Watched the video. Er, if you want a person to survive, it's not a wise idea to have that much force on the torso. While not guaranteed to kill someone, it's not unlikely. Grinding someone's face into the concrete is actually more healthy, unless you are putting force on their neck. I've seen videos of police putting knees on necks, which is also a good way to crush a larynx or cause other damage.
For this situation?
With five available persons, ONE person should assume command.
He or she should give all orders in a clear manner.
He or she should assign one person per limb, more or less.
Suspect should only be shoved to ground long enough to restrain
Suspect should then be sat up, stood up or turned onto side. Side is preferable if the person cannot or should not stand.
The suspect should examined medically and searched for weapons. With five persons, both can be be done simultaneously: one for medical, one for weapons, three for crowd control. If there is no extra help, medical should be done in a rapid manner (pulse and breathing), then weapon checked, and then more comprehensively medically checked.
IF suspect is not breathing or has no pulse, person in command should detail two persons to begin CPR and a third person to immediately call for medical assistance. Command person and spare should handle crowd control, ground guide medical persons and handle additional persons of interest as necessary. This should be continued until medical personnel arrive, then all five officers should go to crowd control.
Regardless of anyone's feelings on whether this homicide was criminally negligent, it was deeply and troublingly professionally negligent. Assuming there is no criminal charges, they should be yanked from service until they are retrained and certified as such. The training needs to be reviewed. If it was good and the officers negligent, they should be appropriately punished for failure to follow procedures. If it was bad, training officer and chief should be punished more than the officers.
Scout, any flaws in the above mentioned opinion?
