all 7 comments

[–]TaseAFeminist4Jesus 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Seems to me the cops did a good job of neutralizing a pretty serious threat to public safety. You can't just allow some lummox who won't even talk to flail around biting and punching people in public. He fucked around and found out.

[–]tiny-brown-mug 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

https://www.scribd.com/document/490880006/Parsa-lawsuit-pdf

I have read the court report, and am not sure how else the officers might have responded. Sure, they could have gotten off of him sooner, but at no point did his parents request this, and the mother was allowed to touch and talk to her son. Even after this, he became combative and agitated.

The young man was non-verbal, non-complaint, and was hitting and biting both his father and officers. If you're an officer trying to restrain and control someone who is hitting and biting, can't talk, and won't comply, I'm not sure what else you would do.

[–]tiny-brown-mug 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I would also estimate that the unconstitutional search warrants were in anticipation of their getting sued, so they started their background work early. And sure enough, they got sued.

I don't think the officers did anything wrong during this incident. I assume their rifling for info about this young man being violent or disruptive in the past was in preparation for their getting sued. Which is what happened. It wasn't the kid's fault, either. He was mentally handicapped and couldn't control himself. The parents took him to laser tag as an outing. How is he not going to have a sensory overload?

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I don't think the officers did anything wrong during this incident.

I don't disagree, however...Their response shows a chilling lack of regard for the law, and these are the people we are trusting to uphold it. I see authority as sacred duty, and abuse of it as an extreme moral wrong. If you are in a position of power over other people, and the functioning of society requires their trust, then its abuse is a serious wrong.

This situation while unfortunate, seemed more or less by the book, yet they did not trust in the system they are upholding to come to the right conclusion, and attempted to break the law and exempt themselves from their own system! How can anyone trust in a system with actors like this?

[–]tiny-brown-mug 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Well, in their defense... These days police officers get the book thrown at them whether they do anything wrong, or not. Officers are increasingly in a darned-if-you-do, darned-if-you-don't type situation where if anything goes wrong or anyone gets hurt, it's never the fault of the parents, community, suspect, or anyone else. It's always the officers.

Now, some officers do use excessive force, behave like creeps, and abuse their power. In this situation, though, where they knew they were about to get sued for doing everything right and subduing this young man (who was 16 years old, obese, non-verbal, combative, and was biting and hitting both his father and officers) without using a taser or a gun, I'm not too surprised or upset that they've gone looking for anything that might help them in a legal case.

I'm not saying their actions were by-the-book, but their actions, imho, were understandable. I wouldn't entirely trust the system if I were them, either. I mean, the parents took their severely autistic son who was prone to meltdowns to a laser tag facility. Frankly, that's not the best choice of entertainment for a potentially violent, mentally slow young adult who melts down when overloaded with sensory stimuli.

Still, the officers are getting sued. I think it might not be a terrible idea to have specially trained units of men and women who know how to handle and de-escalate a mental health crisis. Because these officers are not those guys, and it's a bit absurd to expect them to know how to handle something like this any better than they did. They didn't use a taser or a gun, they seemed to be doing the bare minimum to restrain this guy and keep him from hurting them.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I don't disagree with anything you are saying tbm.

We need police, societies bigger than a few hundred people cant function without them. We also need to be able to trust our authorities.

I think the problem is that our responses to corruption perpetuate the problem. We have a bad actor, they get caught, and people start calling to abolish and defund law enforcement, a non-solution. Law enforcement justifiably feels threatened and forms a 'blue wall" to protect themselves, but also resulting in them subverting the very system they are sworn to protect, which then creates more unreasonable calls for action

Police are by no means the only ones doing this. Gavin Newsom made a mask mandate and then flouted it repeatedly. Congress is doing insider trading. All of these problems reduce faith in the system. It's no wonder to me that people are screaming election fraud and storming shit, they don't trust the system. People don't trust the news (and shouldn't). I will say this is a much bigger problem than just policing, its just an example of a larger societal problem of authority not being accountable, and ineffective responses to address it

[–]tiny-brown-mug 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think, in part, we can blame this culture of outrage that has spilled from the internet into real life. Blame someone. Blame anyone. Never examine your own mistakes and never calmly deal with your feelings. Just lash out.

This was clearly an accidental death. But the parents, in their grief and possibly guilt, they lash out at the officers who tried to help them by subduing their son. When no one trusts anyone, like you said, this is the result, and it's ugly. The system is broken and people take precautions ahead of time to try to save themselves.