The store security footage doesn't appear to show resisting, but we don't have continuous video of the event yet.
--
The frightening thing is, how much of this bullshit went on before we had cameras. A lot of it, I'm sure. I suspect people learned to show total submissiveness to cops in the past, and any one who didn't bow and scrape "got what they deserved."
On the one hand, I think cops abuse their power all the time, and they should be punished for it, and they often aren't, which is why they do it all the time..
On the other hand, they are provoked into it as well. I think when a cop is making an arrest, the arrestee should go into a "yes sir...no sir" mode. The decision to arrest has been made, and there is no way to make that change. I tell all my kids: "There will be a time to tell your side of the story, and that time will be in court after I've hired your lawyer...that time is not while you are being arrested." The fact that more people don't raise their kids that way is surprising to me. I'm not saying the cops are always right to my kids; I'm saying there is a time to prove the cops wrong, and there is a time to show them respect even if they don't deserve it...recognize what time it is, and act accordingly.
--
In this case, I don't know what this guy was doing. It didn't look like he was resisting in the little video I saw (before they had the knee on him). Not sure why the knee went on his neck; don't know if it was pure power-monger sadism on the part of the cop (seems improbable, but certainly possible), or if the arrestee started resisting during a time in which we don't yet have video.