The Mesa County (CO) Sheriff’s office ruled that a deputy who grabbed a man’s testicles to subdue him acted reasonably. The incident involved a man who was resisting arrest and elbowed Deputy Hassan Hassan while the Deputy was attempting to cuff him. Once Deputy Hassan grabbed the suspect’s genitals, the suspect stopped resisting.

The use of force in any arrest situation is reviewed on a case-by-case basis, and in this case, it was determined that there were no injuries that resulted from the use of force and that Deputy Hassan acted appropriately in the situation.

Of course, incidents like this bring up questions of gender and beg the question: What if the officer or the suspect had been female? The Sheriff’s department spokeswoman, in an interview with the Grand Junction Sentinel paper, said,

Deputies are taught to look for opportunities to gain compliance quickly, and in this case the actions are deemed reasonable although not ordinary. The technique would not be effective with a female.

Fair enough.

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