An officer at Clover Park High School is now being investigated for using excessive force after arresting a student.
The student is facing a charge of resisting arrest, and a teacher is also facing possible charges of obstruction for trying to help the student. The case has been referred to the city attorney who will determine if charges will be filed.
According to KIRO 7,
Police are claiming that the negligent actions of the officer using his car door as a weapon did not injure the child at all. Lakewood Police Lieutenant Chris Lawler says the student wasn't hurt. "It didn't knock him down," Lt Lawler explained. "It didn't cause any injuries."The incident happened a week and a half ago near the pool on campus.
Reports of a fight prompted the on duty school resource officer, Lakewood Police Detective Rey Punzalan, to respond.
Witnesses say the officer hit one of the students, a 14-year-old, with his car door.
Because he failed to put it in park, the door kept hitting the student.
When the officer told the student to go to the office, the student, who had just been struck by the officer's car door, allegedly responded with profanity.
"So he goes to grab the student, who is 6-foot-1, 210 pounds, and the kids immediately tenses up and starts to fight with the officer," says Lawler, in an attempt to paint the student as some monstrous villain.
However, the eyewitnesses say that's not the case at all. They say the student was not fighting back, and the officer placed him in a chokehold.
Predictably, police are claiming that it wasn't a chokehold, the officer merely "grabbed the child by the neck."
Grabbing a non-violent child by his neck reasonable force, according to Lawler. "We have to overcome that resistance, What the officer did sounds reasonable," Lawler said. "I have no problem with it."
It is quite obvious, with all of the eyewitness testimonies, that the officer is not giving a proper account of what actually happened. Also, the fact that a teacher risked arrest and possibly her career to stop the abuse speaks volumes as to what was actually transpiring.
Since the department has received a complaint about the incident, they now claim they are investigating themselves.
Students at Clover Park High School are not taking this abuse lightly.
They have taken to social media to express their discontent and explain how they no longer feel safe on campus.
"I'm disgusted that this happened, angered at how it was handled, irate that they are punishing a teacher for doing their damn job," says one student on Facebook.
Another says "Police brutality should never be allowed in school."
"They could have handled it differently," Clover Park sophomore Jeffrey Lauterbach said.
"You can't get in trouble or else something like that could happen," Clover Park sophomore Alex Avila added.
To protest the incident of police brutality last Friday, all of the students wore black to school.
Unfortunately, this incident is hardly isolated. Less than a week ago, we reported the story of a Kentucky cop, with a history of hurting children. He is facing discipline for choking a student so hard, that he passed out and was left with brain damage.
Reader Comments
@jovichmk:
The new normal is not the old normal, it has been superseded.
Normal used to be--at one time was--a spontaneous matter, a matter of a person's unique individuality and recognition of other individuals and their corresponding uniqueness in varying states of activity and cognition, receptivity and so on.....but this is outmoded, as I said, it has been superseded and rendered obsolete.
Now normal is following and adhering to all the rules, all the time, in every instance, even though this is impossible.
Since this is impossible, normal can also be expressed in correctly identifying the highest ranking officer or person in charge and in the vicinity (or who might be patrolling and surveilling the vicinity with security cameras and other technical means, drones and so forth) and obeying them according to their interpretation of the rules, no matter how it impacts you or other any people in the area.
When following all the rules and/or correctly identifying and complying fully with the highest ranking officer in charge and in the vicinity is not accomplished, then YOU MUST DIE.
There is no other way, humanity having now advanced beyond the old way, which was simply not technical enough nor was it oriented toward total obedience to state (central government and dictatorial) control, as life now certainly must be.
(sarcasm)
ned
[Link]
The linked above presentation is not without flaw, but it describes (and rebuts) the present modern vehicle (owned and operated by psychos and their massive following and numbed and dumbed troops and constituents) which is destroying the earth, completely.
Please consider libertarianism and anarchy as ways of living with and cooperating with others, as opposed to expressly obeying state authoritarianism and government and its mimics and copies.
The fight is to the death.
ned
I'm just so very glad that I'm not a kid anymore and I'm not growing up in the U.S. cos frankly its intolerable what they have to put up with and it's an abuse of power on a massive scale. This kind of thing just doesn't happen in Europe. We have our own sets of problems but police brutality towards young people is thankfully not one of them.
Does America have a special Gestapo unit for every single institution?