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Seattle Police Officer Punches Woman

...and why you're all idiots for denigrating him.

This video of a Seattle police officer punching a 17-year-old who interfered in his arresting of 19-year-old Marilyn Levias for obstruction (not for jaywalking) has got a lot of people once again up in arms over "police brutality".  Before we address the obvious issue of the punching, we need to go over what we should ignore when considering the issue:

• Marilyn's primary offense, jaywalking, is irrelevant to the later events.  She refused to provide ID to the officer as legally required.  The recourse when unable to ID a subject is often to arrest them for identification later.
• How you may feel about the validity of the laws regarding jaywalking and obstruction of justice, the police force, etc.  is irrelevant.  It's true that if these laws, which you may see as ridiculous, didn't exist, these events may not have happened at all -- but they do, and they did.  Officers are charged with enforcing the current laws.  This officer was fulfilling his responsibility.
• The race of the officer and of the subject is irrelevant.  We have nothing on which to base an assumption that the events were racially motivated.

The Events

(Snagged from some news article because I don't give a shit and since when do they write original content anyway?)

19-year-old Marilyn Levias and a 17-year-old girl were in a group of four people who were jaywalking to get to their friend. Walsh approached the group and was attempting to gather information when Levias began walking away, documents stated.

He said to her, "You have jaywalked and you are required to identify yourself so that I can issue a citation, if you refuse you will be arrested for obstruction." Levias continued to walk away, the officer said.

At this time, a witness started recording video of the scene.

Walsh walked up to Levias and grabbed her arm and attempted to handcuff her, but "Levias began twisting around and pull away in an attempt to get away," documents said.  As Walsh was handcuffing Levias, the 17-year-old girl ran up behind Walsh and pushed him, and a struggle ensued.  The video shows Walsh throwing a punch and hitting the 17-year-old girl.  

The 17-year-old was handcuffed and booked into the Youth Services Center for investigation of felony assault.

Levias was pulled away by witnesses, documents said.  She was arrested and booked into the King County Jail for obstructing a police officer.

I'll start with my opinion directly: The stupid bitch deserved it.  

I speak only of her behavior, not of her gender.  A person who was not even directly involved in the police interaction chose to interfere by shoving the officer.  This alone may not seem like an excuse to punch the woman (not a girl; she's seventeen, for goodness' sake), but we must consider that many other people were present who may have posed a threat to the officer, who therefore had to display control of the situation as soon as possible.  If people see that one person is able to overwhelm an officer, the officer's authority is severely diminished in their eyes and they may feel much more comfortable with similar behavior of their own.  Some news articles I've read on the events elaborate by mentioning that after the girl shoved the officer and the officer pushed her away, she moved toward him again.  This may have been seen, at that time, as additional threat justifying an escalation of force.  Bear in mind that the officer was in a stressful situation which could only be experienced once, and not replayed many times over with a critical eye as we do now.  

Now, on to the punch itself.  The first thing to remember is that officers are trained in the use of punching, among other uses of force.  The officer was, to some degree, aware and in control of the force of his punch, which appeared to have caused no significant injury.  At that time, the officer determined that a punch was the force required to subdue the assailant.  I'm much more inclined to trust his judgment than that of random people on the internet who like to rant without having any idea what they're talking about.  You may not like this, but your moral opinion on punching subjects is also irrelevant.  Punching is sanctioned by the police department, meaning that, given appropriate cause is established, the officer is not personally responsible for his choice to punch the subject.  

Given:

• The continued assault from the 17-year-old
• The presence of bystanders who have have posed a threat had the officer's image of authority been compromised
• The controlled force and official sanction of the punch

I feel that the officer was justified in his retaliation against the subject.  He did his job using the measures necessary at the time.  

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