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viktor_haagYou may or may not have heard about the individual who was forceably removed from a California University Library. Here's a long discussion with heated and passionate comments on all sides. This is a big can of worms that could almost certainly end very, very badly for the University. One also wonders what this will do to the health, physical and mental, of the individual removed from the Library.
I notice that the (voluminous) commentary is replete with "if-onlies" and "shoulds" and "why didn'ts". And there's really only a few posts that have any "did or did not" comments -- did the officers in the situation use excessive force in the pursuance of their duty is really the operative question here, isn't it? And that immediately leads to several other questions in an attempt to answer the first:
- What was their duty?
- What was the duty of the person being detained/moved along?
- What was the standard procedure for dealing with this kind of situation?
- Did the officers follow this procedure properly?
And then, finally, perhaps
- Does this procedure need to be revisited and maybe changed?
I'm not sure that answers to these questions can effectively be rendered with any utility by a bunch of concerned citizens several thousand miles removed from the situation, but that won't stop us from posting to the web, will it?
I notice that the (voluminous) commentary is replete with "if-onlies" and "shoulds" and "why didn'ts". And there's really only a few posts that have any "did or did not" comments -- did the officers in the situation use excessive force in the pursuance of their duty is really the operative question here, isn't it? And that immediately leads to several other questions in an attempt to answer the first:
- What was their duty?
- What was the duty of the person being detained/moved along?
- What was the standard procedure for dealing with this kind of situation?
- Did the officers follow this procedure properly?
And then, finally, perhaps
- Does this procedure need to be revisited and maybe changed?
I'm not sure that answers to these questions can effectively be rendered with any utility by a bunch of concerned citizens several thousand miles removed from the situation, but that won't stop us from posting to the web, will it?
