Politics from the Palouse to Puget Sound

Thursday, March 03, 2011

Fearing for his Life?

There is a video of D'Vontaveous Hoston, a 17-year-old male, who is in a small convienence store in Seattle. As he is there a drug bust is going bad and a cop is getting beat. An undercover cop goes chasing after a suspect. That is when Hoston goes outside to see what is going on. He goes back into the store. The officer sees Hoston and thought he was the suspect. The officer goes into the store.

Hoston explains what happened saying, "I'm like hey man I had nothing to do with that and he looked at me and said get the "F" on the ground and I'm like what?" (From q13fox.com)

So he clearly heard the officer order him to the ground. After not going to the ground, but just simply raising his arms up, the officer kicks Hoston on the side of the leg then goes hands on taking him to the ground.

Q13fox.com continues, "He intends to file a lawsuit against the City of Seattle and SPD for what happened to him. Hoston says, 'Since this happened I feel like I got to be looking over my shoulder in case police officers do something, you feel me? I feel like my life is threatened.'"

So Hoston feels like he is in fear for his life because a cop kicked him. Makes no sense to me. In fact, when ordered to the ground, that is the time to do what was ordered.

Too often people try to argue with the police at the moment of initial contact. Until the officer has the scene under control there is no time for debate. Simply complying with the orders will get the scene under control and then you can have your discussion with the officer.

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