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Wed Dec 24, 2008 9:52pm IST Email | Print | Share| Single Page[-] Text [+] NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - In a survey of a random sample of U.S. emergency physicians, virtually all said they believed that law enforcement officers use excessive force to arrest and detain suspects.

The sample included 315 respondents. While 99.8 percent believed excessive force is used, almost as many (97.8 percent) reported that they had managed cases that they suspected or that the patient stated had involved excessive use of force by law enforcement officers.

Nearly two thirds (65.3 percent) estimated that they had treated two or more cases of suspected excessive use of force per year among their patients, according to a report of the survey published in the January 2009 issue of the Emergency Medicine Journal.

Dr. Jared Strote of the University of Washington, Seattle, and a multicenter team also found that emergency physicians at public teaching hospitals were roughly four times more likely to report managing cases of suspected use of excessive force than those at university or community teaching emergency departments.

Blunt trauma inflicted by fists or feet was the most common type of injury cited in cases of suspected use of excessive force, followed by "overly tight" handcuffs.

Most emergency physicians (71.2 percent) admitted that they did not report cases of suspected use of excessive force by law enforcement officers.

A large majority (96.5 percent) reported that they had no departmental policies on reporting their suspicions or they did not know of a policy to guide their actions, and 93.7 percent said they had received no education or training in dealing with these situations.

However, most emergency physicians (69.5 percent) felt that it was within their scope of practice to refer cases of suspected use of excessive force for investigation and almost half (47.9 percent) felt that emergency physicians should be legally required to report cases of suspected use of excessive force by law enforcement officers.

These findings, Strote and colleagues conclude, "suggest that national emergency medicine organizations in the USA should become involved, jointly developing and advocating for guidelines to manage this complex issue."

SOURCE: Emergency Medicine Journal, January 2009.

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Of course they would. Atticus, we tackled a guy who was seen with a pistol and was reaching for something in his belt, screaming "fuck you, shoot me, I've got a gun." We didn't shoot him, but we did tackle him and he face planted on the asphalt. We took him to the ER for treatment (gash on his forehead, blood nose). The ER doc asked how he got the injuries and we told him. His response? "Oh, so you assaulted him." I doubt any of the ER docs know what it really takes to deal with a combative suspect, let alone have ever been even in a school yard scrap, let alone a street fight.

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Blunt trauma inflicted by fists or feet was the most common type of injury cited in cases of suspected use of excessive force, followed by "overly tight" handcuffs.

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Homer900 wrote:

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Of course they would. Atticus, we tackled a guy who was seen with a pistol and was reaching for something in his belt, screaming "fuck you, shoot me, I've got a gun." We didn't shoot him, but we did tackle him and he face planted on the asphalt. We took him to the ER for treatment (gash on his forehead, blood nose). The ER doc asked how he got the injuries and we told him. His response? "Oh, so you assaulted him." I doubt any of the ER docs know what it really takes to deal with a combative suspect, let alone have ever been even in a school yard scrap, let alone a street fight.

Uh huh. Remember, your job is (or was) NOT to punish. Doctor understood that.

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But of course the cops know better than a doctor, cause they went through a police academy for 2 months

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Atticus Finch wrote:

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Homer900 wrote:

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Of course they would. Atticus, we tackled a guy who was seen with a pistol and was reaching for something in his belt, screaming "fuck you, shoot me, I've got a gun." We didn't shoot him, but we did tackle him and he face planted on the asphalt. We took him to the ER for treatment (gash on his forehead, blood nose). The ER doc asked how he got the injuries and we told him. His response? "Oh, so you assaulted him." I doubt any of the ER docs know what it really takes to deal with a combative suspect, let alone have ever been even in a school yard scrap, let alone a street fight.

Uh huh. Remember, your job is (or was) NOT to punish. Doctor understood that.

Okay, then we should have shot him? He refused all orders to stop and show his hands and kept advancing on us. The use of force was minimal and he had what I described, a cut head and a bloody nose. The only other alternative was shooting. So which do you choose? (In the days before tasers and pepper spray)

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Homer900 wrote:

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Atticus Finch wrote:

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Homer900 wrote:

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Of course they would. Atticus, we tackled a guy who was seen with a pistol and was reaching for something in his belt, screaming "fuck you, shoot me, I've got a gun." We didn't shoot him, but we did tackle him and he face planted on the asphalt. We took him to the ER for treatment (gash on his forehead, blood nose). The ER doc asked how he got the injuries and we told him. His response? "Oh, so you assaulted him." I doubt any of the ER docs know what it really takes to deal with a combative suspect, let alone have ever been even in a school yard scrap, let alone a street fight.

Uh huh. Remember, your job is (or was) NOT to punish. Doctor understood that.

Okay, then we should have shot him? He refused all orders to stop and show his hands and kept advancing on us. The use of force was minimal and he had what I described, a cut head and a bloody nose. The only other alternative was shooting. So which do you choose? (In the days before tasers and pepper spray)

You shouldn't have lied about what the suspect said and did. You shouldn't have lied back when it happened, and you shouldn't be lying to us about it now.

We all know how it works. Punish the suspect by beating or shooting and then get together and figure out some story of why of how it could have been justified. Then that becomes "what happened." Like fell-and-landed-on-his-face, reaching-for-his-waistband is a classic and people who know see that as a red flag of lies. The doctors see enough people with tight cuffs or other indicia of gratuitous violence* and they begin to get the big picture. Now they are telling us what that big picture is. They are smart people. Hopefully society will lissen to them.

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* For example, the arresting officers NOT looking like they had been involved in a life or death fight, lack of defensive wounds on the arrestee's hands, etc.

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Atticus you forgot, NO matter what these little piggies do, the others will defend them, make up excuses, lie, stretch the truch, and attempt to skew the facts to make the victim the evil guilty party while making them look like the good guy, when in fact they are much worse than the "criminal" themselves.

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