Video: Man Slaps Philly Cop at Oktoberfest

TERRY ZECH @ 10/17/2012 12:02 PM

It was obvious in the video the man was going to get physical and the officer responded with force to stop the unlawful actions of the subject. He should have cuffed the girlfriend and then the subject as she was obstructing him.

Capt David-Ret LA County @ 10/17/2012 5:51 PM

Who in his right mind would bitch slap a cop in daylight and NOT expect a ligitimate ass whooping. I would have tore his head off and shit down his neck..

Pkrbndt @ 10/18/2012 7:09 AM

cops def have right to defend selves - this officer did everything right all way...except i wish that he didnt hit the guy so many times after he was down. But the tough part is that we are only viewing the tape from our perspective - they are the ones on scene dealing w/the incident. People should reapect men/women in blue.

ArtistPhiladelphia @ 11/2/2012 8:07 AM

The Big thing you don't see is actually that Officer Gress has been a problem for Years!

Besides the fact that if you look up Officer Gress google already predicts who you're looking for and brings the history of inappropriate behaviour with lawsuit after lawsuit.
http://articles.philly.com/2012-03-07/news/31132485_1_complaint-civil-case-arrest-and-other-charges

(I've Asked police BEFORE any of this surfaced if the captain Knew about Gress and "how was he still on the force?"and they said they knew about him and basically shrugged his shoulders.)

I Live on South st. and had already heard the stories of how he consistantly locks people up for small violations like drawing on the sidewalk with chalk or calling the wagon and cuffing and arresting people in when they were in front of a wine-and-cheese store-opening with wine in their hands ..wihtout a skirmish or loudness etc.and people seriously thought he was joking when he called it in instead of giving them a warning etc.
Personally one of the things I've seen was his huge argument with a woman in a car that did something like drive around the block to park out of the way of construction or something (forgetting what the argument was about) but basically Gress's technique was to Escalate and Escalate the argument so he can finish by SLAMMING the car door HARD on her (I wouldn't bother typing as much about it but it's worth mentioning that I think that's the hardest i've ever seen anybody slam a car door and i'm 46)(It sounds silly but if her hand was 12inches to the right it wouldn't have been the end but would've a trip to the hospital with broken fingers and ANOTHER "justified" lawsuit.)

Watching the video you don't see it but it's actually just Officer Gress doing what he enjoys the way he enjoys doing it.