Dude had a crowbar. The cop had equivalent. I think you'd have a stronger argument for making the case that the cop use excessive force if the copy had a weapon of great strength, like a taster, gun, and so on.

If the cop had just been: "Put the crowbar down and get on your knees" and the guy swung the crowbar at the cop instead, we'd all be talking about how dumb the cop was.

You've got to figure that a bruised thigh is factored into the cost of doing business for these guys.

I bet the overwhelming majority of thieves with crowbars would not fight when facing 4+ police officers.

The only way cops are going to 100% assure they never get injured on the job is by brutalizing or murdering every person they encounter. There has to be an acceptable level of risk; here there was no immediate risk of injury until the cops moved in. They probably had extra cops around the house and on the street in case the thief ran away, so they totally could have just told him to put the bar down and surrender.

Maybe they had extra information like they face-IDed the guy and he was a known violent maniac, but I refuse to give benefit of the doubt to police violence.

How else are they supposed to get the 8x damage multiplier?

I'm fine with his getting kneecapped.

I don't know, not giving the criminal a chance to do more criminal things seems like the right thing to do. And a Billy club to the knee takes care of that right there. In America there was a non-zero chance that man would have been shot since he was brandishing a weapon.

Also falling into the "difficulty feeling sympathy" camp here.

If the standard police response is to brutalize or murder everyone doing a crime, then the standard response to being caught is more likely going to be to run away (causing more risk to the public) or fighting desperately for your life (causing more risk to the police).

Getting "kneecapped" can easily be a lifelong chronic injury. Remember the police aren't there to punish the criminal - that's what a court is for. Their job is entirely to stop the crime in progress with the minimal amount of harm to the public (including the perp, and yes themselves) and bring the accused to the calm & deliberate part of the system.

If *I* was getting my house broken into I would also want to kick this guy in the balls, but I definitely would not want the cops to do it for me.

TL;DR: You can enjoy the schadenfreude of this guy getting his commupins but you can also recognize the unnecessary level of violence on display.

So with the exception of northern ireland (where police have been and still are political) the police in british isles are alright imo.. I get the feeling from the video that they know this guy and have experience with him, and devised their suprise billy-club + dogpile tactic based on that knowledge.

Police here in republic of Ireland are not armed (though there are special armed police that can be called in)
here s agood story about how 3 strapping unarmed gardai just fucking dogpiled into a crim in a bathroom who had a sumbachine gun and a fucking grenade!!!
They arrested him, no-one died.

https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2020/0724/1155397 -rusty-grenade-spring-stopped-devoy-rampage/