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Can You Believe Your Eyes?
Online vids capture moments of high drama but sometimes miss the bigger picture.
University of Western Ontario student arrested.
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I'll Be Watching You
The new video vigilantes expose injustice for all to see.
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Bus Rage!
Welcome to Tyee Video, our new sampler of Internet gems.
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The End of Privacy?
Laws can't keep pace with digital advances.
The violent arrest of a University of Western Ontario student is only the latest of many incidents involving police that have been splashed on YouTube.
The video shows the student being held down in a university building and beaten by at least five campus and city police officers.
A second video shows the student, moments later, in another confrontation with police outside the building.
Posted last Wednesday right after the incident, the video quickly circulated online, leading to a firestorm of media reports across the country, and prompting the London, Ont. university to issue a statement defending police actions during the arrest.
As with other police videos, such as this one involving an off-duty soldier and Fredericton, N.B. police officers, the images and sounds are shocking, especially to someone viewing them online, far removed from the scene itself.
But as valuable as such videos are in ensuring police are held in check (witness the tasering of Robert Dziekanski, for instance), there is risk, too, that they will be viewed out of context.
As the university statement explains, the incident began well before the video was shot, after police received calls regarding a "disoriented and threatening individual" who was trying to enter offices on the seventh and eighth floors of the social sciences building. It was on the main floor of the building, after he had already fled from police once, that the confrontation took place.
"Our officers and London Police officers were dealing with a disoriented and violent young person who clearly required help," Gitta Kulczycki, vice president of resources and operations at Western, said in the release.
"Our officers did what they needed to do to ensure that he and others around him were safe."
The video poster, identified only by the YouTube name "dreddly," later expressed regret about how the video had been taken out of context.
"I recorded the event to document it, but this intent was lost through its dissemination," dreddly wrote in a blurb accompanying the YouTube clip.
"I believe the police response was justified and reasonable based on what I witnessed. The suspect's arm was underneath him and the police were trying to free the arm, he was clearly not complying. When the suspect got up, he did not look visibly injured or in a state worse than when he struggled to the ground."
Police charged the student, described as six feet two inches and more than 200 pounds, with mischief, resisting arrest, assault, and escaping custody. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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samuidave (not verified)
2 years ago
out of context
with all the spin on how this man was a menace outside the building, and how he was so big, and how the one arresting officer was screaming 'stop resisting' to cover his butt legally.
i know when i witness guys wanting to give someone a shit-kicking as was evident by the police conduct here. whatever this man may have done prior -- and this is not to say he did not deserve to be manhandled at some level in order to be restrained -- he certainly was NOT resisting at any time in the video clip, and the officers were absolutely out-of-line.
one truly sees the 'ten feet tall and bullet-proof' mentality of some people when they get the backing of the pack.
Perry
2 years ago
Police brutality and not a stapler in sight
Providing context for that video doesn't change the fact that those police went far beyond what was necessary to subdue that guy, who the university spokesperson described as requiring help. Some help! He was repeatedly assaulted with fists, knees and batons. I tried counting the blows, but there were so many, so fast that I lost count. Once he was down, instead of beating him they could have just tied his legs together if they couldn't get both arms free to put hand-cuffs on him. Then they could have just stood back and watched him flail on the floor unable to stand up and walk away, and then cuffed him when they had a better opportunity. They did not have to beat him repeatedly.
The charges do not include possessing or using a weapon, not even a stapler! He was described as "disoriented and threatening ... and violent", just like Robert Dziekanski was before police thugs killed him. What about that context? What prompted his behaviour, was he violent towards people or just to property, and what exactly did he threaten to do that prompted that gang to violently assault him?
I can understand the mischief charge, but it seems to me it is those officers that need to be charged with assault or at least with using excessive force. As for resisting arrest and escaping custody, certainly some context is needed here as well, such as the fact he had at least 5 violent men on top of him pummelling him with blow after blow. If he was disoriented before that, he certainly couldn't have been more clear-headed during or after that beating. So, did he even understand that it was police who were beating him, did he understand that he was under arrest or was he too disoriented to know what was going on? Sure, context is important here, but let's have the entire context, not just the police and university version.
alive
2 years ago
not goose-stepping?
There was a time when a 98 pound weakling would take up bodybuilding. I guess it is a lot easier to join the police?
Certain people are attracted to a career where they can push people around, and unfortunately they did not all have the opportunity to join Hitlers brownshirts.