Buffalo police not trustworthy

You might have heard that a 75-year-old-man was seriously injured Thursday night by Buffalo (NY) police. The man had been attempting to speak to officers when one pushed him in the chest hard enough to send him stumbling backwards and then to the ground. As he fell he hit his head on the pavement and blood came rushing out.

After a video of the incident went viral two officers were suspended without pay while the matter is being investigated. The suspension apparently angered the other members of the special emergency response team to which the suspended officers belonged.

"Fifty-seven resigned in disgust because of the treatment of two of their members, who were simply executing orders," Buffalo Police Benevolent Association president John Evans told WGRZ on Friday. WKBW also reported news of the resignations.

Buffalo mayor Byron Brown defended the suspended officers by asserting that the victim shouldn't have been there.

Speaking of the injured man, the mayor said, "He was asked to leave numerous times last night."

Police felt that it was important to clear the area before fights broke out among the protesters, the mayor said. He stressed that the instructions from the police managers to officers was to be careful, protect residents and use common sense.

Hey, Mr. Evans, president of the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association, I have some questions for you:

Is it part of Buffalo PD training and policy to shove a nonviolent, unarmed civilian to the ground hard enough to crack his skull open?

Were the officers unable to arrest a nonviolent, unarmed civilian, or simply unwilling to break their nice straight advancing line?

Are you claiming that inflicting a life-threatening injury on a nonviolent, unarmed civilian constitutes "simply executing orders"?

Mr. Evans, the suspended officers' actions don't make your benevolent association look benevolent. Neither do your "just following orders" remarks.

Either your members really did receive orders to hurt nonviolent, unarmed civilians — which I leave to you to prove if you can — or you are full of shit.

And Mayor Brown, "he was asked to leave multiple times" is a reason to have arrested the victim, not to have cracked his skull open. You'd better not be trying to claim otherwise.

To Mr. Evans and Mayor Brown and the officers involved, including the 57 who resigned from the emergency response team, you are proving protesters' point: police violence is out of control.

As not just police officers (or elected officials) but as members of the community, you have got to realize that.

You have got to stop seeing civilians as "other", as mere entities to be corralled and controlled by police.

You have got to see that the behavior of the two suspended officers was deeply disturbing and problematic.

Police around the country have been injured during these protests. However, that's not an excuse for police to hurt nonviolent, unarmed civilians preemptively.

Police are the ones with legally sanctioned weapons and powers of arrest. They have to be trained that with those powers come responsibilities. Chief among them is, or damned well ought to be, not harming nonviolent, unarmed civilians.

Police officers will make mistakes in the heat of the moment. Maybe, contrary to all the evidence I've seen, that will turn out to be the case here with the 75-year-old victim.

But Mr. Evans, and Mayor Brown, and you 57 Buffalo PD officers who resigned from the emergency response team, your words and actions can't be excused as mistakes made in the heat of the moment. You've all had time to digest what happened.

Your willingness to excuse the inexcusable suggests the Buffalo Police Department has a seriously twisted and sick culture, one that can't be tolerated by the civilians you are supposed to serve.