The following editorial is written by a retired police officer and current staff writer for Law Enforcement Today
HARTFORD, CT- I honestly do not know how police officers do it these days. I served as a police officer for over 31 years and truth be told, I don’t know that I could have done it in this day and age.
You have police officers shot at, yet they are not expected to return fire. There are officers who are attacked with a knife, they use deadly physical force, and people riot for days.
This past week in Hartford, you had a woman who was stopped driving a car wanted in connection with a shooting in New Britain, ten miles southwest.
And the mob is having a meltdown.
Law Enforcement Today previously reported on the incident. The video of the incident went viral, and you would have to be a fool to believe that the officers in Hartford acted in any way unprofessionally or rudely.
In fact, they went out of their way to attempt to explain to the woman, who was screaming like a maniac, why she had been stopped. Attempts to show her the “hot sheet” which showed her car on it went ignored, with her ranting and raving like a lunatic.
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She was drawing attention to the situation which could easily have been mitigated if she had merely acted like a human being. The police were given no other choice than to put her under arrest.
Now, the mob is protesting because in 2020, that is what they do, no matter what the circumstances. She was black, the cops were white, therefore the cops were wrong.
On Tuesday, WFSB-TV in Hartford reported protesters gathered at the Hartford Police Department, with them asking for “change.” They claim that the police involved in the stop should have done more to keep the situation calm, but if you look at the video, the only person who wasn’t keeping the situation calm was the woman, who on more than one occasion attempted to drive away with police next to her car.
Thankfully the chief of the Hartford Police Department seemed to ignore the mob, at least for now and defended his officer’s actions, saying:
“I think that situation started escalating based on what these officers were facing,” said Chief Jason Thody.
As is standard, the police department initiated a use of force investigation, however the Hartford media breathlessly reported that as if it automatically meant the officers were wrong.
Several witnesses apparently said that the police were too aggressive. I challenge anyone to look at the video of the incident objectively and agree with that. Of course, when she was resisting arrest and was taken to the ground, she said the standard, “I can’t breathe!” even though officers were not anywhere near putting her in such a position.
Thody noted that officers were already in a state of alert due to the fact the car was believed to be involved with a shooting. It was left unsaid, however it also had to be in the minds of the officers that police have been routinely targeted for assault or even murder since the May death of George Floyd.
“Those are all very serious triggers for a police officer to see,” Thody said.
The Hartford Police Union also defended the actions of the officers, with Officer Anthony Rinaldi, president of the Hartford Police Union saying:
“Let the officers do what they have to do At the end of the day, if a mistake is made, it’ll be corrected.”
Hartford Police also released bodycam video of the incident, as reported by Fox 61 in Hartford:
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Of course, Black Lives Matter organizers said the police should have done more to de-escalate the situation. Maybe given her a lollipop or a cookie…that might have worked.
“They had all her pertinent information, they knew where she lives, they knew the car,” said Bishop John Selders, of Moral Mondays, who probably got his “divinity degree” from the same place as “Reverend” Al Sharpton.
Perhaps Selders was unaware that the vehicle was connected to a possible shooting, although even if he was that probably makes no difference.
Selders said that he wanted officers to be trained to discourage incidents such as this.
“That’s not the kind of law enforcement I want in the community I live in.”
Perhaps Selders would prefer that officers just look the other way.
He may get his wish because honestly, who the hell wants to do the job nowadays with the anti-police sentiment sweeping the nation?
Thody told Channel 3 that the investigation into the officers’ use of force would take a few weeks. Earlier this year, Thody changed the review process to include the department’s use of force trainer in the review process for all use of force incidents.
Meanwhile, News 8 in New Haven, Connecticut, WTNH didn’t want to let the incident slip by without a little inflammatory headline, reporting the incident as a “controversial traffic stop” in their headline and then referring to it as a “controversial arrest.”
In a statement, Hartford police acknowledged that a video of the incident appeared to show an officer with his knew on the woman, however said that was not the case.
“There is one point in some of the video footage where it appears an officer has his knee on the woman,” police said in a statement. “However, based on an initial review of the video footage, he does not. It appears he has his knee over hovering over her head area, which he then moves.”
The video also has someone wanting to know where a female officer is, as if that is now a requirement to arrest a female criminal.
“She cannot breathe! She can’t breathe…there’s no female officer…listen, there are no female officers. Just tell me where the female officers are.”
One community activist, longtime busybody Cornell Lewis, is claiming that the officer’s knee was on the criminal’s head.
“When I looked at the video, the knee was clearly on the head. Now, they are saying, ‘No, it was slightly above the head.’ Well, there was nobody there with a piece of paper to put between the head and the knee, so it looked like it was that to me.”
Yet another whining activist, Mike Oretade said
“No one can tell me that is okay. Not a single person. It does not take three officers to restrain this woman. We need social workers out here because these officers don’t understand black trauma. They don’t understand what it’s doing to us when wee see people dying on the street; when we’re hearing these stories of people dying with knees on their neck, with knees on their back, shots in their back.”
Ok, so now Oretade wants social workers to respond to calls involving possible stolen cars or cars wanted in connection with shootings. That should end well. This is the type of utter stupidity we are dealing with, which is supported by Democrats, athletes, and so-called “Hollywood stars.” What they really are is totally clueless.
Even after being arrested the woman still was carrying on. One video apparently showed her sitting up, handcuffed next to the front tire of a police cruiser. When officers backed off to give her some room, she tried to stand up and walk off. Not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree this one.
The woman, who was not identified as of this writing, did not sustain any injuries from the arrest, but was taken to the hospital for [hopefully] psychological evaluation. Because she was acting, as the kids say “cray-cray.” She was arrested for interfering with a police officer and reckless endangerment.
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