For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. And sometimes that reaction is over the top.
Last Friday, a Birmingham, Ala., police officer, whose name has been withheld, conducted a routine stop of a car in connection with burglaries in the area. AL.com tells what came next:
He approached the vehicle, and told the suspect [Janard Shamar Cunningham] to stay in the SUV while he waited for a marked unit for backup.
Cunningham got out of the vehicle despite the officer’s demands, and began to question the detective about why he was being stopped. A tussle followed and the suspect assaulted hit [sic] the detective in the head with his own weapon.
The detective was rushed to a local hospital. Police meanwhile located the suspicious vehicle and took Cunningham, who has a lengthy arrest record, and a passenger into custody.
But it’s what followed the report of the beating of a plain clothes cop that sadly makes this story newsworthy:
Not long after the attack, photos began to surface on social media showing the detective lying face down on the pavement. Another photo showed him bloody and kneeling, but awake. In some cases on Facebook, the photos were accompanied by words of support for whoever beat the detective. [Emphasis added]
The highlighted portion of the quote doesn’t quite convey the content or tone of either the Facebook comment or tweet, both redacted, that appear with the article and are reproduced below:
Birmingham police are understandably outraged by this reaction, as should be any person regardless of ideology or skin color. Sgt. Heath Boackle is quoted as saying:
He was laying there lifeless and people were standing around taking pictures. If the tables were turned, and that was a suspect lying there, they would be rioting.
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