[The Kraken]

Originally posted on 06/07/2015:

Drawing his weapon was absurd in that situation and will be hard to rationalize away in his probable official hearing.

You're right, his skills in defusing situations obviously suck donkey balls and his actions (verbally, too) clearly contributed to the escalation of the event.

Not excusing the non-compliant behavior of some of the teens... BUT ... an officer has to possess better control-the-scene skills than this guy obviously has.

Years ago I worked (4 years total) in a facility in NY similar to the infamous Tryon (where Mike Tyson was as a youth... we actually swapped kids back and forth from time to time with Tryon)... ages 13-17yrs old... most court-appointed... from murderers to arsonists and most everything in between.

What I saw in that video was a friggin picnic scenario compared to what transpired nearly every day in the facility I worked at; yeah, teens don't listen when authority speaks... duh ... have the skills to get them to comply without escalating things. Fights, drugs, weapons, even arson attempts weren't uncommon where I worked -- we had to deal with things far worse than on that video nearly every damn day. That jacked-up embarrassment for a police officer really shouldn't be out on the streets with a gun and a badge if he can't properly handle a not-too-hard scenario such as that.

He made the entire situation 10x worse.

Not even excusing the girls not listening to him and the guy that kinda soeta but not really ran up on him as he took the girl down

He did multiple things during that time to not only not defuse the situation but actually escalate it. Like yelling at the girls after they were already walking away. Like acting like a navy seal in a combat zone. He had no control of himself thus no control of the scene. He chose to take the girl down and make it physical with a teenage girl that really wasnt even part of the ruckus. He made her part of it.

I think you nailed it DOJ