Hey tdh62 (#26), I can see where you are coming from.....However, if anybody other than a police officer had man-handled a 14 year old,100-lbs.(soaking wet) kid like that..............wouldn't it be considered assault? You say the officer "may have" overreacted "a little"? Are you joking? When does physical abuse take precedence over diplomacy?
And I wonder how often that "DUDE" puts his foot up his own kid's backsides. Seeing as, if this is any indication of his personal form of discipline, I'm sure Social Services would be very interested.
And a Badge does not obligate or necessitate mandatory respect from the general population, whom are entitled to Civil Rights! What happened to "Protect and Serve"? What happened to "Innocent until proven guilty"? In jail or prison a person's rights are, for all practical purposes non-existent. But these kids were weren't in jail or prison. They are citizens who will most likely, one day, pay taxes and abide by the law, unless some power tripping "COP" makes a permanent scar on them for some extremely petty, victim-less crime. They may have been in a place where skateboarding is not allowed, but let's face it..........they could have been stealing, doing/selling drugs, assaulting somebody.........any number of countless crimes far worse than skateboarding. Their crime absolutely did not justify the behavior of the Police Officer.
As I wrote before, I think Police Officers should be paid about 5 times what they are paid now, and should ALSO have to go through the training to merit that salary. Officers of the law have to deal with sociology, anthropology, diplomacy, physical situations like hand to hand combat, gun fights, as well as medical situations..........and the list goes on. Over all, they have to be supermen. And hey, you get what you pay for. So the standards to become a Police Officer need to be raised, as well as their position in the hierarchy of society.
Weed out the Bullies and the ones seeking to abuse power.
Bottom line: this Officer needs to be in another line of work.
Sorry for the rant...........just venting on a subject that I am passionate about. Thanks.

I completely agree with IKO (19). I'd just like to add that I believe it should be much harder to become a police officer. Police officer's should have to go through massive psychological training/screening to weed out the people who seek positions of authority so they can abuse their power at will. Police officer's should also be paid accordingly. As it is, the job is open to far too many people. Pay police officer's much more, make it much more difficult to become one, and maybe we would have a police force that would receive respect accordingly. Because right now, (and I know this from experience) our police force creates criminals when they should be dealing with criminals. I could go on forever but I'll leave it alone now.
Just one more thing: That "cop" was way....far.... out of line. Complete and perfect example of the kind of person who should not be in uniform. Total Automaton.