To be glad i dont live in America having seen this on Sky News.

[sunshield]

Video: Texas Officer On Administrative Leave After Bikini-Clad Girl Detained
09:40, UK,
Monday 08 June 2015

This is quite shocking and telling about life in the US . A Policeman throwing a 14 year old girl on the floor then sitting on her "screaming" at her when she is obviously in pain with her hands in handcuffs. Worst of all he pulls is Gun out at Teenagers who have just gone to see what is happening offering no threat of violence or menace towards the police.

It seems the police officer is getting some "thrill" pointing his gun at kids. Is this typical behaviour of "law Enforcement" officers in the US or just that aimed at black teenagers. Sky News Website.

I am not sure if it's a race issue or not but American police officers do seem to overreact in many situations. I heard an interview with an Americanofficer who had shot an unarmed suspect and he was unrepentant as " they might have had a gun". Well obviously this girl in a bikini didn't!!
Also, I am struck by American overreaction to perceived threat generally. I watched a programme where the Humane Soviety was trying to rescue a dog in distress. They stormed in with a grasper ( despite the dog not growling) and dragged it out. Contrast this with a similar TV program where an RSPCA inspector spent 30 minutes winning the trust of a nervous dog before removing him with just a lead and a few treats.
I have military friends too who are very worried about joint engagements with US forces due to the risk of friendly fire.

What real risk did a 14 year old girl in a bikini pose to anyone? How was it justified to pull her hair and kneel on her back. The response was so disproportionate to the risk that it makes you wonder what was going through that officers mind. He was acting in a way that was more likely to escalate the situation than calm it down.

It did look like an exercise in power and dominance rather than effective policing.

I'm a historian specialising in the history of the U.S. criminal justice system. It's no surprise to me. The entire system is rooted in centuries-old belief in the inherent criminality of certain groups. It's at the very core. But the problem of excessive force is present regardless of race. (But you can be damned sure a 60 year old black man is far more likely to get the crap beaten out of him than a 60 year old white woman, of course.)

An American friend who I work with here in the UK told me how surprised he was to see the way police operate here in comparison to the U.S. As he said, in the U.K, police are have stab-proof vests etc and are 'fully suited' to try to protect themselves. In the U.S., police have their gun to protect themselves.

The US don't collect national statistics for police shootings, but a US magazine reported their police had shot more than twice as many people just in that month as mainland UK police had shot since 1900.

Germany police, who are also armed, shoot only a handful of people per year, the typical rate for Western countries. UK police average 0-1 per year.

there are loads of reasons to be glad not to live in US< maternity leave is one of them, its non existent, awful, backward, the work work culture, health care, guns. I love the states but they are very backward in many many ways.

I live in the USA (not Texas thank god - which really is more extreme than most other states). I blame the religious tradition here for the institutionalized attitudes that are reflected in policies and legislation. Being poor is seen as a moral failing, likewise (and very shocking to me) the attitude that healthcare is a benefit and not a right. Education is barely seen as a right and the quality of schooling here depends on the property values of the area the school is located in. If you can blame people for their own poverty and therefore their inability to get out of it (due to the crappy schooling they had because they're poor) then you don't have to do anything about it. Fundamentally I think most Americans see inequality in society as being okay - someone has to be at the bottom kind of belief.

I will say though that not everywhere in the USA is terrible, I love where I live, in one of the most liberal cities/states and I really feel that depending on where you live in the USA it's like living in a different country all together.

Having worked for a police department both in the US for a number of years and in the UK for a few years as well, I think it's just important to remember that (much like with many other professions) you will always hear about bad experiences, but rarely hear about good ones. For every bad experience you hear (both in the US and UK), there will be many many good experiences that occurred that you will not hear about. Bad cops are individuals, like bad doctors, bad teachers, bad whatever. It hardly seems fair to tar them all with the same brush.

Alice I think that's pretty naive. I think that there are some very lovely men and women who work for an instutitutionally racist force and this normalised violence to a degree unacceptable here.

I don't think that you can look at the stats regarding risk from the police to African Americans and say that the publicised cases are all outliers. I think in fact that we are now just seeing more of what is considered standard police procedure.

I read today that England and Wales had 55 fatal police shootings in 24 years. The US had 59 in first 24 days of 2015.
Dh is a police officer and I asked why he thought this was. He thinks that there are so many guns in the US that every call an officer goes to it must go through their mind that the person they are dealing with is armed. In the UK, that doesn't really happen. Also, UK police get a lot more training. I'm not saying that police here always get it right - we know they don't but I know where I'd rather live.

I watched on the news. Disgusting

One of the teens who was an onlooker commented on how the other police officers were able to deal calmly with people, while this man was sitting on a 14 year old girl

When I watched the Texas film I thought that officer was on drugs.

The kids were all complying. The other officers were generally calm. This chap was starring in his own action film. It might have been funny if it wasn't so frightening and unjust.

I really feel for that poor girl. It was a traumatic experience for her. I saw an interview with the (white) boy who filmed it and he reckoned the problem which resulted in the police being called stemmed from the white adults at the pool being upset by the large number of black teenagers there that day. He said 9 police cars showed up.

Have you also heard of the two police officers killed in separate incidents in Canada in the last few days?

I don't excuse their behaviour, at all, but police in North America are very likely to get shot themselves, often before they can draw their gun.

Um... this guy was in no danger of being shot by a teenage girl in a bikini who he was restraining for 'running her mouth off'. This incident is as much about Americans' attitude towards black people as about policing.

The availability of guns definitely changes policing (for the worse). It doesn't explain astonishing disparities in how different racial and socio-economic groups are treated.

Or why a South Carolina officer might shoot and kill a man running away from him where neither the officer nor anyone else was at risk of harm.

Or choosing instantly to shoot a 12 year old who appeared to have a gun in a playground instead of hunkering down and shouting at him to drop it.

And on and on and on.

I never said he was. I also said it didn't excuse his behaviour at all.

I am simply adding that N.A. police officers get killed, a lot, and it isn't reported. It's a shame.

Lem - the police behaviour was inexcusable absolutely but the situation wasn't as straightforward as that, it was a bit murkier. The problems started because the pool is a private resident's pool for which the residents pay a membership dues to use the amenities. There are only two guest passes allowed per resident. The teenage daughter of a resident organised the party in violation of these rules, posted the event on social media and over a hundred kids showed up, some of them climbing the railings to get in. I won't pretend that race wasn't an issue because of course it was but if I was a resident there and over a hundred teenagers showed up and trespassed on private property and then refused to leave, I'd probably call the police as well. I live in a community with social facilities for us to use (which of course we pay for) and if I want to host a party I have to reserve the space, pay a $600 deposit and and have the community name listed as specifically covered on my homeowner's insurance policy for the duration of the event. This is standard practice and the party organiser did none of those things.

Of course once the police arrived they handled it terribly and in a very racist manner only targeted the black teenagers. The police actions escalated the situation instead of resolving it.

Our police are just as racist, and while they don't shoot people often an awful lot of people die or are seriously injured in police custody.
I do think the recent spate of events in the U.S. are dreadful and inexcusable but bad things happen here too.

rainbunny the situation was straightforward. the racists, householders and police officer attacked black children and expected to get away with it.

In reference to the title of this OP... reading the posts here on MN makes me thankful on a regular bases that I no longer live in the UK.

Including, but not limited to:

• Giving birth in the UK (group rooms, underfunded, ignored)
• Parental responsibility (even to dead beat dads who beat up the mum in the presence of the child)
• Taking kids off people and adopting them out to other families (not always bad but in some cases it is)
• Ease of parental abductions to non-Hauge countries
• Housing situation (small, expensive etc)
• School system (unauthorized absences system)
• Immigration process

I'm surprised that "Sky News" instead of actual residents/citizens are your yard stick with which you measure the pleasure of living in a particular country/state/town. I direct your attention to this article: globalnews.ca/news/2031677/edmonton-catholic-apologizes-for-requesting-school-bus-driver-be-fired/ and suggest you put your pitchforks back. Not everything is as it appears.

In that same vein, no country is perfect either, and as a citizen of three I can tell you that from experience.

Creighton - I agree that the police particularly and some of the householders were virulently racist.

I was merely pointing out that it wasn't necessarily straightforward racism that the police were called in the first place, or do you think the police shouldn't have been called to handle over a hundred trespassing teenagers who were refusing to leave?

do you think the householders would have called the police on white children? do you think the white man in the video would have stood around watching silently as the police officer dragged a semi naked white child around? white did the officers not arrest all the white children, not even the one filming them? white America loves to hate and hurt black people at every opportunity.
why was it assumed that the black children were trespassers? what if the white children were the trespassers?

Creighton I really do think a resident would call the police on 100+ white teenagers trespassing and refusing to leave. I haven't argued with you about the police's behaviour, I agree 100% it was racist targeting of black teenagers and I also agree that some of the residents were undoubtedly racist, but I also acknowledge that it's not unreasonable to call the police to handle over 100 teenagers trespassing on private property and refusing to leave, that's all.

By the way, your language is extreme and insulting. "white America loves to hate and hurt black people at every opportunity." That is a gross over-generalisation and of course not true of all white Americans.

unfortunately I am not extreme or insulting. why is it that police forces all over America act so violently towards black people? they wouldn't if the wider white population cared at all about the way black people are treated. you know this as well as I do.

did you see the video of the white women attacking another black girl? 2 upstanding white women racially abusing and hitting a black child. have they been thrown to the ground and arrested yet?

Creighton - So every white person in America is racist. Okay then.

Your comments are not constructive, just baiting.