Squad Five - Oh!

I was watching the news this morning (as is my ritual) and they broke into the normal behind the desk delivery to follow a police chase through the city of St. Louis. As I watched the images taken from the news helicopter, I was infromed that this chase started when the person driving the van rammed a police vehicle. Evidently, the chase then began and stretched across quite a chunk of St. Louis.

I began following it as the suspect was driving down Kingshighway. I watched as the suspect turned down some side streets and ended up on Martin Luther King Drive. Throughout the length of this chase, the suspect was running through stoplights and stop signs and weaving in and out of traffic without regard to the safety of anyone. In the few minutes that I watched, I saw the suspect fly around 3 school busses and consistently break the speed limit by 15mph or greater. It became obvious that the police car giving chase was trying to position itself to spin the supsect or force him off the road.

As the supsect attempted a left turned the police car rammed his left rear and spun the van around. The van was thrown into reverse and tried to turn around to run again. At this point another police car spun him again. Not wanting to stop, the van once again attempted to flew but was hit on the side and pinned against the other two police cars by a third. At this point the suspect jumped out of the van adn began running from the police. After a short foot pursuit, the first police man caught up with the suspect and was quickly aided in bringing the suspect to the ground. Within seconds there were four policeman on the spot, attempting to handcuff the man.

At this point, the story shifted from one of pursuit to capture and containment. I instantly knew that things were walking a very fine and dangerous line as the video showed three policeman using their billy clubs on the man. As one officer stood back and watched, two policeman held the man down and the third policeman gave a kick to the legs of the suspect. The policemen then stopped their beating as the supsect appeared to stop struggling and they notice the helicopter overhead.

An immediate overview of the situation revealed that the three officers who were attempting to cuff the suspect were white. The officer who was standing back and appeared to be in a different type of uniform (possibly a superior?) was black. The suspect was black. mages of Rodney King flashed across my mind.

I have little doubt that this suspect who rammed several police cars, endangered countless lives, broke the speed limit, ran through stop lights and signs and resisted arrest will attempt to make this into a race-related event. However, I also believe that his beating was in no way race-related. Without being there myself, I imagine what I would do if this man had just broken all of those laws, endangered so many people and rammed me with his vehicle. I'm not sure how I would have reacted. The adrenaline rush in that moment of capture has to be overwhelming. If this man was further resisting arrest, I would not hesitate to beat him until he quit resisting.

It's not about black or white in a moment like that. It seems to be more about adrenaline and emotion. Things can get out of hand quickly and normal, hard-working officers can get caught up in the moment. These men and women who put their lives on the line everyday find themselves in an extraordinary situation. They are caught in a moment where they don't have time to evaluate each and every action. They are simply trying to end the event by having the suspect in handcuffs. Perhaps sometimes in those moments they may use slightly excessive force. I can't say that I blame them.

The tragedy of it all is that these men and women who are doing their job to protect the innocent will be scrutinized and held to a standard that is way above that of the supsect. Sure he may be innocent until proven guilty, but this chase was caught on tape and this man deserves to be in jail for quite some time. These officers will no doubt be suspended until a review and face the possibility of reprimand and termination. Is that fair?

If this man had rammed several vehicles and those people had chased him down and trapped him like these officers, you can be certain that he would not have ended up in as good of condition as whatever his condition is right now.

I don't agree with police brutality and I don't agree with race-related actions.

However, in my opinion, todays arrest did not contain the use of excessive force.

We'll see what happens...