Cop fans applaud beating of suspect

May 21, 1:21 PMCivil Liberties ExaminerJ.D. Tuccille

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In the wake of yesterday's column about five Birmingham, Alabama, police officers fired after they were caught on film beating a suspect who was already unconscious, the usual suspects are out in force to defend the put-upon boys in blue. They tell me I've been unnecessarily mean to the police officers who were, after all, just administering a well-deserved attitude correction to a guy who got what he deserved. As this country gets ever-more rule-bound and subject to the whims of government employees, keep an eye on the people who think this way. They make up a good share of your neighbors and they're happily pushing this country in the direction of a police state.

First, let me be clear that not everybody who commented on the story cheered on the beating. Several people were outright horrified and recognized that you don't have to think a suspect is an angel to believe that he doesn't deserve to be physically abused when he's offering no resistance whatsoever.

But others ...

In the comments, Phil and Geoff both agree that Anthony Warren, who led police on a chase after being stopped and questioned about drugs, is a "scumbag" who got what he deserved. Phil suggests that it's unfortunate that Warren was unconscious and so unable to experience the beating first-hand. Geoff thinks the officers involved should have received medals (for good aim, I suppose. Those limp, motionless targets can be tricky).

Tex Rick and Cop's Son, on the other hand, disagree with the beating. They think Anthony Warren should have been shot instead. Says Tex Rick:

Use the gun next time. Perp wasn't worth a scratch on their knuckles after he attempted to run over first policeman.

Jim Jones thinks I'm a "jackass" for criticizing drug-law enforcement as the spur for a high-speed, long-distance chase and resulting beating.

If the peaceful use of drugs leads a man to endanger the police and everyone else on the highway, I think he might deserve a beating.

Arguably, chasing after a guy along the highway at high speed because he might be involved with the use of officially disfavored intoxicants is what caused the danger.

But the cause of the chase isn't the main issue here. The main issue is that the police beat on a man who was senseless and utterly incapable of offering resistance. In the image below from the police dashboard camera video, you can see an officer with his arm upraised to deliver a blow to the suspect, who is lying face down after being thrown from the van.

In fact, it doesn't matter if Warren was a drug dealer, a child molester, a jay walker or a serial killer. The job of the police is to apprehend him so that he can be tried, his guilt or innocence determined, and an appropriate penalty imposed through a legal process that is based on the assumption that the authorities don't always get it right.

The cops don't get to act as judge, jury and executioner.

Understandably, people get hot under the collar in stressful situations. In moments of conflict, it can be hard to control your temper.

If you can't master your emotions, though, you have no business wearing a badge or wielding the wide-ranging license that employment as a law-enforcement officer now carries.

But too many of us have become power-worshippers. The attitude is effectively summed up when Phil writes, "Don't brake the LAW and you won't get beat."

It's so good to know that the founders put all that effort into reinforcing the presumption of innocence and crafting the Bill of Rights so that meatheads two centuries down the line could assume that anybody the cops label as a transgressor deserves an on-the-spot thumping with clubs.

Trials and due process are so drawn out, after all.

My doubts about the wisdom of a car chase as a follow-up to questions over drug use are worth interjecting here. It's not just foolish and failed drug prohibition that is at issue. It's the fact that almost everything we do these days is bound up in an ever-tightening web of laws and regulations that threaten to put us on the wrong side of the authorities with very little effort.

And nowhere is that more true than on the roads.

Are your license, registration and insurance up-to-date? Is the kid's car seat properly fastened? Are the windows tinted a shade too dark? Did you go a tad too fast? What's in your ash tray? Can we search your trunk? How many beers did you have at lunch anyway? Is your windshield cracked? A broken taillight? Were you using your cell phone? Hands-free or to your ear?

And so on.

Phil says that if we don't brake ... err ... break the law, we won't get beat. That's cold comfort in a world in which it's increasingly difficult to avoid breaking one law or another during the course of getting through the day. It's even more difficult to go through the day without being suspected of running afoul of one of those myriad laws.

But no matter how many legal tripwires await us, the likes of Phil, Geoff and Cop's Son will be there to cheer on whatever horrors the cops may visit upon us if they suspect we've been snagged.

email J.D.: civilliberties (at) tuccille.com