They Should Change Their Motto From “To Serve and Protect” to “If You Misbehave, We’ll Beat You Up, and Maybe Kill You”

A few weeks ago I wrote about a case in my neighborhood where the police beat up a petite woman who had an accident and was suspected of DUI. The case got no publicity until a video of the incident surfaced. The case produced lots of letters to the editor of the local newspaper, some of which were critical of the police, and others that said the woman was in the wrong and her actions led to her beating. I would not defend her behavior (nor did letter writers critical of the police); rather, I would say that her misbehavior was no real threat to the police and that the police should not beat people up because they misbehave. You can watch the video yourself and decide.

Cases like these are not that uncommon. After my last post, Anthony Gregory alerted me to this website with lots of reports of police misconduct.

The police in this incident were not serving and protecting. They were beating up a defenseless woman who was no threat to anyone. But, others fare even worse. In the widely-publicized story about the woman who rammed the security barriers near the White House with her car and then drove off, “Police then killed the driver after she got out of her vehicle and tried to flee.” Yes, she was behaving badly. But when the police killed her, she was on foot and no threat to anyone. Does anyone think that the right way to deal with people like this is to kill them on the spot?