Comments On: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers by Cienna Madrid http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/11/27/attorney-releases-dash-cam-video-showing-his-client-being-violently-detained-by-seattle-police-officers Comments On: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers by Cienna Madrid en-us Copyright 2013 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Sun, 19 May 2013 13:45:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]> Posted by Upload videos online]]> Wed, 28 Nov 2012 22:30:50 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]> Posted by Prettybetsy]]> Wed, 28 Nov 2012 13:03:21 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]>
Posted by psbirch]]> Wed, 28 Nov 2012 09:04:06 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]> Posted by Stranger'sWorstNightmare]]> Wed, 28 Nov 2012 07:11:25 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]>
they should have done differently is spend more time gathering information, instead of leaping to the decision to arrest Etherly with no apparent probable cause.


Given the situation -- the police were outnumbered in a somewhat hostile environment -- I'm willing to grant them a little leniency when judging the speed of their decisions. Of course, I'm also willing to grant they had probably cause or at least reason to control the suspect while questioning him.

I promise the police know both of the other men at the bus stop and had reason to fear their ability to quickly become threatening.

Heck, I know crazy legs by reputation and from his history with the SPD.

I think Faust's mistake here was selecting a force tactic that was guaranteed to result in a struggle. Once he did that, the escalated levels of force that came later were inevitable.


That's reasonable. This seems like a failure in training. Keep in mind, the suspect is a big man in a very public setting. I doubt he would have stood and detained / arrested himself if only the police asked nicely. Then again, if one of the officers had at least tried asking nicely, we'd be without a scandal.

Posted by six shooter]]> Wed, 28 Nov 2012 06:46:18 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]>
As the situation escalated, were the officers' tactics effective in de-escalating the situation? Nope, they made it worse - far worse.

Was Etherly an innocent victim? At first, yes - they rolled up on him like he was a perp, not someone they wanted to get information from. But man, he was willfully and progressively more uncooperative. Egan loses a lot of credibility by not admitting the obvious - he spat on the officer. I don't blame him for doing it, and it doesn't justify the officer's response; but it rightly changes the legal context, as well as public perception.

Will it result in criminal charges against the officer(s)? Not a chance.

Will it result in discipline against the officer? Yes, probably a mild rebuke.

Does it uphold the DOJ findings? 1000%.

Does it mean it's business as usual at SPD? Not necessarily. It takes time to undo years of training and culture. The fact that it was already referred internally to OPA suggests maybe at least leadership recognizes the problems with the way this encounter was handled, even if it's not yet proactively preventing them.

Do Diaz and the SPDG need to go? Probably. I don't see how you can change the culture of the department without major structural change.

Is McGinn to blame? He's come off weak-willed in relation to the SPD and SPDG, but I'm not sure any mayor would have much choice. Both organizations are a little too entrenched. It'll take years of DOJ involvement to break the faustian bargain we have with law enforcement today.

Did Egan and the Stranger oversell this video? Egregiously. It's bad, but not nearly as cut and dry as they made it out to be. Not even close.
Posted by Centrists Rule the World today]]> Wed, 28 Nov 2012 06:36:23 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]> Posted by go bulldogs]]> Wed, 28 Nov 2012 06:35:29 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]> Posted by watchout5]]> Wed, 28 Nov 2012 05:08:59 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]> Posted by peskypoop]]> Wed, 28 Nov 2012 04:39:25 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]>
It is frustrating to be a cop and have to deal with crap characters like this idiot, but that's a big part of the job. Can't handle it? Do something else.
Posted by Karlheinz Arschbomber]]> Wed, 28 Nov 2012 03:15:34 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]>
The amazing thing is the officer behaved this way knowing he was on video tape. Who knows what could have happened off camera.
Posted by foodmart]]> Wed, 28 Nov 2012 01:56:13 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]>
If McGinn wants another term he's got to step up and let SPD know that a new day is here. They can act like professionals or get jobs in Idaho.
Posted by gnossos]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 23:25:15 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]>
@58 / 59 I am always game for some armchair policing. :) So!

I'll stipulate that the officers did have reasonable suspicion to detain Etherly. (I'm not sure what the basis of their suspicion was, but let's run with it.)

#1 thing they should have done differently is spend more time gathering information, instead of leaping to the decision to arrest Etherly with no apparent probable cause.

Yes, I will grant that it's possible there were additional facts not shown on video or otherwise reported yet which supported the arrest decision. But it's hard to get away from the fact that when Etherly says, "Don't worry about my name -- what's your name?", that's the moment when Faust responds, "Turn around and put your hands behind your back."

If the arrest was illegal, as I suspect it was, then they should have done everything differently in terms of how they handled Etherly from there on out. But for the sake of discussion, we'll assume they had PC. So...

#2 thing they should have done differently is not resorted instantly to the force tactic of placing both hands on Etherly's neck. (I'm referring to how, the moment Etherly draws his left hand away from Faust's reach, Faust responds by grabbing Etherly's neck with both hands and only removes his hands from Etherly's neck after Etherly has been pushed down onto the hood of the patrol car by his neck.) I don't think it's humanly possible to not physically struggle with someone who has just pinned you to a car by your neck. Bottom line, I think Faust's mistake here was selecting a force tactic that was guaranteed to result in a struggle. Once he did that, the escalated levels of force that came later were inevitable.


Posted by Eric Arrr]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 21:27:40 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]> Posted by sugarbear]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 20:56:43 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]> Posted by Hipster on a Fixie]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 19:45:56 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]> Posted by They only seem to smack around criminals]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 19:34:59 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]>

Posted by Rotten666]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 19:30:07 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]> 04:29

The suspect clearly pulled his arm back and had his fist clenched to punch.

Whatever follows after that is justified for subduing a person about to attack an officer.

Case closed.

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 19:24:53 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]> Posted by Does my colostomy bag make me look dangerous?]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 19:09:08 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]> Posted by sugarbear]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 19:00:41 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]>
That said this video is also not going to be seen as the horrific demonstration of abuse it was hyped to be. And why most people in the thread are mostly shrugging it off.

I strongly disagree with shrugging off ANY police abuse, but this is the problem with Goldy and Cienna and The Stranger over-hyping the shit out of this video BEFORE anybody saw it. (Stranger you guys need to treat this shit more seriously and stop acting like local TV news and more like journalists. WWED. Ask "What Would Eli Do?")

You can see immediately with the demeanor of the other cops (and the offending officer) that they all knew there was an over-reaction. Which I suppose bodes well. Because there was a time Seattle cops would just beat the living shit out of you — no EMT's or patrol supervisor would be fourth coming to the scene and any video would just magically disappear. So I suppose maybe the cops at least recognize when they fuck up now.
Posted by tkc]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 18:46:03 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]> Posted by biffp]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 18:44:24 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]> Posted by Hipster on a Fixie]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 18:34:38 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]> Posted by Westlake, son!]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 18:21:56 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Attorney Releases Dash-Cam Video Showing His Client Being Violently Arrested By SPD Officers]]> Posted by Hanoumatoi]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 18:14:20 -0800 The Stranger