Hey Carl, That incident by itself may not be much but the point is if the whole agency acts in such a way...
Is that men upholding the law or men condoning criminal behavior?
What "criminal behavior" were they condoning by laughing at what happened? At least at the time of that video, no criminal malfeasance had been alleged. If she was intentionally targeted and struck with a rubber bullet in the head or other prohibited target zone in violation of policy and state law, then a criminal act may have occurred. At the time of the video, that had not been determined. And, from what i can gather, no criminal allegations were ever made. There may have been some malfeasance on the part of the police for utilizing rubber bullets in the first place, but I have not delved into the ultimate results of the 2006 riot and legal aftermath to find out anything more than there were complaints, some charges against protesters were dropped, and there were some claims paid off.
Laughing at something - even if it is sick and twisted - does not mean anyone condones it. If that were the case, then every person I know in the fields of public safety and emergency medicine are criminals.
It takes a certain type of man to be entertained by a woman being abused. The whole department to laugh about the incident...
That was not "the whole department." That appeared to be part of the emergency response team and was likely as part of a debrief the day after or the day OF the incident. We could get into a discussion of nervous laughter, the need to blow off steam, stress and other issues that might play a part in why this was laughed at, but, as I said, it might have been poorly timed and bad P.R., it is not part of any criminal enterprise.
An investigation into finding the person or people respnsible was not even considered.
How do you know that? Based upon a video including mere seconds of comment at a debrief? I read that a citizen's review board looked into it and found no wrongdoing. If so, then that would indicate that someone DI, in fact, look into the matter to determine if there was any malfeasance.
if rubber bullets were being launched into the crowd to drive them back, and the woman was standing in FRONT of the crowd, it would seem to me to be of little surprise that she might be hit.
As i said, if she was intentionally targeted with a shot that was aimed at a prohibited location (such as the head), and the weapons was used outside accepted policy and law, then I would agree that criminal action might be warranted. However, based solely on the video and what I read about this woman's incident, I cannot see that any criminal action was articulated.
There are many videos showing all kinds of police behavior, this one shows the mindset of this department. Would you have confidence in this department to conduct themselves in an honorable way?
I'm not defending the publication and release of that demonstration of gallows humor, but if you think that behind the scenes the cops, medics, firemen, emergency room nurses and doctors are NOT laughing at some of the tragedies they see, you would be mistaken. It is part of the coping mechanism used to keep them sane. Suffice it to say that without that sort of release - among others - most in those professions would not last very long. YOU try and be dour and serious all the time when dealing with what we/they do ... you'll either eat your gun or quit.
It happens. It is embarrassing when released to the public, to be sure, but there is nothing one can do to prevent it any more than one can prevent soldiers on a battle field from finding some form of twisted humor in their observations.
The coping mechanisms of emergency workers can be found discussed in psychology and related professional journals. If you look for them, you can find a number of these abstracts from peer-reviewed journals on line. And, if you have access to an online or brick and mortar library at a local college, you might be able to read a few of them yourself and get some idea where that humor plays into the coping process.
Nothing presented in the video screams of a criminal act. It indicates that, perhaps, there was a violation of policy in the deployment of rubber bullets, but there is insufficient ifo to determine that. Were the bullets being fired at the crowd in general, or Ms. Ritter in particular? Were they deployed within department policy? Were they being deployed and aimed where their users had been taught? And for the record, these are not easily aimed weapons - once you get more than a couple dozen yards downrange, the trajectory is difficult to predict. And, understand, that Ms. Ritter was kneeling when she got hit in the head ... at least I had been taught that these are deployed low so that the rounds strike legs or lower torso, or skip off the ground. If she was crouching, she only increased her chance of a head strike.
The video was bad PR, and it was a poor decision for someone to have recorded it or to have released it. The sergeant should not have made such a public display of the incident, and any blame for what transpired should be his ... but, it would be departmental discipline and not criminal.
