Police Chief Was Right to Fire Officer

I am responding to the column, “Maybe Chief Shouldn’t Have Booted Knotek” (July 12), regarding the firing of Laguna Beach Police Officer Keith R. Knotek by Police Chief Neil J. Purcell Jr., for kicking a transient. I wish columnist Dana Parsons had slanted the article to the “should” side.

Why? For two important reasons. First, firing a person is not an easy thing to do. I know. I teach others how to fire people. Maybe Chief Purcell lost sleep over it, but he did the courageous thing for the integrity of the police profession and the American community.

Purcell testified that he fired an officer who has a hot temper and felt no remorse about the kicking. No remorse means he did not feel bad about kicking a human being. Compassionate people cannot and will not tolerate someone kicking a dog, let alone a human being. If Chief Purcell had not fired the officer, he would have become an “enabler,” a chief who allows abusive police practices to occur.

The second important issue involves the “excessive force” matter. The mechanics of containing an assaultive person, according to assaultive behavior expert John Glabas, involves your weight.

I don’t know how much Kevin Dunbar (the “kickee”) weighs, but let’s say he weighs 150 pounds. I don’t know how much the three officers weigh, but let’s say they weigh 150 pounds each. I think it would be reasonable to expect that 450 pounds of people could hold a 150-pound person down.

Insofar as Dunbar was in the prone position (face down), his striking capability was minimal because of the limited range of motion that position presents.

In a related article on the same day (“Fired Officer Says Kicking Was Justified”), a testifying police officer stated that she had kicked a “mental case” and was not reprimanded for her actions. To put this total issue in perspective, if an employee in a psychiatric hospital kicked a “mental case,” he would be fired on the spot. And they do not have guns, batons, Mace, handcuffs or “academy training” at their disposal.

They have learned other methods of control, and that kicking and beating people is not acceptable.

One thing is clear. More compassion needs to be shown to human beings less fortunate than ourselves.

And for those violent people who require a level of force to control them, there are other methods of intervention available that are more humanistic and reasonable.

DAVE KELLEHER, Laguna Beach