When police are allowed through anger to escalate a situation
it shows poor judgement on their part and should be punished
for causing this to happen, when they are allowed to use their
anger to make calls and are backed up by fellow officers and
the court system it will always lead to corruption, what happened
to responsibility, patience and honesty, now its anger, physical
intimidation and outright verbal threats......

If our police can scream im going to murder you, can murder
a mentally challenged man, ignore and use their authority to
not only violate peoples rights but tell them they have no rights,
then its already clear what type of police force we have. attacking
a mentally challenged man is obviously a recipe for disaster,
patience and proper use of minimal force void of anger driven
wrath would have most likely worked. i hope they get convicted
of the murder they committed, badge or no there is no need for
death over a movie ticket.

When police/security arrived, why didn't the "companion" take charge of the situation and get the down's syndrome man out of there? What kind of "companion" can't take charge of their responsibility? I blame the companion.

Originally posted by DaTroof
When police/security arrived, why didn't the "companion" take charge of the situation and get the down's syndrome man out of there? What kind of "companion" can't take charge of their responsibility? I blame the companion.

I am not privy to what happened but I can see it getting played out like this. The movie ends, and the man even with his limited mental capacity knows it is going to play again. Having liked the movie so much he wanted to see it again, most likely driven by a sense of patriotism for the men who make up our armed forces. I can see the companion trying to explain to him that the movie was over and it was time to go. At this point, the usher comes over and on a power trip of his own orders them out of the theatre as she is still trying to talk some rational thought into the mentally challenged guy. Not having a sense of her plight, he decides to escalate the situation over a 11 dollar ticket, after all that is one more seat to jam on an opening night for the movie. He makes the decision to get the security involved, which is 3 off duty police officers. Now any sane man, probably thinks that at this point every thing is still under control as they are off duty police officers and as such know how to handle such situations. The "security" arrive on scene and immediately start throwing thier power around by ordering them to leave or "you will be arrested" on the spot for trespassing. This is not what the mentally challenged man wants to hear, having a diminished mental capacity and not understanding the possible end scenario he gets belligerant (mouthing off and allegedly cussing). Having now been verbally assaulted the "security" instead of taking a moment to realize he is retarded, escalates the situation by trying to force him out. Still not knowing the consequences the man resists by trying to stop them from removing him, holding on to anything he can to prevent it. The security gets even more irate now as he is resisting removal and tackles him to the floor, all 3 of them. The handcuff him and hold him down, he still appears to be resisting because he can't breath and is fighting for air. I can see one of them physically restraining the CPA threatening to arrest her as she attempts to get close to the man to de-escalate the situation while officer holding her back is calling for backup to transport the man to the police station. Meanwhile, the other 2 continue to hold the man down. The man's resistance becomes much weaker and at this point one of them realizes "oh crap, something is wrong!" so they now remove the cuffs, but it is too late. At this point in time the man has started turning blue due to lack of oxygen. They call for an ambulance and try and perform CPR but because of the length of time the man went without air and his sheer size, he perishes shortly after being loaded into an ambulance that in all likelyhood only took about 5 minutes to get there. He was already hanging on by a thread when they were performing CPR. Like it or not, if it was not intentional due to anger it is definately due to negligence of that I have no doubt. The whole situation was not handled correctly from the onset and a mentally challenged man is now dead because of a freakin' 11 dollar movie ticket.

The movie usher and the off duty policemen should be real proud of "what they accomplished" in the pursuit of justice. Good job!!

They should face trial just like anyone else. If I stopped a shoplifter and suffocated him to death I would have to stand trial. These men should have to answer to a jury of their peers!

Equal justice for all, remember!

Originally posted by Donkey_Dean
They should face trial just like anyone else. If I stopped a shoplifter and suffocated him to death I would have to stand trial. These men should have to answer to a jury of their peers!

Equal justice for all, remember!

edit on 20-2-2013 by Donkey_Dean because: (no reason given)

I agree, they are not above the law even though it seems more and more seem to think they are!

How in the the hell does something like this escalate to the point where 3 cops have to slam this poor mentally challenge guy on the ground and cuff him? Put his body in shock and just shut down as it was horrifying to him. I just cannot see how 3 officers could not handle that situation. Ironically over a movie that is about government and law enforcement corruption. Lord almighty.

Absolutely disgusting, but unfortunately this is so common its no longer shocking.

These are trully dark days and getting darker.

Can't really add anything else that has not already been expressed in posts above me.