Don't sleep it off outside

[Tall Man]

http://www.komotv.com/stories/38384.htm

Pierce County, Washington, sheriff's deputies were looking for a suspect in a car break-in when they found Aaron Otto Hansen passed out in a sleeping bag outside a relative's home. The deputies, who were being filmed by the TV show "Cops", tried to wake Hansen and shouted at him to show them his hands. "You're gonna get tased, due," said one.

When the deputy tried to pull the sleeping bag open, a disoriented Hansen pulled it back over his head and tried to push the deputy away. That's when that deputy and another knelt on Hansen and tased him repeatedly. As Hansen began to thrash about, one deputy called for a police dog that repeatedly bit at Hansen's leg, "leaving his pants shredded and his ankle bloodied," according to local media.

The confrontation ended with Hansen begging the deputies to tell him what he did wrong. He was charged with two counts of assault for resisting the officers. Those charges were dropped the day his lawyer received the "Cops videotape. Hansen is now suing the deputies, the county and the cities of Lakewood and Tacoma.
===

 

[Henry Bowman]

This is why Cincinnati didn't want COPS to film here. It's not that we are racists or have something to hide. It's that we have seen this show and know what the presence of cameras do to otherwise good LEOs.

 

[Flyboy]

Henry Bowman:

It's that we have seen this show and know what the presence of cameras do to otherwise good LEOs.

I don't want to sling accusations, but this statement seems a bit outlandish. Are you actually saying that "otherwise good LEOs" will, in the presence of cameras, become JBTs?

Isn't that a bit like saying that otherwise good people will, in the presence of guns, become murderers?

 

[dolanp]

I think it's more likely that they tone it down for the cameras, which is what's truly scary.

 

[Henry Bowman]

From what I've seen, there are always a few who like to "juice it up" for the cameras. I don't mean to imply that they go crazy and pound suspects. It's more that they have talked there way up to the situation (on camera), making certain assumptions that may not turn out to be valid, and then don't want to loose face on camera so they continue on somewhat "blinded" from the signs that are telling them their assumption were wrong. This is a perfect example.

Nevermind. I've seen COPS, and no matter how many shirtless clowns get chased and arrested, I don't think that it makes our police look very good overall. There are many exceptions, but if you can't see some on the show inflating the "us vs, them," we must not have seen the same shows.

 

[c_yeager]

It's that we have seen this show and know what the presence of cameras do to otherwise good LEOs.

Yeah, everyones a saint untill there are witnesses

 

[Daniel T]

Hansen is now suing the deputies, the county and the cities of Lakewood and Tacoma.

I wonder what the story would have been without the camera?

 

[Ian]

The incident is really sickeninig, at least to me.

"Wake up! Show me your hands!" one officer, identified in the lawsuit as Deputy Joseph Kolp, screams at Hansen on the video.

No response.

"You're gonna get tased, dude," Kolp says.

Kolp pulls on the sleeping bag. Hansen - clearly disoriented - tries to pull it back over his head, apparently to shield his eyes from Deputy Russell Martin's flashlight. Kolp grabs Hansen's arm and Martin moves in to help with an arrest.

Hansen, still on the ground, starts to revive. He pushes Kolp, and the officers repeatedly use their Tasers as they kneel on him, pressing the instruments into his chest and his buttocks.

"What the (expletive) are you doing?!" he moans as he struggles against them. "What the hell's going on?!"

With Martin and Kolp holding him down, Hansen continued to swing his legs, and Kolp called for help from Tacoma police K-9 officer Christopher Karl. Karl's dog bit repeatedly at Hansen's leg, leaving his pants shredded and his ankle bloodied.

The confrontation ended after two minutes, with Hansen in handcuffs moaning, "Please, please ... What did I do wrong?"

"When we tell you to show us your hands, that's what you need to do," Kolp tells him. "You want to fight us, this is what happens."

"I'm not fighting nobody here," Hansen says, doubled over in pain.

And what does the cop have to say?

"The dog was sent in to help us out because we had two officers struggling to get this guy into custody and he wasn't complying, so we had to take it up a notch. ... It was a full-on battle there for a couple minutes."

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

This is why Cincinnati didn't want COPS to film here. It's not that we are racists or have something to hide. It's that we have seen this show and know what the presence of cameras do to otherwise good LEOs.

You must be kidding me. That is exactly counterintuitive. The only reasonable conclusion is that they toned it down for the cameras, compared to what they usually do. This is human nature. They want to keep their jobs. In reality, this is probably typical police behavior when the cameras are not there. We've seen much worse when cops didn't know cameras were there. It is also typical to charge suspects with assault for merely resisting being pummeled with kicks and punches and having their heads rammed into cars and sidewalks, which has pretty much become the norm for arrests, unless there are lots of witnesses and cameras.

 

[Justin]

Those cops should be sued into indentured servitude.

 

[c_yeager]

I wonder what the story would have been without the camera?

What story?

 

[Flyboy]

Yeah, everyones a saint untill there are witnesses

Now, to be fair, I sincerely doubt FOX (Cops is on FOX, right?) would find encounters like the one I had with an officer yesterday[0] make for TV as good as they ones they choose to air.


[0] My brother was in a minor accident. Officer was polite, friendly, agreed that the road design was bad, volunteered that the University was actively impeding improvements to said road design, etc. All-in-all, a really nice guy, and a good officer. But that wouldn't be very entertaining on TV.

 

[Henry Bowman]

I guess you guys have never met someone who like to "showoff" for a camera.


Nevermind, again.

 

[Daniel T]

c_yeager:

What story?

Well, that's true. Just another number to add to a statistic.

---

Henry Bowman:

I guess you guys have never met someone who like to "showoff" for a camera.

Sure. Maybe one guy. There were at least three in this situation. Not a single one thought to say "Hey guys, this might be a bit excessive?".

 

[TarpleyG]

This episode aired about a month or so ago. I asked my wife while watching it if she was sure this was the guy they were looking for. You really cannot tell from the editing but the guy could have been the one they were looking for.

Greg

 

[CARRY'IN]

It is also typical to charge suspects with assault for merely resisting being pummeled with kicks and punches and having their heads rammed into cars and sidewalks, which has pretty much become the norm for arrests, unless there are lots of witnesses and cameras.

I absolutely agree with Hawkeye. It is called CYA. THR seems to have alot of cops vs copdistruster threads; seems we have some cops who like to call copdistrusters "copbashers" and just keep posting long dissertations of police procedure as an answer to any argument. I freely admit I am a copdistruster. I attribute this to having stopped watching television police dramas about 15 years ago, and frequently seeing the police in action for real.

 

[oh blanky]

<Purely bashing comment removed.>

 

[CARRY'IN]

<Disagreement with purely bashing comment removed. >

 

[KLR]

<disagreement with OhBlanky that probaby should have been removed yesterday removed by KLR>

 

[migoi]

My favorite episode of COPS...

Cops responding to a possible prowler call at the home of an elderly lady. As one officer is moving toward the back yard a shot is fired.

Quick investigation shows that the lady had fired a shot off into the dark to scare off whatever was making the noise she heard (not a good idea I'll admit). No prowler was found (holed or unholed).

My favorite part was the reaction from the officer. He asked the lady to see the gun (a revolver), asked if she had more bullets, reloaded it for her, and then replaced in the drawer where she kept it. He then cautioned her to only shoot when she can see what she is shooting at because it might be him out there in the dark. Then a good night ma'am.

This episode is much on my mind as I watch the nightly news and see that 4 elderly women have been sexually assaulted or raped on Maui in the last 3 weeks.

Forget about arming bears...arm the tutu's (Hawaiian slang for grandmother).

My kind of cop.

migoi

 

[ZenMasterJG]

Almost all people will try and proform "better" when they're being watched. Its called the Hawthorne effect. When individuals are being watched, their behaviors are altered. Watching singles out the individual and they feel, consciously or not, that they must be more productive. In cops, i think this would probably lead them to try and end an encounter faster, not to mention that almost anyone put in front of a camera acts in a show-offish manner. Not deliberatly, its just how we work.

 

[AK-74me]

I've seen the episode and the poor dude is obviouly not the guy they are looking for but the way the show is edited the hunt for the BG ends right there, I was thinking when I watched it if they were gonna get the real BG or just be like "we got someone....anyone ....thats good enough."

 

[gunsmith]

those were Texas cops miogi

Fort Worth I believe, yeah that was a good episode.
One episode in AZ showed a real moron,
holding his gun hollywood style,near his face & finger on the trigger
I hope he got chewed up for that.
cops is one of my fave shows

 

[scubie02]

yeah, i've never understood why cops would want the show Cops on tv, since for the most part I think it gives a negative image, but cops seem to love it for some reason. I never watch it intentionally as in watch a whole show, but I have seen sections of it while flipping the channel around. The on episode that stood out was when this old black guy is walking down the street, and from off camera this linebacker cop comes hurtling out and just flattens this skinny old guy onto the pavement--really body slams him. They cuff him and roll him over and his face is bleeding and you're just thinking (I actually said something like this to my gf) "geezes, that guy must be 70 and you know he must have broken something just then!" His crime? Well, somebody had called the cops and said somebody was "suspicious" and "might have a weapon". The "weapon" he was carrying? A foot or so long piece of rubber gas line he was on his way to replace the old line on his lawnmower with...

I was watching that thinking "man, if I was that guy I'd never have to change my own gas line again by the time I got done suing that department...

OTOH, I agree that producers probably wouldn't be interested in showing all the times cops are polite and helpful, etc, which is too bad. People often act by example--if a new cop were to enter a force where the cops already there treat citizens as "the enemy", or tazer them at the drop of a hat, pretty soon he or she'd be acting the same way. If they came on the job and the cops showed concern and said "have a nice day" and acted like they were just there to help, similarly they would probably behave in a similar way. Too bad they couldn't show more of THOSE encounters on tv...there are probably as many of those every day as the body slamming old folks ones.

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

My favorite episode of Cops took place in the Florida panhandle, very rural place, by and large. Cops get a call saying elderly man has a car thief at gunpoint in his driveway. They show up, its late at night, and a caucasian elderly man has a Model 10 revolver pointing towards a young black man who is lying on the ground. They draw on the guy on the ground and ask the old man to put his gun in the house, which he does. When he comes back out, the man is handcuffed and they ask him what happened. Old man says he heard something, and when he looked out the window he saw this guy breaking into his car. He told his wife to call 911, then he came out with his revolver and told him to lie on the ground or he'd shoot him. Then he said, "I was damned sorry he listened to me, because I really wanted to shoot the bastard." The cops (deputy sheriffs) just looked at each other, laughed, and took the car thief to the squad car, telling him he was sure lucky tonight.