Brutal Video of Police Officers Shoving an Elderly Man

The "just following orders" defense got canned at Nuremberg. If that's these officer's excuse for what happened they should fire the lot of them.

ex-runner wrote:

Here we have so called right wing Republicans, those who are supposed to be in favour of reducing the size and power of the government to it's minimum, now are the biggest supporters of the police and welcome more funding, greater police powers and fewer police controls.

It is madness. The police is a public service. They should work for the people. America has forgotten it's heritage indeed.

Please after 40 years, nobody is dumb enough to think republicans are in favor of reducing government size and power. The difference between democrats and republicans isn't the desire to meddle in personal matters. it is what matters they want to meddle in.

In the past the various wings of both parties that opposed certain things could unite over issues that they had in common (both parties do have subsets that care about personal liberties.). That never seems to happen any more.

gravity hurts wrote:

Hope the old man gets well . But when I watched it several times you see he goes to put his hand between the officer’s gun arm and his holstered gun .

Cop can’t be a mind reader .

What was the man trying to do ?

Exactly. Any unbiased person would see this.

75 years old but still didn't know better. It would have been justified if he was shot. There was no need for him to do what he did. I stand by my statement 100% that he deserved it.

Were they instructed to shove people? I’m curious what their orders were in regards to violence. Do you only use violence if the other person demonstrates violence first? If that’s not the case, then sure I have an issue with whoever issued those orders.

My friends and I donned in body armor could easily subdue a single frail old man without smashing his head on the concrete. It was unnecessary and initially described as a “trip and fall” on the police report before this video blew up. Omitting the tripping on the report implies the shove wasn’t supposed to happen.

To the other poster regarding the old man grabbing the gun: I don’t see it. Maybe this is me being biased watching it.

I have an open mind and I appreciate a peaceful discussion on such a terse topic.

Omitting the shove*. Sorry, it’s late.

Me squared wrote:

josh1988 wrote:

Real issue is the police releasing a statement that the man slipped and was injured.

Everyone wants to claim “one bad apple” but 20 cops witnessed this assault and not one of them wrote their own report of what actually happened.

And now 57 of them have resigned in support for the two reprimanded officers.

They resigned from a team. None of them have quit their job. So instead of being sent out as part of the emergency response team, they will be sent out as normal officers. Probably means they don't get the cool helmet.

You’re wrong bro. The Founding Fathers were mostly middl/upper class English men who were being treated like a colony. It was cutting into the bottom line. They got together and hatched a plan to have farmers fight their battles. It worked. Don’t romanticize stuff.

gravity hurts wrote:

Hope the old man gets well . But when I watched it several times you see he goes to put his hand between the officer’s gun arm and his holstered gun .

Cop can’t be a mind reader .

What was the man trying to do ?

If you can't fend off a 75-year-old without anyone getting hurt, you shouldn't be a cop.

I work in healthcare. I occasionally have to deal with people who are agitated, on drugs, having psychological issues, etc. If a senior citizen in the emergency department approached me with ill intent, I would easily be able to keep them from harming me while also keeping them safe. I don't even have any training on physical combat (the police go through a whole academy to learn this stuff, right?). I'm just a normal adult male with the coordination, spacial reasoning, and body strength that go along with this status, so I have the ability to guide some gomer's hand away from an item I don't want him to grab while also physically supporting him and staying in position to catch him if he starts to fall.

Would you have to knock over a 9-year-old if they were getting aggressive with you? Hopefully not. If you are a competent adult, you should basically be able to pick up a 9-year-old and put them wherever you want without anyone getting injured. Same basic idea applies to a 75-year-old. The point in being trained in physical combat (as cops are supposed to be) is that you learn to have such complete control over your opponent that you don't have to injure them to get them to comply.

gravity hurts wrote:

Hope the old man gets well . But when I watched it several times you see he goes to put his hand between the officer’s gun arm and his holstered gun .

Cop can’t be a mind reader .

What was the man trying to do ?

Sorry, but I watched it several times as well. Watched it again twice after reading your comment. And frankly, your (bolded) statement is absurd. Not a chance in hell that the officer felt threatened by the old man's actions. And no, the old man certainly does not "go to put his hand between the officer’s gun arm and his holstered gun ."

Thanks for clarifying.

Obvi wrote:

gravity hurts wrote:

Hope the old man gets well . But when I watched it several times you see he goes to put his hand between the officer’s gun arm and his holstered gun .

Cop can’t be a mind reader .

What was the man trying to do ?

Sorry, but I watched it several times as well. Watched it again twice after reading your comment. And frankly, your (bolded) statement is absurd. Not a chance in hell that the officer felt threatened by the old man's actions. And no, the old man certainly does not "go to put his hand between the officer’s gun arm and his holstered gun ."

The troll is pulling the "when all is lost make schit up" trick

They just gave him a little shove to get him moving in the other direction - after he disobeyed numerous orders and got way to close to the police, including moving towards the gun of a cop. There's no way they could have known he was 75 and that he was barely able to stand up without a walker.

These cops are marching into a RIOT to protect your pansy ass. They are having bricks thrown at them and people are consistently running at them with weapons. It's a HOSTILE setting and they are RIGHT to be cautious and protect themselves. They are outnumbered 100 to 1.

If you can do it better then man up and be a cop. But you lack courage and you won't.

The old man disobeyed numerous orders and had his hands close to the gun of a cop. He was lucky that they only pushed him. Maybe next time he'll have some respect for the police.

plantanation wrote:

I'm honestly not sure why people think this was assault. It really didnt look like a hard push.

The cop shoved the man, who was leaning forward, hard enough to knock him more than 20 feet backwards.

plantanation wrote:

I wish he hadn't lost his balance and hurt himself.

If the cop had not assaulted him then he would have been fine.

Obvi wrote:

gravity hurts wrote:

Hope the old man gets well . But when I watched it several times you see he goes to put his hand between the officer’s gun arm and his holstered gun .

Cop can’t be a mind reader .

What was the man trying to do ?

Sorry, but I watched it several times as well. Watched it again twice after reading your comment. And frankly, your (bolded) statement is absurd. Not a chance in hell that the officer felt threatened by the old man's actions. And no, the old man certainly does not "go to put his hand between the officer’s gun arm and his holstered gun ."

What is the guy's right hand (whatever he's holding) doing at the 3 second mark of the video (the video from the article in first post)??? It's literally between the guy's arm and his body. Watch it in .25x speed.

What the hell could he possibly be doing?

The more I watch it, the more I think he got off easy.

If you did that to a random guy at a bar you'd get punched in the face. It blows my mind that guy is dumb enough to do that to a cop in the middle of a riot.

That's one of the best posts that I've seen on here, and I completely agree.

fact checker 642572498 wrote:

People are holding police to an impossible standard. They are getting shot and stabbed in these riots. Thugs are throwing bricks and water bottles full of concrete at police.

And at the same time you expect them to read the exact threat level of each situation and come up with the perfect reaction. If they under-react, they can be killed or innocent civilians can be killed. If they respond even a fraction of a percentage too harshly it will be blown out of proportion or they can even be arrested.

It's not hard to avoid getting pushed our attacked by police...just stay home and don't break any laws.

Bullshit. A lot of the violence from police is against protesters who are not violent, not attacking the police, and not breaking the law. An example in New York this week is the cops jumped a hospital worker going home after his shift. They didn't ask him for ID or an explanation, they just jumped him and beat him. He needed to have his scalp stapled back together. There are lots of videos showing the police striking people who are just standing or holding signs, and even people who are retreating at the request of the police.

Seems to me that if you are a police officer who doesn't want to be stabbed, you might improve your chances is you didn't attack someone who doesn't need to be attacked and my even be doing what you asked.

You are either blind or a liar. I am not sure which.

The old man's hand is never anywhere close to being between the cop's arm and his body. The old man's hand is well in front of the cop the entire time.

Like I said, you are either blind or a liar.

You are really reaching. The video doesn't suggest that the cops felt threatened. More to the point, the cops made up an excuse that the guy just tripped. If the guy had been holding something that would give the cops the excuse to say they felt threatened, that would have been their 'trump card' and they would have cited it as the reason for shoving the guy.