Thursday, October 15, 2009

"Stop Resisting!"

(Doesn't that just say it all, folks?)

The Toronto Star has an article about campus and London, Ontario city police officers at the University of Western Ontario beating a student they were trying to arrest. At least two people got video of the arrest:

Video 1
Video 2 (different angle)

Note in the article, the apologists for police brutality are saying that people could get the "wrong impression" about the officers' behaviour because the video is out of context. Normally, I'm all about context, but is there anything more we honestly need to know other than, in the video, five guys are beating the crap out of a guy who's on the ground the whole time? Other than that he might have been struggling, frankly, he doesn't even look like he is resisting. (And be honest with me, folks, if five guys were landing on you and kicking and punching you while they were holding you down, wouldn't you be struggling, too? I would, if only to try to make sure they didn't always get to land blows in the most painful places.)

But remember, especially when dealing with the police in this brave new USA-lite version of Canada (same shit taste, less populated), be sure always to believe the authority figures, and not your lyin' eyes.

This is honestly disgraceful; I'm a UWO alumna, and I frankly don't care what the so-called extenuating circumstances are, or even what the ostensible training manuals say (as in the article) -- if the campus and city police were beating a guy who was on the ground, someone who should have been in charge was doing their job wrong, to a degree significant enough that someone should lose their job over this.

Shame on the university administration for condoning this and for their lame apologetics, as well.