One of the many videos that has gone viral in the past couple of days shows police stop, and then beat to the ground, alleged teenage rioters. You can even see one of them being kicked whilst on the ground.
If you haven't seen the video, you can find it here.
One must remember this video is completely out of context. We don't know what events led up to it, nor do we know what happened after. The police deserve the benefit of the doubt.
Rather, what is concerning is people's reaction. Comments on the original Youtube posting are all massively in favour of giving rioters a taste of their own medicine. The most popular comment at the time of writing reads: 'Good. I'm glad the nasty little f***ers got a hiding!!'.
There has to be something wrong when our first reaction to seeing a policeman take a truncheon to a teenager's face is one of satisfaction. I'm not denying these kids might be horrible pieces of work. They might have provoked the police. However, they don't appear to have been doing anything particularly wrong at the time of filming and they didn't appear to put up any resistance at all.
Just because a group of thugs act like sub-standard human beings doesn't mean the police should. The police are meant to protect us from thugs, not become thugs themselves. The police have, by and large, shown remarkable restraint in dealing with what are essentially scum of the earth. We shouldn't go about encouraging them to become thugs now.
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