Cop Threatens: ‘If You Don’t Want To Get Hurt, Don’t Challenge Me!’

Sunil Dutta

Those are the words of Sunil Dutta, a 17-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department, who injected himself into the national debate over the shooting death of Michael Brown via a controversial column for The Washington Post.

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In the article, which has gone viral and caused a tidal wave of backlash, Dutta said: “Even though it might sound harsh and impolitic, here is the bottom line: if you don’t want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you.”  HUH??????

For those who are protesting daily in Ferguson, Missouri, Dutta’s words are Exhibit A on why Americans, particularly African-Americans, have an issue with trusting police.

DON’T ARGUE WITH ME, DON’T CALL ME NAMES, DON’T TELL ME THAT I CAN’T STOP YOU, DON’T SAY I’M A RACIST PIG, DON’T THREATEN THAT YOU’LL SUE ME AND TAKE AWAY MY BADGE. DON’T SCREAM AT ME THAT YOU PAY MY SALARY, AND DON’T EVEN THINK OF AGGRESSIVELY WALKING TOWARDS ME.
– Sunil Dutta

Because he is a police officer, Dutta is saying Americans need to “shut up and take it, because even the slightest bit of intransigence is grounds for the cops to unleash a world of hurt,” writes Benjamin Freed of the Washingtonian.

“To say that putting up a verbal argument warrants bringing out the billy clubs, stun guns, or actual guns only stokes what’s been seen coming out of Ferguson in the past week — images of peaceful demonstrators being met with lines of officers rigged with military-grade equipment, marchers being fogged with canisters of tear gas, and people being slugged with rubber bullets after not moving quickly enough,” Freed said.

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Dutta is demanding “unresisting submission to police without argument or even legal protest,” J.D. Tuccille writes at Reason.com. “Just how do you ‘refuse consent to search your car or home’ without running afoul of the no-nos Dutta warns may get you ‘shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground?'”

Dutta’s words have also caused an overload on social media.

“So, ‘Do what I say or I will hurt/kill you?’ How does that even remotely correspond with ‘To Serve and Protect?'” Carter Gaddis wrote on Twitter.

“I’m a cop. If you don’t want to get hurt, don’t challenge me.”

If this is the motto cops are operating from, no wonder they are protesting day and night in Ferguson!