Your claim of interest in objective, capital T truth is undermined by your desire to emphasize the age of the victim and the location of the handcuffs pre-punching.
So, let me get this right, my supposed interest in "objective, capital T truth" is suspect because the details I called out are, in fact, not evident in the video you based your hyperbolic thread title on?
That the handcuffs were only recently applied does not make the victim less restrained. He was still firmly held to the car, and the handcuffs are either on or in the process of being applied when the punching begins. If you want to correct minor details in the account, that's fine. Why do you seem to be doing at the expense of the victim? Why do it to the diminishment of what happened to him?
Perhaps fighting was the wrong word. Struggling would be better. The fact that it took 3 uniformed cops to hold him when the other two kids arrested each only had one officer controlling them indicates to me that the kid who was punched was resisting to a far greater level and was not some innocent waif like your title implies.
The victim? The victim who was being arrested for beating the shit out of someone with a cane? Pardon me if I seem unsympathetic.
A person was handcuffed and beaten. He was not fighting. Those facts are clear as day and need no defense. But recasting it as "only" two punches, and painting the victim as "fighting" is disingenuous to an extent that is far more hyperbolic than a mistake in age or in the exact number of times the victim was punched.
Those "facts" are not clear as day.
Bartholomew said:
He was still firmly held to the car, and the handcuffs are either on or in the process of being applied when the punching begins.
So were the handcuffs on or off? Kind of makes a difference, don't you think? And if he wasn't fighting/struggling/resisting, why did he need three cops to hold him against the car? How is stating the clear number of punches disingenuous? Is it because it doesn't conform to your hyperbolic rhetoric?
No, you didn't call them lovetaps, but you did invoke the term in a way that absolutely diminishes the idea of what a punch is in the context of this conversation, and you should absolutely expect to be called out on that in a forum where pride themselves on their professional use of words.
Just like you could have used the word "twice" instead of "repeatedly" which is more accurate and doesn't imply a level of intensity that clearly didn't happen? Or your use of "forcibly"? Did you need to clarify that it wasn't a "playful" punch? Why did you need the redundant "restrained"? If someone is handcuffed, it logically follows that they are restrained. The only reason to include restrained is to be as hyperbolic as possible and make this incident seem worse than it really was.
The purpose of my rhetoric is to call into question a clear and present abuse of authority.
What was the purpose of yours?
Fine, there are plenty of abuses of police power and they should be called out for what they are. However, I don't see this as the egregious abuse of power that your title suggests. There are plenty of examples of police brutality, you don't need to make up examples.
Now as far as this incident is concerned, I don't know if the plainclothes cop should have punched the kid. To me it's clear that the kid is resisting. He has three cops trying to handcuff him. If that doesn't signal his level of resistance, I don't know what will. You can see his head come back away from car right before the cop punches, indicating he's pushing back away from the car. Maybe the cop just wanted to punch him. I can't say for sure.
My point is that there is already way too much heat and intensity involved in police/minority relations (and for good reason) that embellishing this story into something so inflammatory without reason is irresponsible. The cop's actions are questionable at worst, not at all like what is implied by the title of this thread.
