Police brutality is human brutality. Excessive force, whether committed by policemen or gang members, is excessive force.

These issues are yet again in the media because of video footage shot on Bourbon Street showing three New Orleans police officers kicking, punching and wrestling to the ground a 64-year-old New Orleans man who supposedly was displaying public intoxication.

Internet forums are now debating whether the procedures used by the policemen are in the realms of legality.

Additionally, people seem to wonder whether the supposed intoxicated individual warranted any such beating.

Network news clips shown across America displayed the police officers’ struggle with Robert Davis. After watching the raw footage on the CNN news Web site, one clearly sees three police officers crossing the line of protecting and serving when one officer punched Davis, whose hands were already held behind his back by another officer, in the jaw four times.

The officers again mishandled Davis, now face down on the ground and of no apparent threat to the officers, when one punched him in the face two more times.

A CBS news correspondent noted on the CBS news Web site that it’s against New Orleans police procedure for officers to strike an individual on the head.

One officer is shown grabbing the collar of an Associated Press news producer and shoving him into the hood of a parked car. The officer yelled to the producer that he’s been in New Orleans for six weeks trying to stay alive and people like the cameraman want to come into New Orleans and mess up his city.

That is a reality the producer, myself and the countless numbers of people now discussing the situation can probably never fathom.

Hurricane Katrina has ravaged the city, but the real and consistent work was in the rebuilding and organization of the city long suffering from the woes of police and political corruption, gang violence and immense poverty.

In the immediate days following the Hurricane, according to The Boston Globe, two police officers committed suicide and, according to various other news reports, at least 200 other officers quit their jobs in reaction to not only the overwhelming task of rebuilding their city, but also securing their families, possessions and sanity.

To say the people securing New Orleans are stressed is an understatement.

But fatigue doesn’t permit an unwarranted beating.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, fatigued himself, stated on CBS’s Web site that he ” … didn’t know what the gentleman [Davis] did, but whatever he did, he didn’t deserve what I saw on tape.”

It’s amazing that, at least for the press, Davis states he holds no anger towards the police officers.

I remember being stopped by police and having my whole car searched for no apparent reason, and the first thing that ran through me were strains of anger.

But Davis is right.

Empathy is needed in this situation, but also a call for justice.

All three officers have been suspended without pay pending their trial. That initial call to accountability hasn’t been the case for numerous high and low profile accounts of police brutality from recent memory.

Think Erin Forbes in Philadelphia, May Ortiz-Molina in Chicago and Anthony Carty and Amadou Diallo in New York City, to name a few.

Incidents like the December 2003 altercation between Nathaniel Jones and Cincinnati police officers prove that at times, police officers, like other human beings, need to defend themselves.

And the police force many outsiders may deem excessive may be the only means of ensuring their own protection.

Thanks to videotape, we know that officers needed protection from Jones, not from people like Robert Davis.

The New Orleans police officers prove that too many times officers cross the line and continue to erode the already diminishing faith civilians have for those sworn to serve and protect.

Not even a police horse can block that fact.

Columns reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily that of the Northern Star staff.