I have written several times in this blog that the practice in the United States of police officers of automatically handcuffing everybody they are arresting has to stop because it's an inhumane form of torture. Considering "arresting someone" synonymous with "putting that someone in handcuffs" has to stop. Handcuffs should be a last resort and used only if absolutely necessary, ie. they should be in the same category as tasers and pepper spray. Cops don't go automatically tasing every single person they arrest "just in case". Yet they do put every single person in handcuffs as a matter of course.
And it literally does not seem to matter who that person is or what that person's condition is. There are outright horrendous videos out there of them handcuffing very elderly people (80, even 90 years old) who have difficulty moving, have arthritis, etc, and are absolutely and 100% not dangerous nor a flight risk, literally because of their physical condition. And they handcuff them even when the person directly complains about the pain.
There are way too many cases where the police arrests a child (not "child" as in "under 18", but as in "under 12" or so) and puts him or her in handcuffs, as a matter of course. Just the fact that they are arresting children is in itself a crime against humanity, but it makes it infinitely worse when they abuse the child like this, even though, rather obviously, the child poses no danger to the police officer or anybody. This is child abuse and shows extreme cowardice.
I genuinely do not know any other country in the world where police officers automatically handcuff everybody they are arresting as a matter of course, as protocol, and completely regardless of circumstances (even when the handcuffs very clearly cause physical pain and are absolutely unnecessary). There might be some countries, but at present I'm not aware of any.
This is an outright human rights violation, yet funnily nothing is done about it. Nobody is complaining about it (I'm literally the only person I know who has ever commented on this, at least at this extent), no other country is admonishing the United States for this practice, nothing.
And do you know what's the worst thing about it?
The fact that police officers know that it's a form of physical torture, and they don't care.
One could easily think that "they are just taught in police academy to automatically handcuff every person they are arresting, they aren't thinking that it's a form of torture, they just think that it's a completely harmless way to restrain someone."
No, they do know it's a form of torture.
Take, for example, this video, where a cop goes on an ego trip, doesn't like that someone is talking back to him and puts him under arrest. Pay special attention at the exchange that happens at 8:35 in the video:
Cop: "You want two sets of handcuffs?"
Man: "It hurts, man, it hurts!"
Cop: "I can do two sets of handcuffs."
He knows it's torturing the man, and he's threatening him with even more of it. There's literally no reason whatsoever to use two sets of handcuffs, other than cause even more pain. They would literally serve no other purpose in this situation.
This is the most direct and unambiguous admission I have ever seen from a police officer that he knows that the handcuffs cause physical pain, that it's physical torture, and he outright threatens someone with even more of it.
Deliberate physical torture is a crime against humanity, it's against basic human rights. And these police officers know perfectly well that handcuffs can be used as a form of torture.
Yet, nothing is being done about it. Just great.
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