After hearing about Miami cop Mario Figueroa’s pointless assault on a prone and handcuffed suspect, some of you might have wondered whether anyone could possibly bring themselves to defend him.

There’s always the police union:

According to the police union, Figueroa’s attempted face-punting was, in fact, a “de-escalation technique” that proved Figueroa “showed great restraint.” You read that right.

“While some have characterized this as police brutality, it couldn’t be farther from the truth,” newly minted union president Edward Lugo, who once nearly lost his job after getting caught in a 2009 FBI sting, wrote in a multiparagraph letter this afternoon. “The only thing brutal about this entire incident is the suspect that endangered the lives of the community in which our Miami Police officers risked their lives to take this dangerous man off the streets. From the onset, the media stated that Officer Figueroa had kicked the suspect on the head.”

I suppose Figueroa could have shot the handcuffed guy lying on the ground, but by any decent person’s standard, Figueroa did not show restraint and Lugo is full of it.

RTWT for more on the shadiness of Miami’s police unions in general and Lugo on particular.

Originally posted on May 10, 2018.