Not all Police involved violent incidents are the same

        I didn't really want to write this, but it keeps nagging at me and when that happens, sometimes formulation into prose helps me come to grips with it.

        I've seen two really disturbing videos this morning on Good Morning America and both were followed by commentary by one or all of the hosts.

        The first, which is all over the media, concerns the girl dragged from her desk by a school resource officer (SRO) and forcibly removed from her classroom. Of course, as expected, essentially all of the chatter regarding this rather obvious use of excessive force  revolves around the SRO and his apparently non-existent impulse control. I would agree that his actions were more than over the top, and indicate that he was a lousy choice for a job which entails dealing with high school age kids. Of course since he was white and the girl black, it has become a racial discussion, too.

        What no one has even hinted at or mentioned but which is apparent on the video shot by other students is that the other adult visible in the classroom is a youngish, healthy looking black male, either the Algebra teacher or the Principal. There has been no discussion related to what measures the teacher and/or administrator used to achieve their aims before calling the SRO. In 20 years of teaching all grade levels 9-12, I never had any situation reach the "call the SRO" stage (or "call the administrator", for that matter .

       There can be little doubt that the young woman's behavior was inappropriate. It seems that she has a history of non-compliant behavior.  What many who see the video will not know, however, is that under the  current restrictions in most school districts, such a disciplinary problem is hard to remove from school.

       Thanks to "No Child Left Behind" and the "everybody is above average"  mentality reflected in this lamentable relic of Bush 43, it is essentially  impossible to permanently remove behavioral problems from the mainstream classroom. In most states a "child" can elect to remain in school until the age of 19.  I am aware of one case where the parents of  a disruptive 19 yr old male with below average mental capacity were insistent that this be the case. This put a 19 year old male in a classroom with 14-15 year old girls, also learning disabled. See a problem here?  

       So, before you decide that the only "real" problem here is simply an SRO with lousy impulse control and a bad attitude, as true as that is, consider the classroom teacher and principal. both of whom sanctioned the forcible removal and who, apparently  are ineffectual at discipline. Remember, the educators are required to have had a course in adolescent psychology, the cop - not.   Then consider a system in which persons far removed from the public school classroom legislate conditions which in some cases are antithetical to good order and discipline, and force a disruptive student to be mainstreamed, with little chance for suspension or removal. It's almost a perfect storm.

       Should the cop be removed, suspended and prosecuted? In my opinion , yes, since this wasn't the first time for either excessive force or racial bias in his behavior. A better question is why he was hired in the first place, or kept on the payroll after it became obvious he was a lousy choice for an SRO.

        Do the classroom teacher and Principal share some of the responsibility for this abysmal episode? You  bet your ass they do. Were they "burned out" by repeated dealings with a student who should not have been in a mainstream classroom? Possibly.  Do we believe that neither had any idea what might happen after the SRO was called? I don't. Could the teacher or principal have called a halt and called the parents when it became obvious she was non-compliant? Maybe.

       Finally, what is the one factor that could have made this discussion irrelevant? The student could have shown a little respect for herself, the teacher and her classmates, stopped her inappropriate behavior and done as she was told. I'm just sayin'.

        The second disturbing video shows a fatal officer involved shooting in a McDonald's parking lot, where, in a drug bust gone terribly astray, a 19 year old is shot in his car by a police officer. Of course the parents are blaming the police officer and claiming their son was (essentially)  an innocent.

       The video shows the officer approaching the parked car with gun drawn and repeatedly telling the driver to get out of the car with hands up.  As it turns out the 19 year old driver was in the car with his 23 year old pot supplier, and a post mortem  tox screen showed  him to have cocaine and several other illegals (not marihuana) in his bloodstream .  

        Rather than obey the lawful order of the policeman, the young man put his car in reverse, backed up, shifted into drive, and,  accellerating, began to drive away, very, very close to the officer, who, had he not been quick would have been struck by the car and could have been seriously hurt or killed. In the milliseconds available to him to decide a course of action - a time span immensely shorter than all the Monday morning pundits who second guess him will have -  the policeman fired at the driver, killing him.

       While there hasn't been the same degree of hue and cry generated by this as the school incident, there are  still  rumbles of police overreaction and/or excessive force in this case. The parents are appalled that there will be no prosecution in this case, and of course will easily find a lawyer eager to undertake a wrongful death civil suit.

        The difference here is that, in the first case, if the officer had done nothing, no one would have been hurt, while in the split second of decision time, the second officer, afraid for his life, made the decision to shoot. I would propose that no one who has not ever been in such a situation refrain from  piling on this officer. If he feared for his life, all else is legitimate. I'm so sick and tired of the truly inane comments such as "Why did 'they' have to fire 16 times?"  One or 16 shots, the basic guideline is cancel the threat, everything else is just a statistic.

        Equating these two incidents is irresponsible and foolish.