We have seen the video. If someone would not have privately recorded it, it would probably have been swept under the rug. I guess we can speculate all we want, but at first glance I have two questions? Why didn’t the officer use his stun gun instead and why did he kick him? Even a well drained dog can do the wrong thing, I guess I don’t blame the dog, but I’m wondering if kicking someone is protocol. I would think not. Mr. Ites is no angel, he has a rap sheet a mile long, force had to be used, but the officer had options.
This is why the police force needs to do two things ASAP;
• Equip all officers with body cams (this protects the officer and the public from being wrongfully accused)
• Have a REAL internal affairs department
Right now they just investigate ‘internally’. Well how do you think that will turn out? An independent review needs to be done to see if the officers followed procedure. The dog could have mutilated the man, bitten internal organs or even worse caused a serious infection (that could still happen). Unleashing the dog should have been last resort.
I’m also concerned that the officer had to actually pull the dog off of him. Is the dog properly trained to heel when told? It didn’t look like it.
I have many concerns about this and hope the truth comes out, but I’m not going to hold my breath at this point.
What prevents interns and other people concerned for their safety from wearing body cams in Pierre’s predatory environment? Sexual predators in Pierre have been a feature of South Dakota for its entire history but to Sioux Falls-area legislator, Deb Peters it’s no big deal. The Aberdeen American’s editorial board is pointing fingers at other South Dakota media for lousy coverage of the Republican rape culture in Pierre. “Unsafe. Unacceptable. Hyper-masculine. Sexualized. Dirty.” That’s how the board and how women have described earth haters in Pierre.
The South Dakota Newspaper Association, teevee stations and local media have known about Pierre’s rape culture and culture of corruption for decades and simply caved to the twenty earth hater donors who run the state.
Maybe the judge should have ordered the suspect in this case to wear a body camera along with his no contact order. That way we would have his felony assault on tape. By the way the victim is stating she thinks the police & K-9 saved her life. Maybe that’s the real story here.
I don’t want to sound like Trump trying to tell the French how to fight a fire, but why didn’t the SFPD just have four or five officers pull that guy out of the window well without the help of a dog? Perhaps, they initially feared what he might be hiding in the well, but once he positioned himself on top of the well, why not just wait for backup help?
Sending that dog at him is analogous to shooting at him. So are we now in the business of just shooting suspects who do not cooperative, but who show no sign of using immediate threatening force?
BC – I totally agree, he is scum. But I also want to state the ‘what ifs’. What if it was the wrong guy. Minneapolis just paid out $20 million to a family of a ‘what if’. All I am asking is if this was protocol. I hope not. A judge and jury will determine this man’s fate, that is NOT the job of a peace officer.
remembering the tuthill scared deer there won’t be any action against the officer just as usual
When you run from the police, all bets are off. You’ve demonstrated you’ll do anything to get away and anyway to stop you is justified. Dogs are trained to bite when released. It’s their only offense and defense. How this situation happened is what happens when you run. Officers are trained to work so that they aren’t hurt and defend each other. More officers makes an offender give up sooner without injuries.
Yes for body cameras. They’re cheap. It’s incontestable undeniable evidence. Citizens are protected from abusive officers. However, primarily, officers are viewed justified for their actions.
I really dislike the Monday morning quaterbacking everyone does when some criminal ends up on the wrong end of something. If you think about they daily job of police officers, its filled with responding to bad situations and most of the time dealing with the scum of our society. Now think through your day at work and having to deal with drug dealers, murderers, rapists, people who beat women, etc. Most of their interactions are negative, not a lot of saving cats from trees.
Now with that being said it does not excuse police brutality but, they knew this dude was bad, he just beat his GF up ( in my opinion he got off light, no excuse to put your hands on a woman). He was asked to comply several times and didn’t so the police unleashed the K9. I see no issue and in the heat of the moment, no matter how good your training is, nothing prepares you for the real deal because its REAL.
The police already have a very difficult job and folks asking, why didn’t you use a taser or wait for more people. The answer in my opinion is simple, in any “fight” or “conflict” its usually unwise to wait and for simple reasons, the person waiting ends up on the floor. The officers saw a problem, realized this could go bad quick, decided best course of action is to use the K9.
Anyone who finds fault with what occurred is simply commenting from the cheap seats because the assailant is alive and could have easily been shot instead bitten and kicked. I just don’t get why people can’t seem to follow simple commands like “get on the ground or your going to get bitten” etc. The office said it 2 or 3 times and the guy just sat there. That is kind of scary when told the outcome and you just sit there, tells me you may have bigger plans for the officer. This is what I call a “nothing burger” and actually he is kind of lucky in my opinion that all that happened. There were times when someone beat up a girl, the girls brothers, dad, and other male family members just found the guy and beat his @ss pretty good and he knew that was a possible outcome next time he touches a women. People like this only understand one thing and its obvious because reasoning and logic were not something the assailant entertains very often
I think we have already established the guy was a D-Bag, I think we have already established that the police needed to take action. My two main arguments are;
if they would have had body cams we would have a different perspective on what was exactly done.
AND
IT is NOT the officers job to submit punishment, there job is to arrest people safely without harming the suspect or themselves. The justice system has different levels, the police are NOT judge and jury. I still think that they could have resolved this without kicking him and unleashing the dog. Just my opinion.
I don’t think they are doling out punishment per say, they are trying to arrest a person who is resisting. So when someone resists, the police have to physically take on the suspect and they have no clue if he has weapons or what kind of physical risk he poses. So if a kick and a dog bite work, so be it. The suspect have opportunity to comply refused and he was taken down physically. Could this have been done easier or safer maybe but, this is why I dislike Monday Morning Quarterbacking. You have no clue what is going through the minds of the officers, their adrenaline is rushing, they know they have a dangerous suspect and they react the best they can. If we keep scrutinizing and criticizing every action a LEO takes, they will start hesitating and it will get a LEO killed at some point because they are too worried about what the fallout is going to be when they take action. These guys don’t get paid near enough for the risk they take to protect us and my hat is off to them and they will get 100% of my support, respect, as well as benefit of the doubt vs what is occurring all over the country to automatically think the cops are bad dudes as a starting point.
Can we do better yes, no one is perfect. Did the officers do anything wrong, no. Should we give them benefit of the doubt to start with yes. I just think we disagree on what punishment is and I have no clue how you get a suspect arrested who is not cooperating without getting physical. He could have easily gotten any injury by being tackled or tazed (some people have heart attacks when tazed).
This is just like watching a football game and looking at the film and saying, why didn’t Kirk Cousins throw to the open guy instead of the defender. The QB saw something different and he has been trained for YEARS and groomed to be a QB and he still makes mistakes that cost his team games or even get teammates hurt. This is no different and I just think we expect every confrontation with a Freaking Criminal to go perfect and by the book, its dangerous man, lets give them a break
CH,
I totally agree with you that “These guys don’t get paid near enough.” But that’s a separate issue in and of itself.
As far as “Monday Morning Quarterbacking,”well, that has to do with what a person could have done, we are talking about what was done and documented.
The use of the dog was an unreasonable use of force. Did you notice how the officer struggled to get the dog’s teeth removed from the suspect?
Sure the suspect was not one of high moral standards based on his record, but did you see his criminal record? His actions in my opinion strike of one who is not a “dirt bag,” rather as one who in my opinion suffers from some form of mental illness. So is that how we handle such suspects, who in time and place offer no threat, but rather just an indifference to the law and maybe are mentally ill?
Don’t get me wrong, I feel just as much as anyone for the victim and the suspect needed to be detained, but the video tells it all, and the use of that dog was an unreasonable use of force against someone who may suffer from a mental illness.
It is about protocol. They must follow it no matter if the person is bad or not. What if they were trying to apprehend the wrong person, there would be certainly a lawsuit. This is why procedures should be followed. Oh, and as for a taser causing a Heart Attack, you don’t think being kicked in the CHEST and MAULED by a dog wouldn’t result in a heart attack? What if the suspect would have grabbed his leg, then what. Somebody tried to kick me once and I grabbed his foot and he got to eat his knee as I shoved it down his throat. I just think procedures were not followed and it is unfortunate that this wasn’t caught on a body cam instead.
ok I gotta ask, why do I see ads in the middle of others comments on this page, weird
I changed my AD targeting a few weeks ago. Click on it so I can make some beer money.
Is it just clicking and you get cash?
I think it depends how much time you spend on the site also, but not sure. And I wish they sent me cash 🙂
Spike was about to bring home the bacon
If so, he was biting the wrong person 🙁
The person being arrested was not cooperating, that is clear. Let’s remember this was a 20 second video and we don’t see what the officers saw immediately before or after and we don’t have audio. Deferring to their judgment is all we can do at this point, to be fair. Who knows, maybe the kick was part of the protocol and the dog bite — well too bad, he was warned and they did stitch up his owies later.
“Who knows, maybe the kick was part of the protocol”
Yeah, and I hear that once they put them in the back of the car with cuffs it is protocol to look at the suspect with tongue out and fingers waving by the ears while saying ‘Nanner, Nanner, Nanner.”
CH, thanks for introducing yourself tonight. I like meeting commenters on my site. Email me sometime and we can go have a beer, or a, beer.
mr. l3ewis Maybe we should both refrain from commenting on protocol unless we become trained officers.
The bar is pretty low to become a police officer. The dog did good work.