White American police officer orders dog to bite black man

Sometimes headlines tell you everything you need to know. The content of the headline above is subject to police investigation and has already led to a criminal charge. But as is the way in the US justice system there is no such thing as subjudice. When someone gets arrested for some heinous offence, the defence attorneys and prosecutors and neighbours et al come out to say exactly what happened and who is to blame. You can't do that in the UK. Reporters in the UK know that there are things they cannot write for fear of breaching the most basic legal tenet in the history of the British legal system which is that a man or woman is innocent until proven guilty in court. In the US that's so different Thus we have the latest scandal involving a white American police officer and a black man arrested arising from some domestic dispute. The officer, one Nickolas Pearce from Utah, arrives on the scene in Salt Lake City and orders Jeffery Ryans, a black man, to get to his knees in his back yard. He had already warned him that if he didn't get on his kness he would get a bite from his canine. Ryans sinks to his knees with his hands raised as high as he can get them and then, and only then, does Officer Pearce order his dog to give the guy a bite in the leg for good measure. The bite is said to last 20 seconds. While on his knees and getting bitten another police officer steps forward and handcuffs him. Now, for American folk this may be just another day in the Salt Lake City police department. But in a country where white police versus black men as an issue has become one of the most controversial scandals in recent years, the dog-biting episode makes for very uncomfortable reading. You could argue, I suppose, that had the person involved in the domestic dispute been a fine upstanding white fellow, Officer Pearce might have acted in the same way. Go, Fido, bite him! I don't know but I doubt it somehow. Anyway, the result is that Officer Pearce has been charged with second degree felony assault, and the bitten Jeffery Ryans has got a nasty toothmark gash on his left leg and is heavily bandaged. In America, it is said, black people are warned from a very early age that if a police officer tells you to do something you do it, no argument. The trouble is the black man in this case did do as he was told but still got bitten by the white man's well-trained dog. The law will now take its course. Hopefully.