Police detective didn’t shoot attacker due to headlines about police brutality
theGrio REPORT - On Friday, a Birmingham, Alabama, police detective was pistol-whipped into unconsciousness, and, according to the police union, he did not use force to defend himself because he did not want to become the latest police officer to be accused of unnecessary force.
On Friday, a Birmingham, Alabama, police detective was pistol-whipped into unconsciousness, and, according to the police union, he did not use force to defend himself because he did not want to become the latest police officer to be accused of unnecessary force.
The detective was on his way to interview a robbery witness when he noticed a car that was driving erratically.
“He calls for backup and tells the man to stay in the car, but he didn’t,” Heath Boackle, a sergeant with the Birmingham Police Department and president of the city’s Fraternal Order of Police, told CNN in a phone interview. “The last thing the officer remembers is getting sucker-punched in a parking lot. The next thing, he’s waking up in a hospital bed with staples in his head.”
The detective was pistol-whipped with his own weapon and suffered several lacerations to his head and face. Although he has been released from the hospital, he is still recovering.
Boackle said that the detective had considered using force to stop the man from getting out of the car, but he thought better of it. “He hesitated simply because of what’s going on in society right now,” he said. “We have officers walking on eggshells because of how they’re scrutinized in the media.”
But what’s worse was the reaction of social media, with many bystanders taking pictures of the bloody and unconscious police officer and posting them gleefully.
“It really speaks to the lack of their morality and humanity,” Police Chief A.C. Roper said. “People commented on the pictures in a celebratory fashion … disregarding that this public servant has a family and is committed to serve in some of our most challenging communities.”
“The officer was beaten and just left there. People were there long enough to take pictures of the officer full of blood and put it on social media. … No one stopped to help,” Boackle said, noting that there would have been a great outcry had the roles been reversed. “We’re lucky we’re not talking about an officer who was shot and killed with his own weapon.”
“The nobility and integrity of policing has been challenged,” Roper said. “As a profession, we have allowed popular culture to draft a narrative which is contrary to the amazing work that so many officers are doing everyday across this nation.”
