The officer has yet to be heard from, so the noose-knotters need to sit by the pickel barrel for a bit. The kick looked gratuitous, but we don’t know what the offier saw from where he was standing, or what his worry was. We’ve all seen enough tapes (John DeLorean, Rodney King) to know that its best to wait a bit before jumping to conclusions. The King tape in particular was repeatedly shown without the first critical seconds.
No officer has the right to kick an unresisting suspect, even one as unsavory and deserving of a kick as this one. Those suggesting otherwise are way off base. Someone resisting arrest may be almost open season, but not someone passively on the ground. But Dunphy is right this time: wait for the cop’s side. And we may need to cut some slack to the officer approaching a felon and an evader on the ground where he could have been concealing a gun or a knife.
