Toledo Police Chief George Kral:
“A detective told the defendant 11 times to get back and stay out of the investigation”
“These two officers have two fighting subjects and there’s a third person they can’t keep their eye on because they are trying to control the two people who are resisting arrest. So there was a heightened danger there.”
“The community has questioned if the officer used excessive force in taking her down. Sure. Obviously you call them hand stuns to get her under control. The public sees it as punches. Is there something else he could have done? Sure he could have maced her. He could have tazed her. He could have hit her with his asp which are all much worse in my opinion that putting hands on someone. I got a lot of feedback saying well this looks really bad. When some resists arrest it looks bad. There’s no way for a fight to look good. As long as someone is resisting arrest those officers are allowed to that amount of force that’s reasonable and necessary to get that person under arrest. If that takes open hand stuns, closed hand stuns, knees to major muscle groups they’ll do that. We’ll want to get the person handcuffed as quickly as possible to avoid injury. “