This video of King County, Washington, Sheriff’s Deputy Paul Schene, 31, has saturated the blawgosphere, but if you haven’t seen it before, it’s important that you see it now. Schene got angry with a 15 year old woman who appears to kick off her show toward/at Deputy Schene, and Deputy Schene gives this young woman a good tuning up.
Aside from the obvious, that the man with the shield who is trained and paid to serve and protect has shown this nasty young woman who’s boss, with a deputy in training at his side (who naturally had nothing to say about this occurrence, since it was certainly not the trainee’s place to criticize a veteran officer like Schene), there is another question that demands an answer: Was Deputy Schene unaware of the fact that his beating was captured on video?
From the Seattle PI, there is both good news and bad news about this nightmarish video.
The video of the Nov. 29 incident was disclosed Friday, one day after Deputy Paul Schene, 31, pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor assault in King County District Court.Schene, an eight-year veteran, works out of Precinct 4, which covers SeaTac, Burien and high crime areas in White Center and Skyway.
He is the third sheriff’s deputy since 2006 to face charges on allegations of excessive force. All three are from the Burien precinct.
A detective assigned to the girl’s case discovered the video Dec. 1 and immediately forwarded it to supervisors.
Schene had previously been in the news in 2006 after he fatally shot Pedro Jo, a mentally ill man, during a struggle after a traffic stop on Interstate 5. It was the second officer-involved shooting of his career.
On the plus side, this incident came to light because a detective had the integrity of bringing it to the attention of his supervisors. On the downside, he is the third deputy to face excessive force charges (mind you, only misdemeanor charges against Schene), and there’s a dead mentally ill man in his wake.
Does the fact that Deputy Paul Schene was happy to beat a 15 year old girl on video for kicking her shoe at him (which he claimed caused him severe injury, naturally) indicate how little concern he had about being outed for this conduct? Or was he so deeply angered that he just didn’t care? Or was he so secure in the knowledge that it would be whitewashed as “justified” that he felt no fear?
We just keeping posting these videos on the internet in the hope that as many people as possible see them and say to themselves, this has to stop. If enough people do, maybe we can make a dent in the cop culture that enables their belief that they are a law unto themselves.
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Maybe. Then again, if he beats the charges, it may persuade some folks that the worst that can happen in response to well-documented abuse isn’t all that much.
Pretty clear that he was injured though — when he slammed his shin against the toilet while attacking her. That’s gotta hurt, although my sympathy is somewhat . . . limited.
Scott,
As a defender, what would you say in the cop’s defense?
I think the only thing that I would be able to say was that she obviously wasn’t hurt that badly given that she was walking out. She didn’t have a concussion. Etc. You know… He was just trying to “scare her.”
Sorry, but no free consultations.
Thank you for posting about this one, Scott.
Even though it’s very upsetting that this happened to that young girl, it’s a good thing that this made it out into the public view and that it’s gotten such wide coverage.
I personally believe that the deputy was cognizant of the fact he was being videotaped but his actions were rooted in that he felt safe to let his emotions control what he did because, up here in Seattle (which is part of King County) it is incredibly difficult to hold officers accountable and other officers have kept their jobs for doing the same thing he did, and some worse.
Sadly, there is no shortage of videos of cops using excessive force. But you’re right, the only way to stop it is to make it known. The same goes for all professions where misconduct is inherently difficult to bring to the attention of the general public. Cops, doctors, and lawyers all have a higher duty to out the bad ones among us, because in these self-policing groups, if we don’t, who will?
The only other thing that might be said in his “defense” is that the incident with the mentally ill man, if reports are true, was fairly harrowing. The mental case was trying to strangle the deputy with his own car radio cord, after which he returned to his own car and appeared to be retrieving something from it and refused to stop. Of course, whether this story is true is a very big if, as I assume that the deputy was the only living witness to the incident.
You do have to wonder about the mental and emotional dexterity required by cops who have to deal with and distinguish between people who are real threats and people who aren’t. Obviously in this case there was no rational basis for perceiving this 15 year old girl as a threat, but we can wonder whether cops’ dealings with people who are real threats might have an impact on their very rationality.
This is no apology for cops and especially no apology for this deputy. Some cops presumably can handle the emotional stress of the job and make the proper distinctions. Perhaps this is a cop who couldn’t. I suppose the lesson is that police administrations have to be very careful in evaluating the emotional makeup and capacities of their officers, particularly after they’ve been involved in violent and harrowing confrontations.
The police feel they can break the law and do what ever they want. this is an outrage and I will write the mayor, governor and whom ever to get bad disgusting police officers off the street before they kill more people or beat up any more children. This is sick and a shoe that didnt even hit u is not a reason to beat a little girl. I wish he would take off the badge and fight her father like that. Or hopefully when he goes to jail the inmates will punck him in the face and pick him up by his hair and slap him face first inot a wall!
Saddened and sickened, I am a mother with a Washington state teenager and would be devastated if my child was this young girl. We can make a difference but only if we use our voices. If we keep our horror to ourselves, then we have no opinion. Email your outrage to the Burien Chief of Police [email protected]. Maybe someone will hear you!! Either you can voice your opinion here for others to see but it will go nowhere or you can email this guy and maybe something will change!
Actually John there was a witness, she was a passenger being detained in the cage unit of the police car the man attacked the officer as he went to loosen the womans handcuffs and drivers-by by also witnessed it.