South Australian Police Brutality

Police brutality.

In recent years I have heard accusations of police brutality across all news outlets, on blogs and the like, from several different countries.

Sometimes you can be forgiven for thinking deserving culprits are just angry at being caught and want to cause a little drama, by giving the war cry of "Police Brutality".

Criminals are not the trustworthy lot you might think they are.

And then there are the cases that appropriately raise eyebrows.

Like this one, in South Australia.



Two men, one identified as having a mental health issue, and the other identified as his carer, were in Whitmore Square in Adelaide. This area is reportedly known to be frequented by individuals involved in crime and illicit drugs.

In the video you can see, what I believe, is excessive force. A police officer beats a man who is lying on his stomach, with a baton, striking his back repeatedly. It is awful!

How can that be justified? The man doesn't resist, or fight back.

It just so happened that 7 NEWS personnel were passing at the time and managed to get the footage.

I don't know if the men were involved in crime or not, but from what can be seen on the footage, the force shown was not warranted. Just not necessary.

Police do a great job, serving their community and dealing with criminals and difficult situations that arise, but it only takes a handful of bad apples to bring the whole force in to disrepute.

Perhaps the police officers in the video were under pressure of some sort, affecting their judgement and choices, or perhaps they thought there was more of a threat at hand. Or, perhaps, they were simply abusing their position and power. Perhaps they were not screened or trained properly.

Perhaps the community isn't as safe as we'd like.

The video and the officers in question are apparently being investigated. Seriously, I hope.