Cooler police heads needed to prevail in Wildwood (Opinion)

The video is hard to watch yet the mayor is OK with it. As new video comes out with twenty year old Emily Weinman after her arrest, I keep going back to the one where she's beaten by Wildwood police officers because she wouldn't give them her name, all happening in front of her 18 month daughter. The more I watched it the more I kept asking myself why three police officers needed to go "smackdown" for a woman half any of their sizes.

Here's the explanation offered by one of the officers in the video. "Listen to me, now's not the time to argue this, number one you've got a baby in your hand." It's also not the time to beat the crap out of a mother in front of said baby. A bystander says to the police officer, "yeah but you punched her in her face though," to which the officer replies, "yeah well she tried kicking us, that's it." Really? Punching her a few times in the head is the only thing they could think of? Three Wildwood police officers in full uniform need that much force to over power a 20-year-old mother?

Then comes what sounds like another officer offering this explanation, "I go to stop her for underage drinking, she says she's 20, she had twisted teas, she wouldn't give me her last name, so I said, 'Hey if you're not going to give me your last name, you're going to be locked up.' She tried walking away from me. When she tried walking away from me I grabbed her, she tried kicking at us, so I slammed her in the ground, she kicked him and then I hit her a couple of times, then I put her in cuffs and locked her up."

When you look at this girl and these cops and watch this situation unfold there had to be an easier way to handle the situation. There was no reason to hit her like that. I've spoken to several police officers both on and off the air who say a veteran police officer would have handled the situation much differently. Cooler heads needed to prevail and those cooler heads should have belonged to those police officers who didn't look much older than Emily Weinman. Yes it's a hot day and yes there are a lot of annoying people on the beach but they need to be better trained to handle that, or do they?

Cape May County Prosecutor Jeffrey Sutherland announced the officers involved in the incident will not face criminal charges but could face discipline by Wildwood police. Wildwood's mayor has publicly defended the actions of the officers. Think about that if you ever get into a situation with a cop in Wildwood.

This is all because Emily Weinman wouldn't give her last name after passing a breathalyzer test. One could only imagine what would have happened if she had been drinking.

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