Update: Whitehall cop and pregnant shoplifter

In a recent story,  we reported that a pregnant woman was assaulted by an undercover officer at the Whitehall, Ohio Walmart. It turns out, we were badly informed. It’s pretty crappy, but it does happen. The man who originally reported this for us provided the information he was supplied, this is not a me versus him thing, we spoke and he suggested I go ahead and write an update.

I spoke with a few people regarding this incident, some witnesses, some Whitehall OH cops, and obtained the documents for this incident. There does not seem to be footage to review for the time prior to the video we found on facebook in which you can see a man and an officer attempting to apprehend the woman on the ground.

I initially wondered what crime (or maybe “crime”, depending on what she’d done) spurred this arrest as I wanted to know if she’d committed a victimless crime. It turns out that she did not commit a victimless crime, she was being charged with theft. The following is from the police report and details what was stolen:

The man seen basically flinging the woman away was not a police officer, he was a regular dude who apparently saw Officer Spezialetti get his legs kicked out from under him by the shoplifter. Excerpt from Officer Spezialetti’s official narrative:

In the interest of sharing correct information, we decided this incident needed revisited. The footage taken by the female witness, the video attached to this post and the one everyone saw on facebook, does appear rather sensational and looks as if it could have been a glimpse into an act of police brutality. But it just wasn’t. After conversing with Sgt. Kelso of the Whitehall police I watched the video again, more carefully. What I saw was that officer Spezialetti really wasn’t doing anything abusive to the woman he was attempting to arrest, she was moving around quite a lot and yelling, but he was not doing anything abusive or unlawful to her. Sgt Kelso reported that a crowd of people had been calling for the officer to be harmed prior to this footage. Of course, you are all thinking, “what kind of copblocker believes the cops?!”, the answer is- none usually, but I don’t see what he has to lie to me about. The bit of footage we have seems to prove everything he and the arresting officer said and everything in the official narratives.

I guess opinions on this specific situation may vary wildly. I believe that harm to person or property is legitimately criminal. I believe that victimless crimes should be fought and that the only cops I should call out for abuse are the ones who are doing dickish things. In my opinion, Officer Spezialetti driving to Walmart to apprehend a shoplifter (Walmart surveillance confirms the shoplifting, and yes, I checked) without hurting her or attacking her, is not abusive. I have aggressively and still am aggressively pursuing a couple abusive Whitehall cops, however this guy isn’t one of them.

It is important for us to not allow all the hype around police violence, race, the government, murder, etc. to cause us to be unable to be unbiased. As Ayn Rand declared, A = A. Things are what they are. This situation was obviously an out of control mess, that certainly is true, however I don’t see any cause to call this police abuse, misconduct, or brutality. Nearly every day the police in America kill at least one person, that is what we need to stop, not prosecution of legitimate crime… at least, in my opinion.

Update: Whitehall cop and pregnant shoplifter is a post from Cop Block – Badges Don’t Grant Extra Rights