I'm in the same boat. A cop is just another man with a badge and training. I have training...others have training too, whether it be BJJ or self-defense or military or whatever. If a man without a badge bum rushes you in public without saying anything, then I believe in my core that I would try to defend myself, and others would too. And we might end up dead in that situation. That's a messed up arrest tactic that should be reviewed imo. I've been the victim of mistaken identity by law enforcement a few times before. In all cases, they have been in uniform. In one case, guns were drawn. I never did anything stupid and in all cases, everything worked out. If any of those situations involved plain clothes cops not identifying themselves and just rushing to tackle me, my life might be completely different. I'm sure there's a rationale behind what that cop did to Blake, but I just see bad consequences that are avoidable.
Wait..James Blake the former tennis player??? The beloved child of the USopen? WTF. I hope they get heavilly sued.
the biggest mistake is not identifying themselves as cops... As for the tackle...you have to wonder if that's just the way it develops after being involved in case after case. I imagine a lot of the guilty guys will run, if the cops don't grab them right away, and probably try to pull away, if the cops aren't aggressive. After a while, probably after losing suspects like that, cops likely would just go straight to using force. not excusing them, but I think there's more to it sometimes than a cop being a bad apple. It can be a lot of frustration accumulated over years of work. the dept has to do a better job of training them and planning out these operations.
There's video Looks like another choke hold take down by another NY cop. Haven''t these guys learning anything??? don't get caught on film.
That is kind of the Issue You are trained and probably could have hurt that cop badly IF you did that then the other 4 cops might have filled you with holes rather than face getting hurt themselves. . . because they are a Fearful bunch 'I feared for my life' 'Its the wrong guy' 'oh . . . who wants pizza' Rocket River
Similar thing happened to me in Houston a couple years ago, still have not heard back from HPD after filing several complaints. They just don't give a ****
There probably are situations where a surprise tackle is justified as being the best available imperfect option-- like if there is a reason to believe that the guy is gonna start shooting in the middle of the crowd if the police identified themselves. But in this situation, we are talking about a suspected credit card scammer, not a serial murderer. Even the flight risk isn't worth the risk of turning this into a situation where both the officer and the suspect (who turned out to be a innocent person whom they mistaken to be the suspect) can get injured or worse if the situation escalated as people discussed here. And there are 4 other cops around, they probably can manage to contain and surround the guy they are trying to catch.
If you get tackled by some yahoo out of the blue you probably don't know the others are there. If there are four more why didn't they just walk up to the guy as a group? Were they all plain clothes? Can't find a uniformed officer nearby to make the approach with the other undercover officers blocking escape routes?
i get tired of mixed people saying that they dont see themselves as black.. the cops were looking for a black male suspect and they targeted blake. hopefully all parties learn from this incident
They're probably fairly tired of watching blacks self-segregate through language and demeanor, then clamoring for acceptance and inclusion when test scores and employment statistics come out. They understand better than anyone else that, in a country this free and prosperous, isolating and alienating others through the prism of your least relevant and most visible trait is social, economic and intellectual suicide.
And, what exactly does James Blake need to learn from his incident? Does he need to learn to not be minding his own business doing absolutely nothing wrong?
Can you imagine if the guy was a Zimmerman type of character and just shot the police in the gut because he didn't identify himself as the police.
I don't disagree...my point was, there are bad cops, but there are probably some good ones that are just frustrated over situations that "aren't worth the risk" and result in failed busts. That has to get to them over time. It's easy for us to look at one incident and assess the situation without feeling their frustration. I think that's part of what plays into suspects getting shot, when they run. Suspects run because cops aren't suppose to shoot you in the back, and usually they don't, so it's an easy way to escape. That has to be a drain on cops mentally, so much so, that some probably pull the trigger out of frustration and not because they're hateful people. Just something to think about. It's too easy to quickly label cops as bad, when they screw up. Some are bad and some need to be reeled back in mentally, but again, that's on the department to monitor.
^^^ this is where training, procedures and process comes in. Emotion needs to be kept in check. And if I may, there IS a culture of excessive use of force by police. To the extreme, its the shoot first, explain later. There are bad cops and there are good cops that are bad due to the nature of the policing system with way too much protection for them and lack of accountability placed on them. That plus the power to kill yield too often unnessary injuries and deaths. That should change.
I mean, let's be honest, they weren't JUST looking for a black male suspect, they were looking for a suspect that looked just a whole lot like this guy. Mistaken identity cases happen. If they cops are looking for someone who looks that much like you, there's a chance they arrest you by mistake....no matter what race you are. Of course, that doesn't excuse throwing the guy on the ground unless the guy they were after had a history of running or fighting with cops, so there's a legitimate cause for a lawsuit but as to why the mistaken identity happened....look at the two pictures.
