A PERFECT COMMAND OF TEMPER

BY Bob Walsh

Sir Robert Peel was the founder of the first modern police force in the world. He
once remarked that the best attribute a police officer could have is a perfect command
of his temper. The problem is the police must recruit from the human race, and
humans are imperfect creatures.

On November 12 of last year several Alameda County deputies chased a suspect
for 38 miles, into the Peoples Republic of San Francisco. The bad guy rammed the
cops a couple of times during the course of the chase. That is ADW on a police
officer by any reasonable definition. They managed to stop him in an alley there
and, based on surveillance footage and medical reports, it seems that the cops beat
the dogshit out of the bad guy.

Stanley Petrov, 29, fled the cops in a stolen car. They found meth and a gun in the
car. OK, so far so good. The surveillance images SEEM to show Petrov
attempting to surrender. The cops broke both his arms with baton strike and in
general thumped him pretty good. The SF DA is now alleging that other deputies
at the scene may have stolen things from the bystanders (cell phones?) in the alley.

The two deputies that thumped Petrov are on paid administrative leave. The SF
DA has said through a back-door announcement that he will announce whether or
not the two cops will be charged criminally after the Super Bowl is over. He also
may charge the deputies who may have stolen from the bystanders.

It looks like five Alameda County deputies are in for a rough time. It also looks
like maybe they deserve it.

EDITOR’S NOTE: In several of my posts on the use of excessive force by cops, I have referred to Sir Robert Peel’s golden rule: “No quality is more indispensable to a policeman than a perfect command of temper.”

I venture to say that in more than 90 percent of those cases wherein the police used excessive force, loss of temper was the cause.

And that appears to be the case with Stanley Petrov.