Police Brutality at The University of Western Ontario? How many officers does it take to subdue a student?

I work at home on Wednesdays, and so I missed the events of late yesterday afternoon in the building where I work.

Here is the initial YouTube video that many people have seen, showing one heck of a lot of officers beating on and trying to subdue a student:

I'm pretty impressed that it is presented without running commentary. And here is a link to a follow-up video of the officers and the student again, outside the building. This one has a bit of commentary/speculation (including a bizarre discussion of the racialization of gender [?]).



This morning, the UWO communications folks put out the following press release.

A student at The University of Western Ontario has been arrested following violent confrontations on a number of floors at Western's Social Sciences Building.

The incident began shortly after 5 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 14 when campus police were contacted by a student in the Social Sciences building who reported being followed by another student acting in a strange manner. 

 

A short time later, campus police received calls regarding a disoriented and threatening individual who had appeared on two different floors attempting to enter offices. On the 8^th floor, the suspect entered an office and attempted to force the occupant to leave. Being unsuccessful, the suspect left and subsequently barricaded himself in a 7^th floor office. London Police were called.  

 

Two campus officers arrived on the scene and the suspect came out of the barricaded office and charged the officers in a violent manner. Other persons on the floor fled for their own safety and some locked themselves in their own offices.  

 

A third officer arrived and the three officers attempted to subdue the suspect, but he was able to break away from officers and fled.  

 

On the main floor the suspect was stopped by a campus police officer and a confrontation took place as the suspect attempted to flee. London Police officers arrived on the scene to assist campus police and tried to subdue the suspect, who continued to fight violently and would not allow himself to be handcuffed. 

 

After numerous loud requests to the suspect to stop resisting, officers used punches and strikes to the suspect’s arms to apply handcuffs.  

 

The suspect was eventually subdued and as he was being led outside, he began to fight once again. He was further restrained by officers. An ambulance arrived at this time. Paramedics had been called because officers felt the behaviour exhibited by the individual indicated he should be assessed at hospital.  

 

The resistance continued after the individual was transported to hospital. He was released into police custody at 3 a.m. October 15.   

The individual has been charged with mischief, resisting arrest, assault, and escaping custody.

No, I don't know who the student is, nor do I know if he is or was a student in any of my courses.

Update #1: Jack suggests that perhaps the student was on crack cocaine.

Update #2: Ms. Eclectic agrees drugs may have been involved. But I think I prefer Gabriel's suggestion in the comments here.

Update #3: Jack and others have also suggested that the student might have been on crystal meth.

Comments

[Alan]

The people commenting on that second video are bizarre; is this what social science education has done to young people? I suppose it is good to analyze events, but they do it in such an utterly formulaic, and I would say stupid, way that it is painful to hear. And I love the self-important advice to upload to YouTube as soon as possible, as if anyone gave a damn about them.

[Gabriel]

Maybe he just had a really bad sociology class, but then again I'm being redundant...

[Smitty]

i see a few punches, a few kicks. not much. if there are five officers on the guy & they can't get the cuffs on him, then i expect some punches are warranted. it's not like the batons were out and pools of blood were left behind.

[Jeff H]

That seemed like a perfectly reasonable response from the Police.

[Eliot Rosewater]

I hate racialization of gender almost as much as the genderization of race. Even in Canada the police still treat people based on the race of their gender. Appalling!

I can type random letters into my iPhone and let the corrective text feature string together a more coherent assessment of the situation.

[B S]

I think what bothers me the most is that the press release repeatedly states that Campus police are highly trained and yet it takes (from my understanding of the numbers) 3 Campus and 3 London Police officers to pin one guy - who from what I heard is 6' 200lbs, probably about the same or less than each officer involved. Just how trained are these individuals?

[brogo]

For those of you who state that the behavior of the police was reasonable, I honestly suggest that you smoke some marijuana, and watch it again.