Renowned civil-rights lawyer Alan Dershowitz tells
Newsmax TV that entire police departments should not be judged by the misguided actions of one officer.
"Every profession has people who overreact or exceed the rules. We should not be generalizing," Dershowitz, a Harvard Law Professor Emeritus, said Tuesday on "Newsmax Prime" with J.D Hayworth.
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His comments come in the wake of a shocking amateur video that shows a white deputy's arrest of a disruptive black student at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, S.C., during which he slammed the coed to the ground and dragged her across a classroom.
The video, filmed by a classmate, has gone viral and sparked a furor over whether excessive force was used and the ongoing nationwide dialogue over whether African Americans are treated more severely than whites. The FBI and the Justice Department have launched an investigation.
Dershowitz said he could not make a judgement about the officer's actions based on the video, but added:
"We're going to see more and more of these all over the world in every single democracy no matter how good the police departments are you're going to see some individuals sometimes overreacting. You're going to see videos which when put in full context perhaps are explained or justified."
Dershowitz urged intensive training for officers going into heated situations.
"Policemen ought to be told that everything they do will be seen by others. That has to be the operating assumption," he said.
"We have to understand that the balance we strike today is different than the balance we struck in the past because everything the police do is now visible. They have to be trained for that but, on the other hand, they have to be trained to intervene. That's their job."
"Sometimes they're going to make mistakes and they're going to make it often in good faith in an effort to prevent worse things from happening. That's the balance that has to be struck. Whether it's here in the United States or in Jerusalem or in England or in Paris."
Dershowitz said the issue is not unique to the United States.
"These problems are now arising all over the world and the police have to learn how to deal with them and we're the ones who the police are trying to protect so we have a stake in making sure that they're well trained to live in this new world," he said.
Dershowitz is author of
"The Case Against the Iran Deal: How Can We Now Stop Iran from Getting Nukes?" published by RosettaBooks.
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