I'm in NO WAY defending what the cop did. No. Not at all. I just have ONE thing to say, from experience...

I was an EMT 1A ("A" means I was certified to drive and ambulance) in Los Angeles for about a year and a half in the early 90's (I found it wasn't for me, long boring story). In training we were told to NEVER approach a naked person acting erratically. The reason being PCP (angel dust or whatever the crap is) for some reason makes people lose it and want to strip naked and they can be unpredictably violent, and we should wait for the police to deal with them first. Follow them, but keep our distance.

Luckily I never had to. But I'm thinking the cop might have had that information in the back of his (maybe paranoid) mind and freaked out and made the wrong decision. Which obviously, in their business, should not be tolerated. Tazers work great. Pepper spray works great. Calling for backup works great. he screwed up. Somebody might've dosed the kid up at a party. The article said he was trying to get IN to the police station. Not running away from one.

In the job I had before the EMT work I tackled a guy on some kind of drugs who tried to run down, in his car, my co-workers one night (at the Pasadena courthouse) by myself, and then several others jumped in to hold him. The jerk was as strong as a linebacker and I got messed up tackling him and rolling up and down the stairs of the place wrestling him. He even bit a hole in my side. The police showed up, got out of their car and CASUALLY walked over, and while we all held the guys arms, put the handcuffs on him. Of course the paper the next day said "Police give pursuit and apprehend man on angel dust... etc" POLICE "gave pursuit and apprehended"? The reporters interviewed me in detail while the paramedics were cleaning my wounds. Trust police OR news reporters for the truth? Why? I'm just glad he had his clothes on. I can just see a picture of me on the front page wrestling with a drugged up naked guy. Wouldn't THAT make my Mom proud!