Vermont teen accuses police of sexual assault after arrest

[aikoaiko]

26. More Devils Advocacy

1. The video you claim is unedited is actually edited. This is a good example of police foul play to claim a tape is unedited when it is.

2. He escalates the situation by asking repetitive questions trying to irritate her and cause her to make "harmful statements". In fact, after the first gap in video between when she hands him her ID and she's standing outside asking for her parents number, he radios in that she's making "harmful statements" which is "documentation" which will help justify more escalation and using force against her. Making a joke about calling 911 instead of parents number is not really a harmful statement.

3. It her bong and she's not arrested at the time, she can do what she wants with it. He doesn't say it is confiscated under the law. She did not attack him and did not run away. She asked if he was concerned that he thought so. Just asking questions like the police do.

What I see is her trying to retrieve her property and the officer manhandling her before saying she is under arrest for resisting arrest. Of course he never said why he was arresting her in the first place which one would have to do in order to then resist arrest.

We see her moving around, but this could be caused by the officer and she does claim that he is bending her wrist painfully which is unseen on video , but torturing arrestees with wrist locks will cause movement which justifies more force by escalatory cops.

4. Maybe we will see more video. Of course, claiming he is being kicked is "documentation" for using more force.

5. I suppose if the Chief wanted to exonerate the officer he could have produced patrol car video already.

Ok I won't do DA any more because I think the situation is mostly caused by the girl, but let's face it the cops could have just checked on them by waking them up and said have a nice nap. Remember he assumes they are passed out when they could just be sleeping.

In far too many videos, police keep poking people until the civilians make a mistake in irritation. Then the hammer drops. That needs to stop.


My main point is that videos are often edited, contain references to unseen things, and can be interpreted differently.

ETA: After the Walter Scott murder by police I won't give police the benefit the doubt or even video that is ambiguous.