Despite lying on the ground with his arms and legs spread, a suspect -- who police say is a known gang member -- got a face full of police boot on Wednesday. The kicking cop added insult to injury by giving a post-beating high five.
On Thursday, El Monte Police Lt. Ken Alva said that the officer has been reassigned to non-patrol duties, while El Monte police and the Los Angeles County Sherriff's Department conduct separate and concurrent investigations.
Ok, first let's get this out of the way of the discussion. The suspect in the video is a known gang member. The suspect was wanted on a warrant. The suspect ran from the police...including starting a very dangerous high speed chase (I won't get into how I feel about high speed chases). I get it. The suspect deserved to be arrested and detained. No argument about that. What the problem is, again, is the conduct of the police. Police officers are trained professionals...emphasis on the professional part. When you have a license to kill you don't get to kick a prone suspect in the head and then high-five your buddy. He could have killed the suspect with that kick. Being a gang banger with a warrant who runs from the police deserves punishment, but is that punishment death or disability?
I don't like or want the police to behave like the criminals they are policing. This does not make the public safer. Cops behaving like thugs only endangers the public. They rush to judgement. Innocent people get hurt, their property destroyed, they get carted off to the pokey for nothing. Not a good way to encourage respect for the police.
Of course now I will get emails about all of the good cops, and how "cop bashing" hurts them...blah, blah, blah. Well to that I say why don't the good cops do something about idiots like the one in the video? Instead of the high five, how about the next cops on the scene question him about the bloody suspect and then send him back to the station for discinplinary actions? How about the good cops filter the bad ones out for the public...without having to be caught on tape? If the good cops did that, there wouldn't be so much police brutality to "bash" them about.
