So the child super-predator myth hasn’t held up to scrutiny very well.  Big deal. What about the 66-year-old knife-wielding, aggressive-walking, triple-bypass, demented predator?  Huh?

Of course, it’s not like Melbourne, Florida, Police Officer Derek Middendorf got away with it entirely.  Absolutely not. He was issued a written reprimand for turning off his dash cam and audio.  Cops have rules, you know, and they are taken very seriously.

What remains a curiosity is that vicious old man Albert Flowers continues to be prosecuted for his assault on Middendorf.  If you watch the video closely, you can see it quite clearly as some part of Flowers’ midsection violently attacked Middendorf’s foot.  There’s no word on the condition of the officer’s foot, but we can only be thankful it was covered in heavy cop shoes. 

Notably, Flowers’ lawyer is demanding a speedy trial, likely as a concession to the speedy walking of his client.  Flowers is pretty darned speedy for a guy who underwent a triple bypass. Ah, the miracle of modern medicine.

What is remarkable is that the Melbourne police were apparently capable of “extracting” this video from Middendorf’s turned-off dash cam.  How exactly that works isn’t clear, but it belies the frequent excuse that no video exists when police cruisers are equipped with cameras.  Without the video, there’s little doubt that Middendorf’s description of Flowers’ vicious attack would have been impossible to dispute.  After all, who is to be believed, the police officer just doing his duty or the vicious old man?

What  is truly remarkable about this, and similar videos, is that there is no facial reason for the officer to have engaged in any violence against Flowers.  As is invariably the case, the rhetorical ploy, “why would the police officer have attacked the defendant as claims,” would be used and likely been overwhelmingly persuasive.  And yet, the officer did precisely that, attack a person against whom he had no discernable animus for no discernable reason.  It happens.  It happens regularly.  And it can’t be explained, especially not by the person attacked by the cop.

In the absence of audio, one might speculate that Flowers said something to the officer to place him in fear, or that the officer commanded that Flowers halt and yet he continued to approach.  Yet neither of these allegations were made, suggesting that while they might make sense, they simply didn’t happen.  The problem is that everyone, from viewer of the video to judge, tries to make some sense of Middendorf’s otherwise outrageous attack and beating of Flowers because we find it too disturbing to believe that it was just a pointless, unprovoked attack on an old man.  Our minds refuse to accept such pointless violence.

But then, the coup de grace, the tasing, reminds us that this is the real world, where the first rule of policing applies at all times.  We can’t find a rational explanation for what was done to Albert Flowers, and yet at the end of this brutal confrontation, the cops went home and Flowers went to the hospital for a month.  But at least Middendorf got a written reprimand, which shows how deeply the police administration cares about the new professionalism.  Beat them all you want, as long as the video remains on.

H/T Turley