LogFAQs > #951252375

So this police officer entered the room and approached someone who was minding her own business due to a perceived bad attitude. After asking her about personal details she didn't want to answer, she got up to leave - with a rude comment - and this prompted the officer to grab her arm and prevent her from walking away. After he grabbed her, she struggled to get her arm free, and this escalated to the point where the police officer smashed her head into an ATM. She fled into another building and was apprehended and pepper-sprayed. The officer then wrote a report stating that she attacked him first and shoved him so hard he lost his balance, necessitating the force he used against her.

So we can intuit from this story that the officer had no legal basis to approach this woman and did so because he perceived a bad attitude from her. Upon this woman not responding to his enquiries - to which she had no legal obligation to do, as she wasn't a suspect of a crime and was not otherwise causing a scene that required the intervention of a police officer - the officer grabbed her by the arm to prevent her from leaving and escalated the conflict. He then lied about it after the fact to make his actions look more justified.

I can buy that a part of his job is looking out for hostile people who might commit crimes. To a degree, he's justified in approaching someone who appears to be a risk. Policing can be a preventative measure, and if someone's being surly or aggressive police can intervene and ask for details.

But if he was justified in how he behaved and in how he reacted to the situation, why did he lie about the situation in a police report?

Why did he omit details that made him look bad and add details that made the other person look even worse than they already were?

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