Video of the bikini girl takedown by an agitated officer this weekend has gone viral and resulted in yet another excessive force charge and a cop’s suspension from duties, pending a full investigation. Today YouTube reported over 4 million views, up from the 1 million yesterday when the incident occurred.
This, amid reports that the pool partiers may have been deliberately trespassing -- giving rise to requests for police assistance -- and that the black teen videotaped by her friend was among many of the “unauthorized” guests.
As “shocking” as the takedown flick might seem to some viewers, it has now become too common an occurence to see videos of white police officers roughly handling young black teens. The cop who was suspended is shown tossing a 15-year-old black girl to the ground and then pulling his revolver, not his taser, as other young people tried to intervene to protect the young girl from futher rough treatment.
The entire poolside debacle though is worthy of investigation because, without a doubt, law enforcement was called to the scene on reports of widespread disorderly conduct and even a public brawl. The video of the takedown does not reveal what preceded that action by the cop, so the full story is far from known.
As the investigation of the policeman's action progresses, the full story may exonerate him. On the other hand, this may turn out to be another case of a major overreaction by a police officer in dealing with black suspects.
