Quote:
Originally Posted by The Fonz
Don't even...
The young men and women are not fighting and dying so that some punk who gets in a car chase, drives on the wrong side of the road nearly hitting innocent people and loses control and hits a parked car (the sidewalk if that vehicle weren't there), can surrender in the end without getting kicked in the head.
That is not what they are fighting for, so stop trying to make this more complicated than it is.
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Whether the kid deserved to get kicked in the head is entirely beside the point. FlamesAddiction is absolutely right; our polity is founded on a system of jurisprudence that guarantees due process for everyone accused of a crime, innocent or guilty. Without it, we're no better than Putin's Russia.
We just don't live in the world of "Judge Dredd." A world in which police officers mete out punishments, deserved or not, is a fascist police state. Thank god, we don't live in that world--which is why this police officer's actions weren't appropriate.
The innocence or guilt of the person being apprehended is an entirely different question, and utterly beside the point. I don't doubt that he had it coming. But we don't live in a society where a police officer gets to make that call in the heat of the moment--and I am grateful every day that we don't, because that
absolutely is the principle that our grandparents fought over a generation ago. If you can't see that, I don't really know what to say.