quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:
One person who has seen it says it was a worse beating than Rodney King's tuneup at the hands of California cops.

I'll admit, when I read this yesterday, I was skeptical.

But having watched all the videos released today, that's actually accurate.

Use of force is seldom pretty, even when reasonable and justified, but what I saw was absolutely disgusting and totally unreasonable. Those five ex-cops (and the city) are fucked, and deservedly so.

Even the bodycam footage of their initial contact with the guy, prior to the later beating during their second encounter, is full of glaring problems.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:
One person who has seen it says it was a worse beating than Rodney King's tuneup at the hands of California cops.

I'll admit, when I read this yesterday, I was skeptical.

But having watched all the videos released, that's actually accurate.

Absolutely disgusting. Those five ex-cops (and the city) are fucked, and rightfully so.

Even the bodycam of their initial contact with the guy, prior to the later beating during their second encounter, is full of problems.

Yup total trash and they’re done. I imagine they’ll all plead out, idk how you could even think taking it to trial would be good with these videos. How can 4 officers have a guy down and he somehow gets up and runs off? They look horribly trained and ill-prepared for the situation and the guy didn’t appear high or anything. Passively resisting initially, then breaks free and gets a ghetto beat down. “Ima baton the fuck outta you!” Looked like, at one point, two officers were damn near holding up the guy while a third punched him a couple time and pretty sure I saw an open handed slap. They had, seemingly, zero arrest and control tactics, no basic holds and such to control the guy. Then some random pointless kicks while guy is down.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:
One person who has seen it says it was a worse beating than Rodney King's tuneup at the hands of California cops.

I'll admit, when I read this yesterday, I was skeptical.

But having watched all the videos released today, that's actually accurate.

I have the opposite opinion after watching all four videos. If King was a 10, what I saw was about a 4. I'm NOT defending them or justifying what they did, it (the "beating") just didn't look near as bad a King's.

A couple of thoughts on the videos though:

First, I'll echo Para's comments. Those big old fat fucks can't run 100 yards without being so winded they can't breathe? Disgusting examples.

Second, how is it that those four guys can't seem to cuff one scrawny kid?

Third, again...not defending the cops here, but why in the name of all things holy, do these people not just comply? None of this would have happened if the damn kid had just done what he was told initially. That does NOT justify causing his death, but jeez O'Pete....

And lastly, these cops appear to be nothing more than gang members with badges.

quote:

Gustofer:
And lastly, these cops appear to be nothing more than gang members with badges

I’m interested in their prior criminal history and IA/complaints. I’d wager my retirement check that they were shitbags before this incident and have a history of complaints. Departments have been trying to hire minorities for decades and lowered their standards to get them into the field.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
I have the opposite opinion after watching all four videos.

Did you see the pole cam video? It shows the most comprehensive view of the beating. They repeatedly stomped and kicked him in the head while he was being held down on the ground, then repeatedly struck him with a baton while he was being held up in a kneeling position, then repeatedly beat him about the head and face while he was being held in a standing position. And those were just the most obvious blows, not counting whatever occurred during the scrum on the ground, and not including the various OC and Taser deployments. These guys focused most of their impacts on the head. Most of King's impacts were to the torso and legs. Possibly why the former died and the latter survived.

But the "severity ranking" of the beating is beside the point. Whether it was a 4 or a 10 or an 11teen, and whether it was less or more than King's, it was outrageously unreasonable force, employed by a gaggle of pissed-off guys without any skills or self control or professionalism, and whose behavior throughout the entire series of incidents makes it abundantly clear they had no business being in this line of work.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:
One person who has seen it says it was a worse beating than Rodney King's tuneup at the hands of California cops.

I'll admit, when I read this yesterday, I was skeptical.

But having watched all the videos released today, that's actually accurate.

Use of force is seldom pretty, even when reasonable and justified, but what I saw was absolutely disgusting and totally unreasonable. Those five ex-cops (and the city) are fucked, and deservedly so.

Even the bodycam footage of their initial contact with the guy, prior to the later beating during their second encounter, is full of glaring problems.

I can say this, those are some shitty cops, the guys from the initial stop are extremely lucky they were removed from the fight.

I find it hard to believe 4-5 guys can't subdue a scrawny ass guy like that without beating him nearly unconscious.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
But the "severity ranking" of the beating is beside the point. Whether it was a 4 or a 10 or an 11teen, it was outrageously unreasonable force, employed by a gaggle of pissed-off guys without any skills or self control or professionalism, and whose behavior throughout the entire series of incidents makes it abundantly clear they had no business being in this line of work.

I could not agree with you more.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:


I find it hard to believe 4-5 guys can't subdue a scrawny ass guy like that without beating him nearly unconscious.

It happens. Smaller framed individuals can be harder to detain for a number of reasons. They are often wiry and flexible. They are often environmental factors that make it more difficult. Sometimes officers don’t use the enough force and end the conflict quickly for fear of “hurting” the offender. (This is most commonly true with male officers and female offenders) drugs and mental illness also play a factor and add to difficulty.

Now you add in poor or no training. Letting emotions like rage creep in. And yeah, even letting evil in.

It’s a recipe for disaster.

Every cop here can tell you a tale of fighting with a small frame suspect. And it taking multiple officers to get them into custody. That part is far from uncommon.

But it doesn’t end like this.

Back when I was a Firefighter I was tossed across an ER room by a 5'6" 120lb guy high on PCP. I was 6'4 and 190lbs and in full turnout gear at the time, I hit the wall upside down about half way up (yes it hurt).

He also tossed my partner (5'11 & 175), and several ER staff and security people about the same size around with ease. He was a biter too. It took 4 additional officers of equal size to get this guy under control. I'd say close to a dozen of us total.

One of the most drawn-out scuffles I've had was against a teenage girl. She was giving it flat-out 100%, due to a combination of adrenaline, rage, and mental illness. Full-on cornered feral animal mode.

As the saying goes, she "came at me like a spider monkey".

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
One of the most drawn-out scuffles I've had was against a teenage girl. She was giving it flat-out 100%, due to a combination of adrenaline, rage, and mental illness. Full-on feral animal

Mine too. Broad daylight in a K Mart parking lot. While she was fighting two of us, she still almost got my gun out of the holster. It took 8 officers to get her in the car.

Give me a 220 pound tweaker any day.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
And lastly, these cops appear to be nothing more than gang members with badges.

That was my impression as well.

quote:

But it doesn’t end like this.

I may not understand how everything law enforcement works, but everyone who sees this knows something went horribly wrong at best. At worst it was a bunch of people taking out their anger on some guy because they could. In the middle, they just really suck at their job.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

quote:

But it doesn’t end like this.

I may not understand how everything law enforcement works, but everyone who sees this knows something went horribly wrong at best. At worst it was a bunch of people taking out their anger on some guy because they could. In the middle, they just really suck at their job.

There’s enough anger to go around.

Which is why I limit my commentary to technical stuff. What the law actually is, fighting with small framed offenders, etc.

Enough people will give commentary, I’ll stick to technical stuff.

That's why I was giving my average Joe impression of it. It raises red flags for the most pro law enforcement among us. Knowing slightly more than your normal citizen about subduing someone, it seems off. I think it might be a perfect opportunity for a BJJ choke to settle him down for 30 second, but that's probably against policies.

Chokes of all types (even the ones that aren’t and never were chokes) are prohibited in most places.

I just watched the pole cam video. Initially it looked like a pretty standard take down. No audio and there is no background as to why he was being stopped, how long it took him to stop, etc.

At 20:34:10 it looked like they had him pretty well under control. He was down two officers on him, not struggling a lot. A few more hands to get him in cuffs and that would have been over.

20:34:14 & :27 an officer decides he needs a few good kicks in the head. I see absolutely no reason for this.

20:35:00 a third officer arrives as they start to sit him up and deploys an extendable baton, then takes a few axe swings at Tyre's head with it. I can't even begin to imagine how this could be justified.

From body cam footage this seems to be the officer that pepper sprayed him. In doing so it appears he managed to get himself. They way he is walking around, resting on the patrol car, seen that before. He is the one that walks back up and deploys the baton and lets Tyre have it to the head. His body cam also shows the officer land the haymakers (next time stamp)


20:35:16, while they have him standing, an officer delivers two haymakers. They're holding him and this officer hauls off and lets him have it a few times?!?


I don't have a lot of sympathy for people that resist the police, but these officers are just beating Tyre at this point. I don't blame him for trying to defend himself against kicks and baton strikes to the head then haymakers.

20:35:24, while they're still holding him while standing, an officer delivers two gut punches, then a short time later another haymaker.

At this point in the video my opinion has solidly shifted from an aggressive take down to this looks like a beating to teach this guy a lesson. This looks like the thing you'd expect a gang to do to a snitch, not officers to a suspect they are trying to get into custody.

IMHO, these aren't cops. These are thugs wearing badges. They had plenty of opportunity to get him under control. His arms were pinned to his sides while he was standing and getting punched.

By 20:35:44 they have him down again, appears prone, hard to see what they're doing. He should be in custody by now.

20:36:22 More officers arrive and one delivers a few good kicks to his head. Seriously, who is training these guys.

20:37:10 he appears to be in custody finally. At this point rescue should be in route as he has to be injured. For the next minute his body language tells me he is hurt, and hurt pretty bad. Then the drag him over to a patrol car and you see one officer liming around. Those kicks hurt don't they?

20:40:10 an officer shines a light in his face, body language indicates to me the officer is evaluating him and injuries. Officer field goal keeps limping around.

20:41:20 Rescue appears to arrive and starts treatment on scene. It's really hard to see what is happening but it looks like he isn't transported until after 21:00hrs

Again, I don't know what led up to this stop, but I can't see how kicks, baton strikes, punches to the head, then the gut are good punch to the gut of a restrained suspect are good procedure.

FWIW I've been dragged into take downs on some pretty aggressive and BIG or drug fueled people over the years and with that number of guys that size, were able to get them under control without having to admit them to ER before jail. That is background that I view this video from.

I work for a LEA and I’ve seen worse dealt with less. This just screams incompetence to me. Talking to all my LEO partners and having discussions, I’m coming away as this is probably the least defensible encounter I’ve seen. I even had my LEO partners questioning their stance on the George Floyd situation. This is just straight up stupidity (ie lack of training…) IMO there is zero reason he should have been able to escape the ground from 4 officers in the first place.

Thanks for the law enforcement perspective, guys. It's been a long day, I'm going to bed. We'll see tomorrow morning what the anarchists managed to destroy. The professional agitators don't care a thing about the death of Tyre Nichols. They look for any excuse to continue their efforts to degrade our society. The character of every last one of these black-clad anarchists would be improved by bullet holes. I think there's no way to avoid a future clash with this garbage. It's not going to be anytime soon, but it's damn well coming.

It’s after midnight and I’m just getting home. I work day shift hours. Memphis was peaceful. One group shut down the i55 Bridge and then dispersed. No reports of any protests that grew violent. No reports of property damage. I complain, but there are times I really do love this city. There is a lot of hurt, and a lot of anger, and things won’t go back to normal quickly, but most of the people here are good people.

I had to stop at the store today to pick up some things for the office just in case I got stuck there. For the first time in 25 years I was uncomfortable in public in my work clothes.

To my surprise, I had people come up to me, from all walks of life and ask me if I was doing ok and to be careful tonight. I needed that. Memphis has its problems, but I love this city.

So, now that it’s public, I can speak a bit more about it, again purely in my private capacity. That was by far the most appalling video I’ve ever seen. I spent years as a crime scene investigator and later several years working child exploitation cases. I thought there was nothing left I could see that would hurt. I was wrong.

What I saw were people wearing the uniform committing a straight up beat down. I saw nothing that warranted any of that. Even if the stop was legit, it’s a traffic stop. That’s all. He resists, but he never throws a strike at any officer. He never makes a threat.

What they should have done is get him on the ground, use leverage to control his arms and get him cuffed. These weren’t small men, and there were plenty of them. If that didn’t work they move up the force continuum to other means. MAYBE strikes to the arms or legs to gain compliance.

Kicks to the head on a prone suspect are never approved . Baton strikes to the head are lethal force. There is no excuse to throw repeated punches to the head of a man being held up by two other men. That’s the image that sticks in my head. You see his head snap back with each of those shots.

For a traffic stop.

I’ll defend police all day when they use violence if violence is necessary. Force, no matter how justified and necessary is never pretty. It’s never a thing to be happy about. There are a lot of cases where the public doesn’t understand what they are seeing or view it through their own perceptions that distort it. This was NOT one of those situations. This was a criminal act.

What I can’t wrap my head around is how these men, wearing cameras, thought this would be okay. I have a theory that it is a combination of a pack mentality with young aggressive officers in an aggressive unit with a loose grasp of reality versus things like Training Day or The Shield, and the fact that many of this new generation have never been in a real fight before they got in the job. They aren’t prepared for the emotional impact of the adrenaline dump. They aren’t ready for ego to get involved. They don’t recognize when they or their partner are getting out of control and need to be reigned in.

Channeling aggression into a violent confrontation is a natural act. Turning that off is a trained response. I’m trying to come up with a way to train that response that doesn’t involve some poor bastard in a Red Man suit getting his ass kicked for hours a day. We’ve got to do something though.

None of that excuses what they did. They are grown men. They made their choices. They had every opportunity to stop. They made no effort to deescalate. No one made any effort to stop it. They are all responsible.

Every recruit from now until the end of time should be required to watch that video and see the consequences. Every officer should be required to view it once. That can never happen again. Ever. Anywhere.

I’ve got to get some sleep and go back in at 7. I’m not looking forward to my dreams or the next few days at work. I’m not worried about Memphians. The Nichols family has shown nothing but grace. The City has been open, transparent, and quick to fire and charge the people responsible. I’m worried about agitators coming in to try to co opt a totally legitimate protest to their own violent ends.

Pray for Memphis. I love this city. It needs healing.