“We found that the design of the force applied by the police was helpful rather than hurtful” Philadelphia Grand Jury Report, June 29, 2009

I recently watched this video again to try to better understand how a Philadelphia grand jury determined that “no excessive force was used” in the May 5, 2008 video taped beating of three men.  The grand jury report is 98 pages. When it was released last week it was met with fierce criticism, especially from African-American community leaders. All three suspects seen in the video are black.

The grand jury report says when the jury members watched the video for the first time, they too were appalled with what they saw.

Our first viewing of the video as a Grand Jury did not significantly alter the impressions created by news accounts. The video clip, to most of us, seemed to show an unprovoked and unnecessary assault by the very people we expect to keep the peace. We were taken aback early on in the investigation when a sergeant who supervised the stop unapologetically described the arrests captured on film as “a great job.”

OK, So they were at least at the same starting point as most of us. But that is not how they saw the video a year later. The report states that the jury members were able to see an unedited version of the tape that showed the “dangerous” behavior exhibited by the suspects who led police on a chase after leaving the scene of a multiple shooting. The jury also says it saw how police behaved after the suspects were handcuffed and that under Pennsylvania law police are justified to use some force, even intentionally inflict pain, to arrest someone they believe to be dangerous.

(a) PEACE OFFICER’S USE OF FORCE IN MAKING ARREST.–
(1) A peace officer, or any person whom he has summoned or directed to
assist him, need not retreat or desist from efforts to make a lawful
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arrest because of resistance or threatened resistance to the arrest.
He is justified in the use of any force which he believes to be
necessary to effect the arrest and of any force which he believes to be
necessary to defend himself or another from bodily harm while making
the arrest.

It would still seem that the video shows some police officers taken a few extra shots at the suspects but the grand jury did not come to that conclusion. In one portion of the report it goes out of the way to point address this point.

Taken in all at once, the videotaped spectacle of a crowd of officers kicking and hitting three men on the ground seemed brutal, chaotic, and unjustifiable. But careful scrutiny of the higher-quality version of the video revealed an absence of gratuitous kicks or punches, or of blows intended to inflict harm. The many strikes against the suspects, when individually analyzed, appeared measured and carefully targeted for the purpose of bringing the men safely into compliance and custody.

So, if you have time take a look through the grand jury report to see if it changes how you see the video.

Tune in tomorrow morning on WHYY-FM for Shai Ben-Yaacov’s story on why some members of the community say the case should have never been sent to a grand jury.