Doug Bahl is my son’s ASL instructor at St Paul Technical College, and a well known deaf activist. The young police officer had only a year with the department. There seem to be radically different stories from each side, and Internal Affairs is investigating.
I tend to support law enforcement, and my brother in law is a Sherriff’s Deputy. But this seems like the cop was just a little too quick to assume Doug was reaching for a gun. Thought he had himself a real terrorist, I suppose. Would be interesting to see the squad car video. All this will be sorted out eventually, and the taxpayers of the city of St Paul will have to cough up some kind of settlement here I imagine.
Does anyone remember that we are a nation of laws, founded on the Constitution and Bill of Rights? Since 9/11 we have allowed the goverment to gut the Constitution in order to "protect us" and "hunt for terrorists." Who are you more afraid of: 20 crazy muslim extremists? Or thousands of trigger happy law enforcement officers who no longer need warrants or to follow due process? Who is going to protect us from them?
I will post the e-mail and pictures his son sent out.
This just scares the crap out of me, because if the cops start macing you after a traffic stop because they don’t like the way you are moving in the car… well, what are you supposed to do, lie there and take whatever happens until the cop’s adrenaline rush wears off? Who can take five, ten, or twenty minutes of sustained attack without putting up a defense. I’m over fifty, and I don’t think I’d do well with some young buck opening a can of whoop ass on me.
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About the Author:
I am a cybersecurity and IT instructor, cybersecurity analyst, pen-tester, trainer, and speaker. I am an owner of the WyzCo Group Inc. In addition to consulting on security products and services, I also conduct security audits, compliance audits, vulnerability assessments and penetration tests. I also teach Cybersecurity Awareness Training classes. I work as an information technology and cybersecurity instructor for several training and certification organizations. I have worked in corporate, military, government, and workforce development training environments I am a frequent speaker at professional conferences such as the Minnesota Bloggers Conference, Secure360 Security Conference in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, the (ISC)2 World Congress 2016, and the ISSA International Conference 2017, and many local community organizations, including Chambers of Commerce, SCORE, and several school districts. I have been blogging on cybersecurity since 2006 at http://wyzguyscybersecurity.com