colliric wrote:What if Chauvin hypothetically wasn't doing his job and was in plain clothes when he did this? Say he witnessed a crime in progress and acted using his former police training. Say he was a retired cop, saw a crime happening and decided to commit a citizen's arrest(which is legal in most parts of the world)?
Yes, it would matter, as he wouldn't be in that position of power any longer. He wouldn't hold the same authority as he would if he was a police officer. His legal rights to a citizen's arrest would be the same as anyone else's.
colliric wrote:Would his job have any impact on the sentencing? No. Because at the time he was not acting as a police officer on behalf of a police department. You could say "but as a former cop or non-working cop, he shy have known", but he would still be treated like any other citizen.
It would matter. he wouldn't have the powers of a police officer who was on duty and working. You, or I, cannot act on behalf of the police department, except in an
extremely limited way.
colliric wrote:The restraint is a lethal form of restraint, and shouldn't be used at all. It's basically a slow-motion version of the curb stomp, except with your knees. Cops should be able to be sued when they use restraints like that. Police departments should be trained in using non-lethal methods of restraint and be sued when they don't comply.
That restrain was only to be when against a person exhibiting extreme resistance. That was the police force's policy. That places the onus upon the police officer employing it. It was excessive force, given that George Floyd was handcuffed, and face down on the ground. His resistance could not be deemed "extreme".
They can be sued, of course, and many police forces in the USA had actually banned that type of restraint, years earlier, and then 62% banned it after June.
Some of the biggest police departments in the country have already instituted bans on chokeholds. The Los Angeles Police Department banned what's called the "bar-arm chokehold" in 1982. The New York Police Department banned chokeholds in November 1993 — except when an officer's life is in danger. And the Chicago Police Department did the same in May 2012. Philadelphia and Houston have similar policies.https://www.npr.org/2020/06/16/87752797 ... 20policies.
We've seen the police's version of non-lethal restraint when a police officer shot a man with her "taser" recently.
“Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson