, I don’t have much to say about it, but anyone that tries to attempt to racialize this incident needs to be arrested and punched in the face for sheer dumbassery.

According to the video, that’s as clear as you can get, there was one single officer who was trying to do his duty–give a citation to two young females who had refused to show their ID according to documents.  The officer then was going to arrest them for failure to show ID, which I’m sure is a misdemeanor that would have them released of their own recognizances in a couple of hours.  Instead, the two resist arrest and do so violently enough that one of the young ladies, the one in the pink, felt compelled to “break up” what the officer was doing–arresting the one in the black and teal.

So Officer Friendly, did an unfriendly thing and punched the crap out of the girl in the pink.

The video goes on to show that the officer spent the majority of the time trying to arrest the girl in the black and teal.  She didn’t want to put her hands behind her back and the crowd kept getting closer and closer, and by all tell-tale signs–the officer was by himself with no backup or support.

Now provide the rest of this post to do some speculation:

The more and more I think about it, I’m glad homegirl in the pink got stuck in the nose.  Now, I’ll admit I’m not too happy that it was a cop who did it, let alone a white male, BUT, the you-know-what was running her mouth and clearly was going against the law.  The biggest speculation that I’m making is that if an officer felt comfortable enough to ask two young women for ID to issue a citation for jaywalking that it’s probably common practice in Seattle for cops to give out jaywalking tickets.  Lets say if this were Chicago, I would think this might be harassment.  But, something in my gut tells me that these girls knew what the deal was, but they decided to make a scene and make a big deal out of it.

As far as the policemen, at most he should be suspended with pay, or be assigned to a desk job for a couple months.  It was excessive force.  But, as much as I hate being pulled over, and have had my one instance of what I felt were Cobb County officers doing too much pulling me and my friend over (in a Neon of all cars), lets be honest, cops have gotten guns pulled out on them and do get shot at by rogue citizens.  Yes, it irritates the living crap out of me the two times I got pulled over and the cops had their hands on their guns ready to take it out of the holster at a second’s notice, but, cops have families that they want to go home to as well.

Moreover, this policemen was by himself.

If I was a black cop, and had that many people, black or white, standing around me and I was trying to make an arrest of two young females who needed they asses beat on GP, I’m sure it would have been hard to keep calm.

Now, yes, at the end of the day I’m taking the typical conservative approach to this one: this would not have happened had these two girls took out their state ID or their drivers license and just taken what probably would have been no more than a $50 ticket and been about their business.

Should the cop had laid into the girl? No. He shouldn’t have and he should be properly reprimanded.

While cops are forced to take sensitivity training and other things to allay racial prejudices and profiling, maybe citizens should be required to take police officer sensitivity training.  Maybe we should be learning how to deal with police officers and how to set aside their own fears.  As far as I see it, this was a situation that probably could have been prevented on two fronts: 1) The young ladies should have just taken the citation and been done with it. 2) The officer shouldn’t have punched her.

Or maybe jaywalking shouldn’t be a crime in the damn first place.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

CBS Newsstory Cop Punches Woman (VIDEO): What Really Happened During Jaywalking Scuffle?