: Re: Crossing the line between justified force and brutality A beta reader of sorts (cousin) mentioned he thought my MC2 rather brutal in her capture of MC1 - though justified. I have her dupe

@Carla500

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It does depend on what her job is.

If she's special forces of some kind, it's very likely this is SOP. MC1 can think himself lucky he's still alive. As with the raid on Bin Laden's compound, taking a target alive is very much secondary.

For the military in general, this is something they shouldn't do, but evidence shows they'll almost certainly get away with it. It took years before anyone noticed that anything was happening at Abu Ghraib, and only then because some inmates died. Until Obama, torture of prisoners was a formal part of US military intelligence procedures - the issue at Abu Ghraib was simply that the staff there had not been told they could torture those prisoners, and that torture was not carried out according to procedures. She'll get a minor warning at best.

For the police in places ruled by law, this will almost certainly result in disciplinary proceedings. MC1 may need to make a formal complaint for that, of course. And the methods are not sound either - if she can rig a chokehold then she can equally well hogtie him, which is a much more effective way of stopping him running off. Or the cuffs can go on his ankles instead of his wrists, because however much bigger he is, removing his mobility limits his range to purely the reach of his arms. Then she waits for backup.

As a civilian, it's more of a grey area. If you're immediately afraid for your life or for others, nothing you do to protect yourself or them is illegal. Since it's a grey area, you may need to convince a court of that, of course.

But then you say it's Bolivia. Transparency International rate it 29/100 and 132nd out of 186 for rule of law. They had (and may still have) literal death squads of police going round executing street kids. For comparison, Saudi Arabia's police routinely sexually assault and beat prisoners as part of their interrogation, and they rate 49/100. Your MC2 is more likely to be commended for ingenuity, possibly with a verbal warning that we don't arrest these sort of people and we don't let them walk away. Normal rule-of-law principles simply don't apply in places like that.

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