Sometimes, cops are known for being a little aggressive — brutal, even. That said, a police officer in Florida went all out on a young bike rider by hitting him with his car and then quarterback-tackling him to the ground. The Broward County deputy drives up in an unmarked SUV, scattering several youngsters on their bikes in Deerfield Beach. He targets one boy in black on a red bike and seemingly runs over the child’s foot before making a violent arrest on the limping victim.
“What did he do, write in the dust on a Tessler?” questions a confused Redditor. Plenty of online users were baffled at why this wild incident even occurred. According to reports, the Broward County police were there to apprehend and disperse “a large crowd of juveniles riding bicycles recklessly and engaging in unlawful activity.” The reason was that the kids were “conducting dangerous bicycle stunts” and breaking traffic laws, resulting in “significant traffic disruption” to the local neighborhood, per the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
The internet was rather shocked to see how viciously the police officer handled the young cyclist, not to mention how many more cops unnecessarily showed up at the scene. “Why are they singling out this one kid, though?” questions a Redditor. “5 cop cars would make sense if they were trying to round up all the kids, but nope, just goes after that one. Seems weird af.” The Sun Sentinel also reported that several more children were arrested and detained, but it’s still very odd that the one boy was treated like a dangerous suspect on the loose.
“What an idiotic country we live in,” groaned another Reddit user. Because “the most logically sound way to stop a kid’s reckless behavior is to… ram into them with an SUV.” A second commenter says, “He practically ran the kid over with his car!” Several more agree that it was clear the boy’s foot was run over as his bike came to a sudden stop when it came into contact with the police SUV, after which he hobbled away with a missing shoe. “In short, that cop ran him over, then f—ed him up. Kid got ragdolled,” concluded a commenter.
Some Believe the Kids Got What Was Coming to Them
While not straight-up defending the violent cop’s actions, several commenters claim they understood why such lengths were taken to apprehend the juvenile cyclists. “These bike groups are the scum of the earth. They do the dumbest s— because they feel invincible in numbers,” growled a user. “They think it’s just kids being kids, but these bicycle groups are seriously dangerous, and they don’t care who they hurt,” seconds another. A third said they have “zero sympathy” for such hoodlums, claiming they are “violent and destructive and have a pack mentality.”
Whatever the case, both the young bikers and the enraged cop seem to be at fault here. That said, the officer definitely should have taken a less “deadly force” approach to apprehend a child. As Personal Injury Attorney George Palaidis noted in a report, “Even if kids are pissing off the officers, this is why police are trained in de-escalation.”
