We don't need a police state here

To the editor:

(re: “Teen needs adjustment,” April 12)

Patty Goldstein apparently has not seen the publicly available video of the Alfred Burns arrest. 

Ms. Goldstein says the teen needed to be “subdued with force.” In police forces across the country, officers are mandated not to use “excessive force.”

As one can see in the video — in which Burns is pinned on the ground between two officers and tries, but fails, to ward off 13 punches to the head by the officer on top — excessive force was arguably used. The beating administered by the officer on top did not remove the teen from the officer he had allegedly assaulted, nor does the officer assaulting Burns try to handcuff the teen.

In the video, he is methodically — with deliberate pauses in between, and despite pleas to stop from the crowd and from at least one other officer — hammering Alfred Burns in the head over and over and over again, the teen attempts to ward off the blows.

It was a beating. A punishment. It was an abrogation of the teen’s right to due process, and a threat to his health and life.

Ms. Goldstein, you apparently are an individual who would be quite happy, and feel safer, were you living in a police state. You seem to feel so unsafe that you are willing to give up your own rights, the rights of others, and existing norms and restraints on armed police forces.

National polls have revealed a sharp rise in yearnings for a more authoritarian society in the United States. Consider the kind of society you’re calling for — one in which you say people should be “forced into military-style boot camp.” Be careful what you wish for. Particularly in a deeply racist society.

You needn’t egg on the likes of Terence O’Toole with praise for his condemnation of a 16-year-old and his call for him to be shot for possible future failure to comply during an arrest. We already live in a society in which mass incarceration, racist policing, and police brutality are ongoing manifestations of more than 100 years of Jim Crow.

The Terence O’Tooles of our world have the upper hand. You would strengthen it?

Jennifer Scarlott