Cops vs. People Who Don't Follow Instructions

Here we go with another video making policemen look bad.  Like all the other videos, this one also begins at the end of the story and only shows the part where the cop appears to be an asshole.

A few questions that the majority of people and the media will not ask:

1. What on earth did this girl do in class that necessitated summoning a cop to the room?  Did it involve other students?  Just the teacher?
2. How many times did the cop ask her to get up and leave the classroom?  Why didn't she do it?
3. Did she physically escalate the situation in any way?
4. Why did no one else in the video seem particularly upset or surprised?  Might this girl have a history with this kind of behavior?
5. Why was the situation filmed?
6. Might we assume that the video began right as the cop got physical because there was some kind of lead-up to the confrontation (including whatever altercation prior to the police officer entering the room) and the filmographer didn't have his phone at the ready?

I am anti-police militarization, anti-government overreach, anti-police state... almost to the point where some people would accuse me of being a libertarian if we didn't talk about any other issues.  But for Christ's sake, when a cop gives you instructions, just do it.

We are heading into dangerous times in this country in which the police force is seen as a separate entity from the citizens.   The situation continues to be exacerbated by the media, idiots on the internet, and, worst of all, our political leadership.  It's been a long time since animosity towards the police was this widespread.

There is water under the bridge here, however.  The police departments in this country have grown to be very powerful and overbearing.  Is it the fault of misguided regulations which increase our interactions with police, the war on drugs which enriches the departments, the decrease in general civility between Americans, or maybe policemen on power-trips?  Who knows.

Perhaps we're merely seeing the effects of a general decline in crime over the past few decades, meaning that increased police involvement predated the decline in crime and we simply didn't notice because there was more crime for them to pursue.  There are some who think the political elites are empowering the police while at the same time stirring up the public against them (through media and the methods listed above) in order to expand the police state.  And they may be right.

While many of these matters are unclear, I do know something very important: we will not fix the police-citizen conflict by fighting them outright.  Especially not in classrooms and things like those libertarian morons who film traffic stops.  There could be extreme times when breaking the law and fighting the power is essential to survival, but those times are very rare and we are far from the time when that could be the case generally.

Improving the interactions between police and citizens will remind us that we are all citizens with similar lives.  And this will make removing bad police officers easier, because they'll stand out more.  I've know a few asshole cops but I've known far more who are average guys.  I have a sticker on the back of my car that reads, "Support Law Enforcement" and it's not there to get out of tickets.  It's there because we've gone too far the other way.