Seattle Cop Punches Woman

[yeah-me]

Amazing! I just watched the full video (up until now had only seen the punch shot on the news). I think if the gal getting arrested had been a young man (any race!) he would have been slammed on the car and handcuffed in no time. I think the officer showed a lot of restraint in how he handled her.

The boys in the background were pretty darn well behaved. Good for them!

The girl who got punched — I definitely think she deserved it. I just don’t understand how she did not get arrested for assaulting a police officer. She is lucky he didn’t have back up — she would have gotten hauled in too.

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[KBear]

Wouldn’t it be nice if organizations like the NAACP and the Urban League could acknowledge the distinction between incidents like this and the recent “Mexican P*ss” beating? It isn’t always racism. In order to bring the proper focus on the cops who do step out of line, you can’t go around screaming “RACISM” every time a cop is just doing his job and a person of color (who is breaking the law on camera!) gets hurt.

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[beachdrivegirl]

Ditto to KBear

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[WSB]

Just one thing to note, because I doubt it will come up anywhere else. This couldn’t help but remind me of a story we covered closely for a year and a half – what happened to Officer Jason McKissack, who suffered a career-ending injury after trying to break up a fight in West Seattle involving juveniles, almost exactly two years ago. This was our second report, summarizing the police report about the circumstances.

https://westseattleblog.com/2008/06/officer-attacked-in-high-point-more-details-from-police-report

Again, maybe not relevant. Investigations are under way in this new videotaped case and ultimately police and city leadership will decide what if anything should be done.

But it was one incident that shone some light into what police officers deal with, and what they have to consider when making decisions about how to handle situations.

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[ejones]

@yeah-me she was arrested and charged with assult.

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[JanS]

so, whatever happened to those “kids” who beat the crap out of Officer McKissack? Two guilty of “obstruction”, one of third degree assault, credit for time served (which wasn’t much). And the officer lost his livlihood, and much , much more.

Perspective…if I was the cop in that video, I probably would have reacted the same way.

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[hoffanimal]

I agree that it was a tough situation for the officer and that he could have done something besides punch the second girl. However, that is very easy to say from the safety of my desk. When you are grabbed from behind like that in an already tense situation I am sure the last thing you are thinking about is doing what’s socially acceptable (not hitting a girl). What really gets me though is where the 17 and 19 year old kids get idea that it is okay to ignore, resist, and fight with police officer.

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[Jiggers]

They both should have got tazed if they were interfering and resisting if you ask me. That would have teached them.

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[stina]

I’m going to get flamed for saying this, but someone needs to point out the issues with this situation. You have a group of young black women being stopped by a white male police officer. The image of a white male cop is scary to many individuals in this city, myself included. I can imagine that the “mouthing off” of these young girls comes not from disrespect, but from fear. Imagine living in a reality where white male police officers are a threat to you, even if you’ve done nothing wrong. Like in this story: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008739577_deputy13m.html

And this story:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011869988_diaz15m.html?prmid=obinsite

Both these situations are relatively recent. These situations are the reason that many people, both minority and majority, have absolute distrust in the police in this city.

I’d be terrified in this situation if a white, male police officer stopped me for anything. I can imagine that these girls reacted out fear, and I’m willing to give them the benefit of a doubt. I’ve seen the way that police treat minority women in this city, and I would not want to be on the receiving end of the approved policies of the Seattle Police Department

I’m also positive that racism played a role in this situation. If they had been white girls, would they have even been stopped? Would the online reaction be the same if a black police officer punched a white girl in the face?

Finally, since when does jaywalking result in arrest? How does that happen? And, why is absolute obedience to police officers expected? What have they done in this city recently to earn that respect?

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[KBear]

So, stina, when a white male cop sees black female youths breaking the law, he’s supposed to just let it pass because doing anything else would be racist?

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[HolyKow]

Here are the main point:

Were the ‘females’ wrong? yes

Did one of the strike the officer? yes

Was the cop wrong in reacting? no

Was the cop bad at his job? yes

A police officer should never be touched in that aggressive manner or really, ever. However, when a police office takes action, it should be swift and decisive. He pu55y-footed around with here trying to get the cuffs on for WAY to long. If you decide to take action, it needs to be done with decisive motion and quick resolution. If this guy can’t handle a couple of mid-teen girls, what happens with a couple of 25 year-old males that can get down….

The cop was correct, just bad at this phase of his job.

The girls had it coming after that mouthing off and pushing a cop, you never do that, black, white, purple, brown, purple, gray

And all of this over what may have been under $50 citation or even just a warning…and it all could have been avoided if they would have just not been lazy and used the overpass for pedestrians and not tried to run across 5 lanes of traffic….

hk

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[HolyKow]

Wow, stina, that is spectacular misunderstanding of what is going on here…

1) If you mouth off to a cop or push them, get ready for a beat down, no matter the race. If a white girl had mouthed off and pushed a black cop, same thing. Good for the cop.

2) This was not going to be an arrest. This was going to be maybe a warning, possibly a citation, but the ‘females’ went off with significant amounts of attitude and escalated this to a point of physical confrontation.

This was not about race. This was also not about gender. This was about 2 stupid girls escalating an issue to an unreasonable place and getting put in their place because they were stupid. Not because they were black or female.

And she is not some choir girl either, previous arrest for…GUESS WHAT!…assaulting a police officer…

hk

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[HolyKow]

KBear, right on. I think that most of us would agree that the ‘Mexi-P’ issue was out of line and that cop should be disciplined and that could and should include being fired. That was racist and wrong on all accounts.

This was not even close to that situation.

hk

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[Andy]

Stina – I don’t know that you’ll get flamed in any great way, as this is a pretty solidly mature community here, but there is certainly much to take issue with in what you said.

“Finally, since when does jaywalking result in arrest?”

Since it became against the law. That’s it. There is absolutely no way to spin it so that you should not expect a citation for breaking a law. If you are stopped by a police officer for breaking a law, you accept the consequences. Cool law, dumb law, right law, frivolous law, it doesn’t matter. Fight it in court if you want. Work to have it voted off the books. It’s called maturity. Personal responsibility. Civic duty.

If those girls just stopped and accepted the ticket, none of this would have happened. They could even grumble and cuss out the cop if they wanted to – he still would have just written the ticket and sent them on their way. Peacefully.

Everything you mentioned about minorities being afraid of white cops goes the same for white cops being afraid of minorities. We could all stand a little empathy when it comes to that. White police officers know that minorities are suspicious and fearful of them, which makes white cops suspicious and fearful of minorities. It is a self-perpetuating and unfortunate situation that only gets exacerbated when people physically assault a cop every time he stops them for jaywalking.

We need to help each other out here a little bit.

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[Jiggers]

stina.. Watch the video closely first ok with the volume on(hint)…Once the girl in the pink physically shoves him, and obstructs him from doing his job, guess what happens next. Is he supposed to laugh and let them go? I wonder how many times she dropped the f bomb and other obscene language in that three minute clip? Mommy and daddy are proud them. It’s NOT about bieng black or white, so let’s stop playing that card.

Oh yeah.. I read that that same role model girl also jacked boys too in actual police reports made.

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[greatfree1]

This could have been alot worse; at about the 1:30 mark of the video it looks to me as if an older black male walks behind the officer with a gun in his right hand. Video is kinda grainy so I could be wrong but my coworkers agree that it sure looks like a gun.

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[mrhineh]

CNN did a nice poster-girl job this morning, starting with the punch, then the mom’s “my baby is a good child” speech, and then after the fact, mentioning that, btw, the girl had been arrested for kicking an officer previously.

Lets also not forget that 6 police officers have been murdered in less than a year, and that doesn’t inlucde Steve Cox in White Center a few years back.

Fearful of the police? So you mouth off as a defense mechanism out of fear? Really? I know when I enter a situation that I might feel less than secure in, the first thing I do is go pick a fight with the gnarliest dude. Yeah, right. Looks like someone went out of their way to pick a fight. And lost.

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[stina]

To clarify, I’m not saying that the girls should have gotten away with jaywalking. What I’m saying is that people are ignoring the real issues minorities have with police. We’ve all jaywalked at some point in our lives (or been speeding, or cruised through a stop sign or something). We all break laws, some of us daily. But most of us don’t get arrested for doing these things.

The SPD has a history of racial profiling and police brutality to non-white individuals. These girls are most likely very aware of that history and reacted poorly, probably out of fear. Fight or flight has been studied extensively and it could apply here.

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[greatfree1]

If you “fight or flight” with/from the police then you can expect to get roughed up. If these girls think the cop was racial profiling them, isn’t that racial profiling of the cop by the girls.

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[moxilot]

Stina, you have absolutely no basis for your call of racism based on the video. The officer was responded to the high school’s request to patrol SPECIFICALLY for jaywalking, so there goes your “he was just stopping them on a frivolous charge because they were black” theory.

Also, we weren’t talking about “the issues minorities have with the police” because (I feel) that is not the focal point here, though many people, including yourself, are trying to make it so. Yes, I’ve jaywalked, and been ticketed speeding, etc and if I’d been stopped for any of those infractions I would have taken my ticket. I’d probably be really ticked off, but I deserved it after all. I mean, I broke the law and ended up getting caught. And the girls weren’t going to ‘get arrested’ for jaywalking. They were going to be CITED. Their reactions resulted in the arrests.

When I first saw the video on the news they kept running the images of the punch and were talking over the audio. My reaction was “What the heck is he doing punching someone in the face?!” After seeing the circumstances around it and hearing what happened, I fully support the officer’s actions. I constantly question motivations of those in positions of authority, but I agree with JoB that this is about civility. With all of the videos people take of police officers abusing their power, I’m glad these cell-phone directors were there to catch the people abusing the officers, even if that probably wasn’t their intent.

Finally, the NAACP and the Urban League would have gained a boatload of respect from me if they kept out of this, or if they would’ve stepped up and said “This isn’t a case of racism. This is a case of a police officer performing his duties and two young adults who escalated the issue to warrant that use of force.”

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[Jiggers]

I’m going to implicate myself here and say that I jaywalk almost everyday because even though you are in a crosswalk, that isn’t a guarantee that you’ll make it from one side to the other. I’m actually more aware of cars when I do jaywalk. You tend to let your guard down slightly when you use a crosswalk. But that doesn’t still make it right or legal. Oh.. I’m also a slightly brown colored skin and a minority here, guess what, I’m siding with the white cop.

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[lenguamor]

I fully support the cop in this instance. You put hands on a Police Officer and THE LEAST you should get is a punch in the face – white, black, man or woman.

Jason McKissack has to be sitting at home wondering what has to happen for the community to show some solidarity behind our men and women in blue in situations like this one.

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[JanS]

moxilot – thanks for your last post. Yes, I have gotten stopped for speeding. And I said thank you to the grumpy officer who gave me a ticket…and I slowed down.

Stina…I don’t fear the police…I respect them – well, most of them. I understand that I’m a 63 yo white woman who has never been racially profiled. But…what would you have had this cop do? Do you really think that he thought” Oh, they jaywalked, but they’re black, so I’ll let it go, because they’re afraid of me, and I just have to have a little more understanding.”? That’s crap. That’s an excuse for not taking responsibility for your actions. Let people use an excuse like that one or two times, and they will feel that they never have to take responsibility for the mistakes they make in their lives. And these two girls definitely made a mistake. It IS about civility, nothing more. Being stopped for a minor thing like jay-walking does not give anyone the right to turn the circumstances into more. What the hell did these two girls have to be afraid of right then, besides being hit by one or more cars…because they were IN THE WRONG!

We are too guilty of making more of things than really exist.

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[JoB]

if you’ve broken the law..

and you don’t want a ticket

and you don’t want to get hauled of to jail..

you don’t attack the officer..

kicking, biting, scratching and hitting an officer of the law is not acceptable behavior even if you are a minority.

a polite answer and a smile have almost always guaranteed women of any color a warning for mild infractions like jaywalking.

stupid does not have a color or gender.

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[westcoastdeb]

As the family member of a police officer (albiet not in this state!) I have got to say that too many things in lawbreaking land are blamed on color. My brother in law is a police officer in a smaller town in Virginia. In his first year as an officer he was accused of profiling for arresting a habitual drunken driver for…DUI! The second time this habitual drunken driver was pulled over by Officer Brother in law there was a full scale investigation — not as to why a drunken driver was STILL on the road after several DUI’s but why a white cop had pulled him over twice.

In the end, Officer Brother in Law is not allowed to pull mr DUI over anymore.

Some people know how to use ‘racial profiling’ cries to their advantage. I fully expect this to be one of the cases. It disgusts me. Thank you to each and every law officer out there trying to protect us. I’m sorry, I deeply appologize,that there are people of my generation, of my gender, who have no respect for authority or the jobs that they do.

Hey, can we make this about age ;)

Deb

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