During the heat of the moment, Command Staff knows best
After watching the video, it was apparent that the suspect was going to attempt to struggle to break free and attempt to flee being arrested. The Deputy overwhelmed him quickly. It appeared the suspect was still bracing, again a form of resistance, and your officer struck him three times to get his arm out from underneath him so that he could be cuffed. Obviously neither officer or dep knew if the suspect had any weapons on him at this point. Just curious as to how a suspect that has fled in a car, on foot, and then attempted to resist in order to flee being arrested, posed no immediate threat to these officers? Could the suspect have been armed? Command Staff made reference to it should have been handled another way. Exactly what was that preferred way, I noticed you did not elaborate. Does your training also assume that if a weapon is not seen, then you must treat the suspect as being unarmed? Or does training teach you that you should assume that any suspect could be armed? How many hours of training did this officer receive on this preferred unnamed technique? The public may buy your explanation, but anybody doing this job knows that what you and your command staff did was split such fine hairs in order to sustain this complaint. See its not the activist groups that are the problem, its police administrators that see cases like this as how can we minimize this and satisfy the mob. Supporting your officer was not the focus, as you could have just as easily justified his actions.........and we all know it!