[kirant]

Originally Posted by Canuck-Hater

Why are we nit-picking at this? The protest was peaceful thus force was not necessary. A woman should not be punched in the face for standing on the road! End of story.

The protest may be, but she may not have been and the crowd may have been less than civil. Notice the video cuts into their struggle very shortly before she gets punched. We have little idea what the area was like. I agree, for the most part, the people seem fine...but police were short of hands and she seemed to be somewhat opposing them (note that she was constantly hugging as close to the motorcycles as they were letting her). I can't speak for the police or for the woman...it doesn't look clear cut why it happened, just that it happened (and we really don't know where the other police are here or what she was doing, if anything, to get punched. I agree with you, if there were readily available cops nearby and she wasn't doing anything to endanger anyone, the cop deserves to be punished. If she was about to lay one on the cop though or if she was making a run at the motorcycle, unlikely given the other cop's reaction, then instincts kick in and it's reasonable as a reaction).

Long story short: We don't have the full story here and learning it may incriminate the cop or give him more reason. There's too many variables to state definitely that "she didn't deserved it".

Once again. Regardless of the situation, punching in the face is an unacceptable response. It's fairly evident in the video that the protesters are not being violent. Yes, she may have touched him, perhaps even stricken him, but police officers are trained for that kind of thing and the response should be to suppress, apprehend, what not. Punching a citizen in the face in response is not an acceptable action.

I'm not a cop, but from my discussions with my uncle's friends, they imply they are trained less so with hand to hand, and more so with weapons (batons, tasers, side arms). In cases of one on one fighting, they're less trained and often resort to moves as a team to keep each individual safe. Does it excuse them? No, but when most options are exhausted, I would be fine seeing them punch someone in the face.

That cop looks like he had a small baton on him, but it took a while to get it out and usable. It is entirely possible and reasonably plausible that he didn't have the time to reach for it and, when threatened with the same result,

If I had to put a definite on the case, I'd likely agree with you. It seems more reasonable that the cop was going overboard. However, we just don't have any proof or context for the situation.

CitiBank now arresting its customers for trying to close their accounts. I believe they will be charging them with inciting a run on a bank, which may very well stick in court, even if it's an archaic and rarely used charge. Trespassing certainly won't stick since they were customers when they walked in.

Huh...learned a new law today.