The problem with bystander video is it doesn't begin at the beginning. Never seems to. Such is the case of this video that is shocking people in New Jersey and having many once again scream about inhumane treatment at the hands of law enforcement officers. It shows a woman inside a welfare office who is desperately clinging to her 18 month old child while lying on her back on the floor. Police are desperately trying to get her to release the child so they can arrest her. Of course, it looks terrible. It looks emotional. It looks wrong. Because this isn't something we see every day.

Unfortunately cops see it far too often.

Now you would be better off if you could have seen a video showing everything from the beginning, and not only starting once it got to this point.

It happened in Brooklyn, but the Jersey angle is that the mother was wanted on a New Jersey warrant. How did police find this out? Because she and her child were at a Brooklyn public benefits office for food stamps. The story is she was there for two hours and resorted to sitting on the floor due to a lack of chairs. But a security guard wanted her to move because she could have been blocking people trying to walk by. She refused repeatedly and eventually the security guard told her she needed to leave. She also refused to do that. So police were called.

Once law enforcement were on the scene she was told to get up and wouldn't. Once again, someone disobeying a lawful command and being responsible for what happens next. It became clear she was not going to comply, so she left the officers with no choice but to remove her. When they tried, the video captures what happened. She ends up on her back on the floor, clinging to her child, and police officers are trying to get her to let go of the child. She won't. It becomes a struggle. The officers clearly were trying to get her to release the child so the child would be safe. They cannot just say, "Well she said no, so let's just not do our jobs and leave." It doesn't work that way.

Of course you wouldn't know that from the bystanders who instantly turned into junior high students shouting and calling and recording. They are repeatedly warned to back up before the situation got completely out of hand, and instead they acted like the live audience of an episode of the Jerry Springer Show.

But who is made to be the bad guy here? The cops, naturally. Not their fault. They are telling her to let the child go, and she won't listen to them just like she refused to comply with the orders to get off the floor in the first place. Everything that happened to this woman and her child was in her control. She choreographed all this, not the police. But the headline will never read Hysterical Woman Puts Child In Danger By Disobeying Commands. Because that's the stupid world in which we now live.

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