Our law enforcement officers need new rules of engagement for minor crimes
By Kent R. Kroeger (May 26, 2020)
As a society we’ve become accustomed to seeing awkwardly shot cellphone videos of police officers using excessive force against African-American males.
Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Freddie Gray. We know the names even if we don’t remember the details.
And with each new incident, the predictable responses on social media emerge: “If you’re smart, you do what the officer tells you to do,” “The police have to protect themselves” or “Why was he resisting arrest?”
Such reactions are understandable, though not particularly helpful or insightful.
However, an apparent excessive force incident from about nine months ago in Oklahoma put a slight twist on things. In the following video — shot by the police officer’s body cam — the subject who was taken aggressively to the ground and subsequently tased is a 65-year-old woman:
Don’t assume social media was sympathetic to her case just because she was an older…
