Crossing the line between justified force and brutality

Question

A beta reader of sorts (cousin) mentioned he thought my MC2 rather brutal in her capture of MC1 - though justified.

I have her dupe him into surrendering (believing himself outnumbered and outgunned). Once he does surrender, she does the following:

• searches him
• disarms him
• handcuffs him
• binds his elbows to prevent escape
• rigs a chokehold out of a dog leash
• threatens him with a hunting knife
• holds him at gun point
• threatens to geld him (psychological tactic only)

She is successful in convincing him that any unsanctioned movement is a bad idea. She uses these tactics because she is smaller than he is and she would lose in a fight. She cannot allow him, at that moment, to consider resisting.

Has she crossed the line between using justified force to bring in a dangerous prisoner and brutality?

It occurs in Bolivia shortly after an assassination.

To clarify somewhat, she does not go directly to the choke-hold or threat of castration. MC1 asks her something that makes her choose to go further as he is not in the mindset she wants yet.

Answer 1

The tone of your writing will make the difference

Written out in a cold hard list like that is certainly sounds brutal. MC2 has MC1 at their mercy and yet continues to threaten and abuse them. If you want to portray the brutality of the scene then you don't have a problem. If you didn't intend for it to sound so harsh then you need to look at how you describe their actions.

Why are they doing it?

When a character is truly brutal and cares little for the life of their target then they will show little emotion or even take pleasure in the acts. Writing their behaviour in this way will increase the brutality of the scene.

She uses these tactics because she is smaller than he is and she would lose in a fight. She cannot allow him, at that moment, to consider resisting.

This makes it sound like the motivation is fear. MC2 is afraid of what MC1 will do when they break out and are doing everything they possibly can to prevent that. You need to show your readers that fear, a voice-crack and shaking hand when pointing the gun something that displays that MC2 isn't as confident as their actions appear.

Her concern was she was without backup and if he resists, her chance to apprehend him is gone.

Desperation is a similar motivator to fear. Show how the character doesn't want to do this but feels like they have no choice. This works particularly well if you show us the reason for their desperation, why is this so important to them?

Characters acting out of fear or desperation is something we can emphasize with and will reduce the feeling of brutality in your scene. Potentially you still make one too many threats but if you make it clear that these are hollow threats and MC2 is unlikely to follow through it won't seem so brutal.

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A side note, if MC2 is performing an arrest in any kind of official capacity; law-enforcement, military or covert operation, they have certainly crossed the line. The most concerning is the choke-hold leash and the threat of gelding. Everything else is within the bounds of normal arrest behaviour.

Answer 2

Assuming the detainer is a police officer, in many jurisdictions this would be considered unnecessary force, i.e. illegal, and would likely result in the detainee having to be released.

Police forces in many nations are bound by principles of criminal justice ethics, and in fact, there are laws that police officers must adhere to in order to avoid misconduct.

Your officer is likely fully aware that misconduct will badly affect the case she is working on, so unless her behaviour is driven by personal factors rather than professional ones (e.g. fear, hatred, revenge, prejudice), this is likely too brutal.

Answer 3

Justification is a theme for you to explore

You decide what is justified. You decide what gives someone the right to do what she does.

• Do the ends justify the means?
• For the greater good.
• Fear and self-defense. Is it self-defense when she is the pursuer?
• No cause is just enough. As an officer of the law she has a duty to make apprehensions while maintaining the basic human rights of the prisoner.

I find a couple of things unlikely and requiring explanation, if you pursued this. Your officer is highly trained and presumably used to making captures. Or is she? If she is new, unqualified or unskilled in some way that might justify her fear. Your prisoner could also have a reputation that precedes itself. Even the most skilled and trained officer might be afraid when faced against a notorious fugitive. These are pretty drastic extremes, but sometimes that happens in our writing.

One thing struck me though. Something you said in a comment in response to me asking you if she was highly trained.

Yes, she is. Her concern was she was without backup and if he resists, her chance to apprehend him is gone.

That doesn't sound like she is afraid for her safety. That sounds like she is afraid she might not win.

If she does this just to be sure she wins, because she always gets her man, and they never escape when she does, then she is a sociopath. This is absolutely brutality.

But then again, maybe she needs to get her man because too much is at stake if he escapes. Too many people will die.

Or they live in a police state.

Regardless of which direction you go with, you should research takedown and restraint techniques for people of smaller stature vs people much bigger than them. Something tells me that even if she was okay with brutality,

Answer 4

It does depend on what her job is.

If she's special forces of some kind, it's very likely this is SOP. MC1 can think himself lucky he's still alive. As with the raid on Bin Laden's compound, taking a target alive is very much secondary.

For the military in general, this is something they shouldn't do, but evidence shows they'll almost certainly get away with it. It took years before anyone noticed that anything was happening at Abu Ghraib, and only then because some inmates died. Until Obama, torture of prisoners was a formal part of US military intelligence procedures - the issue at Abu Ghraib was simply that the staff there had not been told they could torture those prisoners, and that torture was not carried out according to procedures. She'll get a minor warning at best.

For the police in places ruled by law, this will almost certainly result in disciplinary proceedings. MC1 may need to make a formal complaint for that, of course. And the methods are not sound either - if she can rig a chokehold then she can equally well hogtie him, which is a much more effective way of stopping him running off. Or the cuffs can go on his ankles instead of his wrists, because however much bigger he is, removing his mobility limits his range to purely the reach of his arms. Then she waits for backup.

As a civilian, it's more of a grey area. If you're immediately afraid for your life or for others, nothing you do to protect yourself or them is illegal. Since it's a grey area, you may need to convince a court of that, of course.

But then you say it's Bolivia. Transparency International rate it 29/100 and 132nd out of 186 for rule of law. They had (and may still have) literal death squads of police going round executing street kids. For comparison, Saudi Arabia's police routinely sexually assault and beat prisoners as part of their interrogation, and they rate 49/100. Your MC2 is more likely to be commended for ingenuity, possibly with a verbal warning that we don't arrest these sort of people and we don't let them walk away. Normal rule-of-law principles simply don't apply in places like that.