One day without pay? Somebody tell me how that punch is anything less than plain criminal assault.

For all you "Free Market!" folks who laud excessive use of force such as this: this negligent behavior costs us all in the money this fellow will deservedly get in compensation. And it keeps happening over and over. A pattern one could note.

Put short, Police Brutality = Lost Tax Payer Money. So not only is it morally reprehensible, it is bad business.

You have to spell that out because arguing morals with wingnuts is a non-starter.

@1

I'd be curious whether he got some ballgame security shifts soon after.

Why were the cops checking warrants there? Did they have good reason to think that people sleeping there had outstanding warrants, or did they just want to bother them? And why did they have to wake a guy up who was peacefully sleeping in his vehicle? The whole thing is disgusting.

"One day without pay" for committing assault is a travesty.

@2: I don't think very many folks associate those whom promote free market capitalism as to also laud excessive police force.

@2

This isn't a free market situation at all. The bad actor (in this case a SPD officer) has no personal stake in the situation so market principles simply don't apply.

Now if LEO's were required to carry liability insurance that would be another situation...

Steve, what does it mean for our peace officers to be "checking for outstanding warrants"? You wrote this like it's just a regular thing that readers would understand, but I think it is, at best, jargon that deserves explanation.

@10: No, the SPD is staffed by working class men and women like you and me but who have extremely difficulty and dangerous jobs and the bad apples always need picking and will always need picking as long as the human condition exists.

@4, @8: I found that pretty jarring as well. With all of the work SPD is trying to do with the LEAD program, trolling for warrants seems awfully contradictory. And frankly, if this were a truly acceptable practice, SPD would be free to start knocking on doors at random.

Can I doorbell police officers' houses in the middle of the night to check if they might have outstanding warrants?

@9: Unlike peace officers, those other public staff you mention--teachers, transit drivers, etc.--are not employed to enforce public policy with force. They do not carry and use guns on the job. They do not lock people in cages. Police misconduct is in an entirely different category of risk to the public than is misconduct on the part of other public servants.

@9 other public employees aren't entrusted with public safety in the same was as police officers, and don't have leeway when it comes to assaulting or even killing members of the police.

@11 cops ain't even close to "working class" anymore. Not with their six figure salaries and ability to get away with almost anything without getting fired.