It's true. I remember when I was in the academy and they taught that. Of course not all officers do it, but that's what he was doing. I also remember during traffic stop training, I had one guy who ran about 75 feet, turned around and fired a rubber bullet at me. At shot 3 at him striking him twice in the chest. After it was all over, I felt pain in my lower leg. I pulled up my pant leg and found a big bruise and in the center the skin was slightly broken and bleeding. He had shot me in the leg and I didn't even notice till I was calming down.
Another guy in my class was doing his traffic stop and started walking upon the car. There was a male driver and female front passenger. They were in a hard core make out session completely ignoring the officer in training. As he got closer he was laughing to himself about the couple. He approached the window and begin to ask for the drivers info when the female passenger fired a cotton round from a 357 magnum directly into his face. She had it draped across the male drivers shoulder during the make out session. The officer in training dropped out about a week later.
The reason I mentioned my experience is to try and help explain why so many officers seem to be on edge. They train them to be aggressive and then give them a gun.
With that being said, this officer used excessive force when he threw her to the ground. He didn't follow the proper escalation of force protocol. I think this serves as an example that the police academy requirements need to be tightened. Not everyone is cut out to be a cop. If you can't keep your cool when a suspect spits in your face and calls you names, you shouldn't be a cop.
To qualify my post, I would mention that I am in my 30's, disabled, but served as both a civilian and military police officer. After being in Iraq, I would not consider myself fit to serve as a civilian officer anymore. Once a person crosses that line from officer to soldier, it's harder to control those split second decisions and how you react to a potentially dangerous situation. They trained us to kill and win at all cost. That's not something that can be turned off without a lot of training and psychological guidance.
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