I haven't posted for a fair while but I really felt the need to vent. I've always loved my country and especially my city here in Perth, Western Australia, but have become more annoyed by the attitudes and justice system of this society. I've now had enough and am totally disgusted and extremely angry over this latest failure of our justice system. The attached footage is of a male Police Officer who is cowardly hit from behind with a flying head butt by some angry idiot. As a result of the attack the Police Officer has permanent paralysis to the left side of his body. Forever to spend his life in a wheel chair. The 3 family members involved in the brawl were all found not guilty of any wrong doing. Apparently the head butter was acting in defense of his father who was getting tasered as a result of punching the officer whilst resisting arrest. The head butter was concerned for his father's heart, even though you can see from the footage that the taser hasn't worked effectively as he is walking away swinging his arms. Further if you were so concerned about your father's heart, why would you be drinking at the local pub with your father then get involved in pub brawls. Why would you then fight the coppers when they arrived! Why wouldn't you just pull your father away at the start of the problems and go home. The footage looks pretty clear to me anyhow and reminds me of the Rodney King video, except this time its the Police Officer who was the victim. Ridiculous. WA has become the softest place in the world. OJ Simpson should have moved here as he never would have gone to jail. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=747_1236920255
It's difficult to understand how they weren't convicted of at least resisting arrest. Causing serious injury to a police officer in the lawful performance of his duties, especially by willful assault, should have resulted in serious consequences. In the GA, we often have members detailed solely to watch the other's backs when dealing with a situation. We have found that this not a waste of manpower, especially in a fluid situation like that. In an incident that started with five people surrounding and kicking a man on his hands and knees, I was attacked by one person from the front and two people from the rear, while retaining control of a fourth. I still have scars from that incident almost 25 years later. Getting attacked from behind is bad, but being blind-sided is far worse. All the people in that crime got off scott-free, mainly because the original victim wouldn't press charges. We defended him and he let us down. I think the people who instigated that incident should be sued civilly. That way, their money will have to go to lawyers instead of public drunkeness.
Yeah that appears to be the next step suing civilly. This brawl happened across the road from a Police Station so half the people involved are office staff who have been non operational for many years, which is why you see a couple of coppers looking a little lost. It is a clear king hit from behind with excessive force, its incredible how much the lawyers are allowed to twist and confuse the issue here in our courts. The footage should have been enough to get the conviction.
The footage has been played a lot here in the east - excessively, I would say, since we know we are seeing a guy getting permanently paralysed: hard to watch even once, and I hate to think of the poor family having to sit through it over and over. I don't know anything much about law n order in WA but I was certainly shocked and disgusted when I heard about that outcome. Over here in NSW crime has been coming down for a while (but our government is the most hated in the country so they get no acknowledgement even of those few things they get right) but the problem seems to be the magistrates: how many days go by between hearing of another joke sentence, another ridiculous decision, another old fool falling asleep in court or getting busted for DUI (because they're above the law, don't you know?) or making some offensive dark-ages remark or just generally showing they have no idea whatsoever of what the public expect of them? That being said, this was a jury decision :shrug: It really does make you question the whole system. I have long been in favour of scrapping the whole thing and going toward the European "get to the bottom of things" system rather than the adverserial "richest lawyer wins" garbage we have now.
Emirkol, could you assault a Police Officer in the US to such an extent that you paralyze him and walk free?
As you said above Sachmo, it would all depend on the lawyers, and to a lesser extent the social/political climate. I've rarely heard an argument presented by a lawyer that made even the slightest amount of common sense, and yet people allow themselves to be confused by them all the time.
Unfortunately, if I hired a good defense lawyer, regardless of cost, yes, there's a good chance I just might. (OJ Simpson, anyone?) It sickens me.
In some places, you would not be able to walk at all. And not from police action. There's no accounting for jury decisions. It's common for violent criminals to be back out on the street 2 days after we arrest them. Most of our arrests are pleaded out, and are often misdemeanors anyway. Strangely, the conviction rate for jury trials for GA arrests here in Houston is 100%. On the other hand, no one was convicted of shooting Curtis Sliwa 5 times in 1992. I've intervened dozens of time when police officers are being overwhelmed. They will often go in, even before their backup has arrived, because someone needs help NOW. GA's take a propriatary interest in police officer safety, because WE need THEM. Cops work 40 hours a week plus overtime. I've got scars everywhere from doing an average of 2 four hour patrols a week 20+ years ago. It's not so bad for me now. I don't think I could handle it.
