Reply #42: Comment on the Glass Breaking. [View All]

[happyslug]

Safety Glass comes in two types, Laminated which is two pieces of glass with a plastic liner to keep the glass together if the glass breaks and Tempered glass, which is heat tempered and when it breaks, it breaks into tiny little pieces. In the US Automotive Windshields are laminated for Windshields must be "Shatter Proof", almost every other glass in an Automobile is Tempered Glass, for it is cheaper and stronger but breaks into tiny little pieces when it breaks.

Having said that, it is clear how this glass break it was NOT safety glass, it was ordinary plate glass. In my opinion should NOT have been installed in that location, but Plate is cheaper then Tempered Glass (And Tempered Glass, once tempered, can NOT be cut unlike Laminated and Plate glass).

One last comment on Glass, when I sold glass we had a saying, glass was designed to break. We joked that out guarantee on glass was give steps or five seconds whichever occurred first. Why did this glass break? Something hit it, but the force needed to break it could have been as little as a bee hitting it. The fact that the glass broke proves nothing EXCEPT that something hit it. The amount of force could have been as little as a bee hitting it, or as strong as a car hitting it at full speed. We can NOT tell by the fact that the glass broke.

Now, as to the Police Officer, it looks to me he had the defendant in his control and was taking him off the train. Once off the train, the officer was apparently taking him to a wall to cuff him. The Officer seems to want to avoid cuffing the person on the train (So not to tie up the train) not cuff him outside on the train for the same reason. Given that the preferred place to cuff someone is on a wall, to the wall of glass is where the officer was taking the Defendant. Remember the officer did NOT have complete control over the Defendant, through the defendant appears NOT to be fighting him (Through also NOT co-operating with the officer). Thus the Officer taking the suspect to the wall is completely understandable. The Glass breaking is just the nature of Glass (Through that brings up the issue why those panels are NOT tempered glass which in my opinion they should be). In simple terms does NOT look like a case of excessive use of force by the Officer, more a picture of an arrest where the Officer was making sure the defendant was off the train so not to tie up the train and then the officer's bad luck of trying to use a plate glass panel as a wall.