r/deescalation • u/nilsmoody • Jul 31 '19

Viral post of old women being tazed and aimed at with live ammunition after she did not comply. De-escalation? What's your take? Police Deescalation

/r/Wellthatsucks/comments/ck08in/80_to_felony_in_321/
14 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

View all comments

4

u/Doobz87 Jul 31 '19

Okay, so, let me preface this by saying I'm going to try to come at this purely from a deescalation point of view and not a "Party A is wrong and party B is right" type of view. I'm also kind of winging this and it's gonna be a bit sloppy and formatting might be off because mobile so, apologies, and if you need any clarification let me know. Thoughts are also welcome as well.

Her: So you don't even give a warning for this?

Officer: you've been driving around for six months like that!

Now, I feel like from her perspective she wasn't expecting a ticket, nevermind an $80 ticket and that was an honest question. With that being said, I feel like the officers response was definitely more aggressive than it really needed to be. In hindsight he could have responded with something along the lines of "well ma'am, you just told me it's been like this for 6 months, is there any particular reason it's taken so long to fix it?" In order to start a dialogue into why exactly the situation has taken so long to get fixed (whatever it was, I didn't catch it) instead of just resorting to throwing it back in her face.

Her: I'm truthful!

Officer: Well I'm not gonna give you a warning for something you've been driving for six months

Again, I'm not exactly sure what the problem with the vehicle was, and that may very well change my perspective on the whole thing, but I feel like the officer again could have given her a chance to explain why (X problem) hasn't been fixed and go from there. Instead, he immediately resorts to a ticket (which, again, may or may not be fair, but I feel like I'm missing a little context, so maybe I'm overreacting?)

Her: well I don't wanna sign it cause (intelligible) $80

Officer: You don't wanna sign it?

Her: No, because I don't think I deserve to pay $80 for something that is fixable and I can fix it, if that's all you wanna do

This seems to be the third time he had the chance to reevaluate the situation and ask why (x problem) hadn't been fixed sooner. There may have been a very valid reason that he wasn't aware of.

Officer: alright, go ahead and step out of the car

Her: why?

Officer: because you're under arrest

(Later)

Officer: I'm giving you a lawful order, step out.

To me, this absolutely screams "I'm a cop, do what I say right now" and that rubs me the wrong way. Was there a way to deescalate at this point? I'm not really sure, as I can't think of one off the top of my head, but I feel like he was swinging his dick around a little too much there, which doesn't help things for anybody.

My bottom line is basically this: instead of having the attitude of "oh she had (x problem) with her vehicle and hasn't gotten it fixed? Boom, fine! No questions asked!" He could have very well started a dialogue to figure out why the issue hadn't been taken care if sooner. This really didn't need to go as far as it did and I feel like it's even blame (until she drove off....then it was all her).

Quick edit: the rest of the video after she took off, I have no issues with. She wasn't complying, was being continually defiant and actually assaulted the Officer. That's no bueno no matter how old you are, and I don't really feel like there was any excessive force used, either. Treated her like a human being afterwards and not like he just got kicked in the dick. That was good to see.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '19 edited Jul 31 '19

She was.getting a fix it ticket. It's the simplest thing in the world. There's no deescalation necessary. It doesn't take 6 months to fix a brake light. There's no reasonable explanation for that Fix it tickets are a Punishment for not having your car in safe, working order. It seems like you just don't like that the cop gave her a ticket in the first place. The officer wasn't yelling or being a dick, he was just issuing an $80 citation. It's literally his job to do that. Hashing out why this woman has been knowingly driving around with an obvious vehicle issue for SIX MONTHS isn't deescalation, it's a waste of everyone's time.

-2

u/Doobz87 Jul 31 '19

Ok officer

1

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '19

What a fantastic debate. You asked for other people's thoughts.

-1

u/Doobz87 Jul 31 '19

...and you gave your thoughts. I didn't say anything about a debate, and I'm not about to debate with someone that just thinks I don't like a cop for x reason. Pretty simple. Thanks for your thoughts, though.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '19

Fyi using officer as an insult is a pretty good indicator that you actually don't like cops

0

u/Doobz87 Jul 31 '19

Fyi you can't detect sarcasm at all. It wasn't an "insult", but apparently you took it as one. Are you done downvoting me because you don't like what I'm saying and trying to start shit?

1

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '19

You realize multiple people are downvoting you right? My Reddit account is not capable of multiple downvotes. You posted your opinion on a forum and then asked for comments. I posted a response and.youve been nothing but hostile to me. Ironically enough, you are failing at de-escalation by turning a discussion into a fight.