The  initial report about 17-year-old mentally challenged young man, Jesse Kersey, who rode his bicycle the wrong direction on a Dayton Street came from the complaint filed against the city, They were devastating, but as allegations crafted for the purpose of obtaining money damages, not the most reliable source of information.

Dayton police “mistook” a mentally handicapped teenager’s speech impediment for “disrespect,” so they Tasered, pepper-sprayed and beat him and called for backup from “upward of 20 police officers” after the boy rode his bicycle home to ask his mother for help, the boy’s mom says.

On the way, the mom says, “A neighbor attempted to communicate with Officer Hooper about Jesse’s disabilities and was told to go back into his home, or he would be arrested.”

As Ford opened her front door, she says, Hooper and co-defendant Officer John Howard, “fired their Tasers, striking Jesse in the back with both probes.”

“Once inside the house, defendant Hooper and defendant Howard began to struggle with Jesse, who was standing against the back door with his hands up in front of his face, saying ‘Please quit, please quit.’

As expected, the police tell a different story, or how Jesse fled and struggled, and how they were forced to tase him, beat him, cuff him and subdue him.  They had to.  From the Dayton Daily News :

When Kersey spotted the police cruiser, he started riding on the sidewalk.

When Hooper yelled for Kersey to stop, the boy took off up St. Paul Avenue, dumping his bike in front of his house.

Finding the front door locked, Kersey turned on Hooper, who had mounted the front porch to issue Kersey a bicycle citation, and began to struggle, according to the police report.

“Kersey started swinging his arms at Officer Hooper and yelling in an unintelligible language,” according to the police report.

An attempt to Tase the struggling boy, who was described as 6-foot-1 and 160 pounds, was unsuccessful.

That’s a big kid, and he could do some damage in a fight with police.  Since the first rule of policing is to make it home for dinner, and Hooper wasn’t dealing with some tiny tot, quasi-lethal force seemed the best, first choice when dealing with someone “yelling in an unintelligible language.”

What never would have dawned on Hooper was that he had another alternative method of dealing with this young man, who he either knew, or was informed, was mentally challenged.  He could have ceased his quest for physical domination and control.  Just stopped.  Waiting calmly. Talked to Jesse’s mother and neighbor, and explained that he was going to wait a bit for everyone to take a breather, himself included, and then calmly deal with the otherwise inconsequential situation.

There are emergent situations that demand immediate action, whether because harm is about to be done to someone or someone who has engaged in a serious offense is attempting to flee.  We understand, though there are time when there is some doubt about how serious a situation needs to be before risking innocent lives in wild car chases or shoot outs.  But we can appreciate that tense, split second, life-or-death decisions have to be made.

Not here.  There was nothing here, nothing, that compelled immediate action or the use of force. Even assuming that Jesse was not nearly as challenged as claimed, and was in fact a serial, unrepentant wrong-way bicyclist, no one’s life was n danger (except Jesse’s) and they knew where he lived and could always find him there later.  There was no emergency.

Chalking this up to contempt of cop, based on Jesse’s failure to heed the command to halt, seems the most likely reason for the testosterone eruption by Hooper.  A kid dissed him and he wasn’t about to let that pass unnoticed.  He was a cop.  No one can diss a cop and get away with it.

Under ordinary circumstances, this would fall into the pigeonhole of normal cop smacking around kid who needed to be taught a lesson.  But Jesse wasn’t the ordinary kid in need of a lesson.  He yelled in am unintelligible language.  So did Hooper, as far as Jesse was concerned.  You can’t teach a lesson when you speak different languages.

This is what separates this case from the usual contempt of cop case, where the perceived disrespect, invariably cause for a good tuning up, may be due to a handicap.  We see it when cops stop deaf drivers, or when cops are called to control autistic children.  As bad, and it is most assuredly bad, it may be for police to use force against people just to teach them a lesson about obedience, it falls to the level of disgust and incomprehensibility when the person against whom the force is used suffers from a physical or mental challenge that precludes their ability to understand the command, even if they were inclined to do so.

Police must be trained to get a grip on their hormones, their machismo that compels them to harm others.  Regardless of what Jesse did, what the true story behind this awful use of force may be, there is no legitimate reason why Hooper needed to act when his best option, assuming his version is accurate, was to de-escalate, to calm the situation down, to take a step back.

There are many people in this country who suffer from various forms of mental and psychological challenges, and they are at severe risk.  Even to those who believe that a kid who knowingly disrespects a cop deserves the beating that follows, no one with half a brain believes that the mentally challenged deserve to be the victim of force for their handicap.  Far too many are at risk to tolerate this conduct.

There is no shame to a cop in not beating every person who doesn’t immediately obey your command.  The same can’t be said for beating a mentally challenged young man like Jesse.  There is no story you can concoct that will make you seem manly and righteous.  There was no need here, none, to use force.  There was no shame in avoiding the use of force. No one would think less of Police Officer Hooper if he hadn’t used force against Jesse Kersey.