Just watched the video.
Absolutely absurd number of police cruisers and officers show up, like roughly one million times how many were necessary. Especially given that nothing had happened.
The first guy was thrown to the ground at a time when he looked compliant. I agree that's inappropriate and then arresting his brother for just filming is also ridiculous. Destroying evidence is beyond ridiculous. The behavior of these cops here was certainly out of line.
But I will say this much in the other direction: there are some very rough parts of North Omaha and this looks like one of them. Cops are always on edge when they have to do anything in such areas, and with good reason. I wouldn't blame them for being concerned that while you're arresting one guy, his brother is just freely roaming around behind you and there are additional family inside a nearby house, of which you don't know the number. I disagree with their throwing the first guy to the ground, but given when the video starts it's hard to know if his behavior came anywhere close to justifying it. If they were simply asking why the cars were being towed, then of course not. If they were aggressive and overly confrontational, it may nudge us somewhat closer to understanding that initial takedown.
I can understand the cops not wanting to leave the brother behind their backs. Very easy to go from filming to shooting and they likely hadn't patted him down or anything. So an officer going to sort of put the brother on lockdown is not entirely unreasonable. That said, he had the right to film them. I do think it was not the most prudent thing for him to repeat the same shit a thousand times like "that's abuse, that's abuse, that's abuse, that's abuse, that's abuse" and he's screaming it, then switching to another phrase and saying it four thousand times. As I said, the cops are already on edge in such a neighborhood, now they've got someone making it hard to even think straight by filling the air with endless repetitive screaming. From their point of view, I could see how the situation felt like it was getting out of hand.
But I still obviously feel they were way out of line, and it seems to me based on the video that the whole thing should have been able to be resolved without them tackling or arresting either brother. Taking their camera phones is completely unacceptable.
I'm just saying I'm a little less eager to judge police who we ask to operate in some very dangerous areas around our country. I do think the way they need to operate in those neighborhoods is different than in others.
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