[hugh3]

Of course, and I'm sure that they have used unreasonable force on occasion.

I only got into this whole argument because the OP sounded surprised that ticket inspectors, of all people, were getting into unreasonable-force situations, as if it were crazy for ticket inspectors to be using force at all. I only wished to point out that it's reasonable for ticket inspectors to use reasonable force, and hence it's inevitable that eventually one of 'em is going to wind up using excessive force. But I'm starting to regret ever getting into this discussion since there's a much nicer one going on in another thread about the heat death of the universe.