PART TWO

A black man gets tackled in the middle of the street. A young blonde woman gets slammed to the floor in a mall. Another black guy, standing in the door of his car with his hands up, gets punched in the face.

Outrageous! Right? These are assaults, pure and simple. Assaults perpetrated by cops, under color of authority. There's no two ways of looking at it.

Right?

Well, not necessarily...

It may well be that what we are witnessing—day after day, video after video—is nothing more than standard police procedure, acceptable to all jurisdictions, backed up by academy training.

Raw and brutal and awful it may be—but in the end unavoidable, given the tools cops have available to get the job done.

On the network news the anchor makes sure to point out the victim is unarmed. Not that it makes any difference. An unarmed man can grab a cop's gun in a twinkling.

Or they tell you the young man stood with his hands raised in the air. As if that makes any difference. Having his hands up looks like the guy's cooperating—unless the cop is telling him to do something else.

(Don't forget, "hands up" is now a well-known meme of resistance, not a form of surrender.)

What's common to all these cases is this: Folks are refusing to be arrested. And there are severe consequences for that action.

It's not that they're being punished. They're simply being dealt with in a process I call Arrest, Part Two.

(And yes, I've covered the subject before. See, for instance, RESISTING ARREST.)

You already know Part One, when a cop says, "Turn around and put your hands behind your back."

If you do that, immediately—without even stopping to ask why—you'll be cuffed and given a seat in the back of a squad car. At some point you'll probably find out the why of the situation.

But if you hesitate, if you argue, if you evade the cop's hands, you're off to the merciless land of Part Two arrests.

In Part Two, there is only one posture the cops find acceptable—on your belly in the street with your hands behind your back. Nothing else will do.

And in their attempt to get you in that position, cops may come at you with a Taser, or with batons, or with fists and elbows and service boots. They may try to throw you to the ground and physically wrestle you into the desired pose, especially if there are multiple cops on scene.

(Cops on their own have to be particularly ferocious—thus creating the most outrageous videos.)

I suppose it's possible an officer might ask you to assume that position, either before or during the sweaty activity that follows. Whatever they do, they will keep it up until you comply. Only then will they stop hurting you.

(Consult the Rodney King video for evidence. In the end there was just one cop hitting the man, and he stopped the instant King got himself into position.)

In the overheated tussle of Part Two, much can go wrong.

If two cops have got hold of you, and the one on your right pulls you toward him, the other cop will think you're pulling away from him—that you're still resisting.

Or maybe one of the cops gets paranoid and starts to feel invisible hands pawing at his holstered weapon.

In all this confusion and pain, you might not ever figure out what it is those guys want you to do, especially if several cops are yelling at you at once. (And maybe you're a mite chemically challenged—it happens.)

Finally, if the "fight" goes on too long before you assume the position, you may tumble through a wormhole into the bizarre world of Part Three. This is where the cops are suspicious of your sudden capitulation. Are you playing 'possum? In Part Three, they may reward your delayed cooperation with a "stay down" hit.

(Consult the Rodney King video for a demonstration of this. Too bad the "stay down" hit caused the fellow to flail out of position, forcing another [brief] session of baton work, followed by a swarm of cops designed to overwhelm him.)

No question, all this punching and kicking and clubbing is ugly and brutal and definitely smacks of torture. And there's no easy way to find out if the cops are having fun doing it. Could it be that Part Two policy was deliberately designed to give cops a chance to work out their aggression, even to exercise their racist nature? They're not saying.

Whatever their secret attitude, for you, staying out of Part Two is the right way to go, even if you think the arrest bogus, possibly even racially motivated.

How do you do that?

Call their bluff. When requested, turn around and put your hands behind your back. That should do the trick.

But since this action requires superhuman discipline, we need to look at reasonable alternatives.

How hard would it be for the cops to explain before hand what is going on? People need to know what's happening.

People need to know about Part Two.

(Unfortunately, the Rodney King video taught us nothing.)

So what should you do if you've already messed it up? The cop said turn around and instead you stood your ground, demanded to know what was going on. Another cop tried to snag your hands, and you yanked them away. There's a quiet moment, maybe a look between the cops.

Know that it's not over. They're not going to give up and walk away, just because you refuse the arrest.

If you realize that fact—before Part Two gets going—you have maybe a second to act. Make no sudden moves, but apologize and drop to your knees. Stretch out onto your belly and place your hands together at the small of your back.

Keep talking: "Sorry, guys, but you startled me. I needed a moment to figure out what I had to do. But everything's okay, now. Please continue."

If you're lucky, they may accept your apology, take a breath, and move in to cuff you.

That's Part Two, done the easy way.

But nobody can count on this outcome. The fact is, cops need better tools to help them make their arrests.

Part Two should painlessly render you unconscious. One minute you're facing the cops, the next thing you know you're waking up in the backseat of a cruiser, your hands cuffed behind your back, headed for the station. Maybe there's a cop riding shotgun to explain stuff to you.

You know what I'm describing, right? Phasers set on stun—the only weapon a cop ever need carry. And it should aways be set on stun. Why would a cop use deadly force?

(It also opens up the tactic mentioned in the movie Speed: "Shoot the hostage." Switch off the fellow in front, and you can concentrate on the guy with the gun behind him.)

Folks, we need a modern-day Manhattan Project to develop this weapon, because without it the country is headed off a cliff.

To goose things up a notch, maybe we can convince Donald Trump the phaser would make a nifty implement of torture. That guy loves torture.

Speaking of which, let's get the Attorney General to waterboard Trump until he remembers how he "found out" about wiretapping at Trump Tower.

Do it right, and we could get his tax returns, too.

Worth a shot, right?