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Comment by droithomme | Hacker News Reader

Here is the post that this is all about:

http://www.copblock.org/8754/manchh/

The first video has a recording of him interviewing police in public, standing out on the street.

The second video shows him calling the police department and asking them for commentary about the police-slamming-kids-head slamming video. The call is about 15 seconds long, the police have no comment and hang up. He then has a 2 minute call there with the school principal.

The third video is the slamming the head video. Basically an officer assaults a student and another student recorded it.

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We'd have to look at the actual court documents to see the details of which phone recodrings are being used to charge him. Aside from the posted police and school offical call, there could also be other non-published calls.

The "State of NH" vs Adam Mueller

http://www.scribd.com/collections/3735171/The-State-of-NH-vs...

> Basically an officer assaults a student and another student recorded it.

I've watched the video, and it looks to me like the kid tries to resist the officer in some way, it escalates, and when he gets turned around his chest goes down on the table. I wouldn't call this a clear-cut example of an assult.

I watched the video too and didn't see that. It looked to me like he jerked the kid up, was shaking him around and talking to him, then slams him down (apparently after the kid says something back). Either way, agree it's not clear cut as the cell phone camera work made it tough to see clearly.

It's interesting that there's some girl berating and trying to stop the videographer from shooting. The part where it gets really shaky she might be physically trying to stop him. It sounds like she's a student. She says "You're recording this and you're not supposed to be recording it" and then calls "teacher!". Is it against the law to shoot video in American schools, now?

I don't think it's against the law. But, in an interview the student w/ the cell phone camera says there is a "no electronics" policy at the school, which I imagine means he's not supposed to have his cell phone with him. There's probably also a policy about video taping in schools.

> the kid tries to resist the officer in some way, it escalates, and when he gets turned around his chest goes down on the table.

The _kid_ tries to resist the _fully grown man_ in _some way_...

What way? If your observation is acute enough to see through the opaque man to tell that it's "his chest [that] goes down on the table", then surely it's good enough to tell us in what way the child tries to resist.

What disturbs me is how ready people are to dismiss this as acceptable. Whether force is warranted or not, whether the minor did something or not, whether he resisted or not, the force is still clearly excessive. A submission hold would be sufficient. And I would expect that the policeman would know how to execute a submission hold. So I can only think that he chose not to, and instead decided to, how do you American's put it, 'open a can of whoop-ass' on the boy.

These days, American schools more resemble prisons than places of learning.

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