Policeman who slapped 14yo girl in face used ‘reasonable force’, insists chief (DEBATE)

A police chief in the UK has said that an officer used “reasonable force” when he hit a 14-year-old girl in the face during an arrest. Video footage from the incident in Accrington has gone viral in recent days.

The footage was shot while the teenager and a woman, 52, were arrested on suspicion of assaulting a police officer on Peel Street in the town on Monday evening. In the video, two police officers can be seen restraining the girl and, when the policeman hits her in the face, a bang can be heard as girl’s head collides with a metal shutter.

Lancashire Police Chief Inspector Andy Rhodes said he had personally reviewed the footage and the officers had his full support.

“As the officers dealt with the incident they used reasonable force to bring the situation under control. This involved the use of an open hand strike when a 14-year-old female attempted to grab the officer's Taser and radio,” Rhodes said in a statement. The police added that two officers required hospital treatment following the arrest.

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Rhodes also used his statement to send a message to the people who filmed the footage and to those who had been commenting on it without knowing all the facts. “It is very easy to judge from the sidelines without the full facts when you've never been in a similar situation yourself,” he said.

“These are your police officers and they are here to keep you safe. They do not come to work to be assaulted and they have my full support. Perhaps those filming the incident may have better used their time helping the officers to calm the situation.”

The officer’s actions have divided opinion on social media with many people calling for the police officer to be sacked while others praise him for managing to handle the difficult situation.

Former Senior Investigating Officer with the Metropolitan Police Peter Kirkham, told RT that the use of force was within the range that you might expect in that situation.

“As the Chief Constable said in his statement those of us that are on the sidelines and don’t have the full facts, we can’t make a full judgement,” he said.

“It will depend an awful lot on exactly what happened and exactly what the officer describes doing and why. But it certainly appeared to be a reasonable use of force to me on the face of what I saw in the video.”

George Barda from the Occupy London equality and social justice movement had a polar opposite interpretation of the incident. He said his first reaction was shock and dismay.

“If you watch the video, he effectively punches her face into a metal shutter behind her and clearly what happens after that is that creates all sorts of mayhem,” he said.

“Suddenly, a situation where there were two police officers trying to restrain a 14-year-old girl, becomes a situation where four or five other people are involved, there’s shouting in the background clearly it causes a lot more of a public nuisance then there was before.”

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