Police violence against civilians is a phenomenon that has been known for decades. At the time, the Kremnitzer Commission was appointed to examine the issue, and its recommendations were not implemented. The law gives a police officer the authority to use reasonable force to perform his duty. "Reasonable" means not only necessary but also proportionate. We were all exposed to the arrest video of the young man from the Jesse Cohen neighborhood in Holon last week: breaking the eye socket, a series of blows to the head of a helpless citizen lying on the ground, grabbed by two policemen, and electrocuted with a taser gun until he needed hospital treatment for head injuries. They are markedly disproportionate compared to not wearing a mask, even if accompanied by a refusal to identify. 

After a fair inquiry, such thugs should be suspended from service. But that is not enough. The organizational culture of the police must be changed, and the subculture of violence and bullying must be eliminated. The common claim of the police is that the videos broadcast in the media usually do not show the beginning of the incident. Well, even if we assume that before the filming the citizen cursed the policemen, pushed them or tried to beat them (he has no chance of succeeding in front of two sturdy policemen) - there can be no justification for the series of blows he suffered while lying helpless and gripped by the policemen. It's hard not to recall the shock of the American thug who strangled a civilian to death in Minneapolis. And the shock is not only from the case of the distant Minneapolis, but also from the case of our Holon. According to police sources, Haaretz reported earlier this month, the violent incidents between police and civilians have multiplied due to the friction created by the enforcement of the obligation to wear masks.    

How can one explain the fact that Israeli society, including the judges (as on-duty detention judge Ilan Tzur, who for some reason complied with the police request and extended the arrest of the aforementioned battered young man, who was eventually released by the district court), is willing to accept a known phenomenon of police violence for decades? And does not do anything significant? My explanation is that many tend to divide society into "good" and "bad": we are the good, the law-abiding, the property-owners we have acquired by labor (in the US - the whites) and they are the bad, the law-breakers, the lazy who seek to rob us (In the U.S. - blacks.) This distorted view leads to a warlike conception that the hard hand of the police is directed only against the "bad guys" and keeps us, the "good guys." 

So it is, no. For years I have been trying to convince my readers that trampling on suspects' rights, defendants Detainees and prisoners are not the concern of others, but of all of us. Even those who have difficulty imagining themselves as suspects or detainees must imagine the possibility that their son will be a suspect or detainee. 

Did I succeed in convincing? Corona came and helped me: now everyone is present Suspected of serious offenses ("bad guys") but also against normative, law-abiding citizens, with no "criminal record", who work honestly You have run or are studying. They may have broken the law by not wearing a mask, but it certainly does not transfer them to the "bad guys" group, even according to a conservative view. Otherwise we will all find ourselves on the "bad" side and the distinction will be lost.

As part of the Institute for the Safety of Criminal Law to be established in Israel, every incident must be analyzed not only to punish the policemen-thugs-on-duty - for it is not just a few "rotten apples", but a phenomenon and subculture - but to find out how we got here: Why other police officers present at the incident did not stop the beating bully, through clarifying why the commander of the violent police officer did not take action in the face of past violent incidents (usually there is a history of violence), to the question of why the police did not pass on Allowed and Forbidden. In this way of learning lessons it is possible and necessary to start a reform, the need for which cries to heaven.

Prof. Boaz Sanjeru teaches at the Academic Center for Law and Business and at the Sapir Academic College and the founder of the website "Criticism of the Criminal Justice System"