Many pushed Seattle police officer Ian Walsh under the bus for punching a 17-year-old teenager in the face. That was, until they carefully viewed the video (embedded below), and saw her shove him before that punch. That still-unnamed Seattle teen has now apologized to the officer in a private meeting.
Authorities say officer Walsh accepted the apology Friday. Meanwhile, the King County, WA prosecutor charged the 17-year-old girl with third-degree assault, but as a juvenile. As such, that charge is punishable by a maximum 30 days in detention.
The original incident occurred Monday. The teen interfered in a friend's jaywalking arrest. James Kelly of the Urban League of Seattle said he requested Friday's meeting to help calm the situation.
Despite the apology, which seemingly clears officer Walsh, authorities say the matter is still under investigation. The department's civilian-led Office of Professional Accountability is looking Walsh's actions.
This YouTube video, of a Seattle, WA cop punching a woman in the face has gone viral, an example of what police shouldn't do if someone's around, period. Nowadays just about everyone has a cell phone that can record video, after all.
It turns out that four women were jaywalking, and the officer had them come over. Things escalated, and he was trying to handcuff the first woman (a 19-year-old) when the second one, a 17-year-old, came over. It is clear from the video that the 17-year-old pushed the officer (as pictured above). At that point, the officer punches the 17-year-old in the face.
In a situation where he is clearly outnumbered, it's difficult to fault the officer. At which point, one must ask, did the second woman feel it was OK to assault the officer, and why didn't the first one just cooperate?
Undoubtedly, there's going to be arguments over the incident, and also undoubtedly, there will be "race" brought into the picture. The Seattle police have responded to the incident, and issued this statement.
"You obviously have to take into context everything that occurred from the point that the officer did make contact with the individuals until the situation ended. As I said before, we have some concerns about the tactics the officer used and employed at the time. Again, we did feel what occurred did deserve a review by the Office of Professional Accountability."
It's been said, and perhaps rightly so, that nowadays there is no such thing as privacy. With Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and more, there's little reason to expect that anything you say will be kept in confidence. Particularly in the realm of politics, of course.
Bill Maher's "epilogue" to his New Rules on the May 28th episode of his show was right on. While pointing a great deal at politicians, it's something that everyone should remember in this data-everywhere world. As he said, "Even when you're just at Wal-Mart in your pajamas buying condoms, someone is taking a picture of it and putting it on a website called 'People at Wal-Mart Buying Condoms in Their Pajamas.'"
Here's the full transcript, and the video is below:
Jesus once said that there was nothing hidden that would not some day be revealed, but if he was alive today, and walked on water, it would be instantly on YouTube between a skateboard accident and a turtle biting a baby's ass. And the first comment would be "fag."
Even when you're just at Wal-Mart in your pajamas buying condoms, someone is taking a picture of it and putting it on a website called "People at Wal-Mart Buying Condoms in Their Pajamas." And Fergie, Fergie, Fergie -- whenever you're doing something shady in a hotel room, of course someone is filming it. Also be aware that, without makeup, you don't look anything like you do in the Black Eyed Peas.
And politically, it's even more ridiculous to think you can get away with a lie: Richard Blumenthal, running for the Senate in Connecticut, saying he was in Vietnam when he wasn't? This isn't camp, where you can tell a lie and no one will know back home. The Army keeps records!
Or John McCain saying, " I never considered myself a maverick," which of course prompted an avalanche of video, e-mails, letters and probably telegrams of McCain bragging that he was a maverick. There's video of everything, so to think you can get away with making a speech and just pulling stuff out of your ass, you'd have to be an egomaniac, a sociopath, or a world-class moron. Which brings me to Sarah Palin.
Now, last week Sarah said she knows what the Gulf states are going through now because, "I have lived and worked through that Exxon Valdez oil spill." Oh, please she 25, living in another part of the state that didn't see any oil. She "lived and worked" through Exxon Valdez the same way Christie Brinkley lived and worked through the Iranian hostage crisis. But she got away with it because she lied in the one place where it's still perfectly acceptable to lie -- inside the Republican bubble. It's where facts don't matter, because no one ever hears from that other side inconvenient called reality. 24 days into the oil spill, Fox News' Brit Hume said, "Where's the oil? You don't see it on the shore" -- like it's a hoax by pelicans to get free baths.
Within that bubble, people think they can get away with anything -- hiking the Appalachian trail? Getting your gay hooker from Rentboy.com? But they can't -- no one can anymore. If you don't believe me, text Tiger Woods and ask him.
And, speaking of hound dogs, our old friend John Edwards is looking for a plea deal this month, because he said he didn't have sex with that woman, and then they found video of him going down on her when she was six-months pregnant. Senator, there's got to be a simpler way to hide your face from the camera. Don't you have a hat?
In a bizarre incident, a woman knocked over Pope Benedict XVI at the Christmas Eve mass tonight. Nearly more unusual is the fact that while the pope was knocked down, video captured it.
A cell phone camera was one of many being used to capture images of the pontiff. As the pope was knocked down, video of the woman's act was caught. The woman, apparently unstable, jumped the barriers and knocked him down on his way to the altar.
The 82-year-old pope quickly got up and was unhurt. Footage aired on Italy's RAI state TV showed a woman dressed in a red hooded sweatshirt leaping over the wooden barriers and rushing toward the pope before being swarmed by bodyguards. Video shot by a witness showed the woman grabbing the pontiff's vestments as she was taken down, with Benedict apparently falling on top of her.
The Christmas eve mass had been moved up two hours to 2100 GMT or 10 PM, to ease the strain on the Pope during the busy Christmas season. Vatican spokespeople dispelled the rumors that the pope was ill.
As if the university has not suffered enough, a form of "cyber graffiti" has been used to threaten the campus of Virginia Tech (VT). VT sent out an on-campus advisory Thursday morning after threats were posted in a video on YouTube.
The mashup video includes threatening comments made on several videos of VT gunman Seung-Hui Cho. It was posted on the YouTube page of someone using the screen name "NextKillerVirgTech." That account has since been deleted.
According to the site, the page had been created on Oct. 21 by a 21-year-old living in the United States. It's unclear if any of that information is correct, but authorities currently believe it is likely the posting occurred overseas.
The message sent out by VT reads:
Virginia Tech Police have observed a You Tube posting making threats against the Virginia Tech community. We have received no direct threats at the university. The Virginia State Police and the FBI are assisting the university police. Currently,law enforcement believes the comments may have originated overseas. They are continuing their investigation. We will post again if new information emerges.
In April of 2007, Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 students and faculty members on campus, before killing himself.
The Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam has posted the only known video of the famous teenage diarist on YouTube. The video shows neighbors getting married on July 22, 1941, with Anne Frank briefly shown on the balcony. Here's the video's description:
July 22 1941. The girl next door is getting married. Anne Frank is leaning out of the window of her house in Amsterdam to get a good look at the bride and groom. It is the only time Anne Frank has ever been captured on film. At the time of her wedding, the bride lived on the second floor at Merwedeplein 39. The Frank family lived at number 37, also on the second floor. The Anne Frank House can offer you this film footage thanks to the cooperation of the couple.
Anne Frank died at the age of 15 of typhus in the German concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen, seven months after her arrest. Tragically, it was just two weeks before British and Canadian troops liberated the camp.
