(no subject)

[trinityvixen]

What the FUCK!?

No, really, what the fucking fuck!? I'm appalled. This...jesus. I don't care what you think about "kids these days," the fact is that incidents of juvenile crime are almost across the board substantially fewer. You've a better chance at throwing a stone and hitting water in the desert than you have of calling a kid a criminal and being right. Christ, FIRE THIS COP.

I'm beginning to regret giving Three Guineas such a hard time. When we read it in college, I thought Virginia Woolf was smoking something, but I look at the guy in this video and I have to wonder: if his precious manhood and badge of authority weren't undermined by his dorky outfit and even dweebier egg-mobile, would he feel the need to take out his replacement cock (that is, the other proof of his AWESOME MANLINESS aka his legal authority) and beat the kid with it? HE GRABBED THE KID BY THE THROAT AND SHOVED HIM TO THE GROUND. After repeatedly calling the kid a juvie reject. WHAT THE FUCK!?

Comments

You think that one's bad?

[teneda.livejournal.com]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/02/13/wheelchair.dumping.ap/index.html#cnnSTCVideo

Check this one out.

Re: You think that one's bad?

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

I already showed her that one (ok, msnbc's version) a little earlier. Yeah cops are batting a thousand these days.

Re: You think that one's bad?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

More on that story here (http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/feb/13/na-toss-from-wheelchair-brings-jail-suspensions/). Apparently, it only gets better. The deputy thinks she's going to be vindicated "when the truth comes out." I'd love to see what truth she's pulling out of her ass. THERE WAS A SECOND WHEELCHAIR DUMPING DEPUTY!!!

And it gets worse: the poor guy had an uncontrolled bowel movement (not uncommon with these injuries) and they left him to sit in it for hours. Holy hell, I want heads.

Re: You think that one's bad?

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

The funny thing about authority is that people who rely on it tend to think it makes them gods.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

I see you found the footage I was referring to earlier (saw this on GMA this morning). Like the incident with the guy in the wheelchair, they weren't the ones to break the story. I took some news person surfing YouTube to break the story and then find these people for comments. Any wonder why there exist quite a few law-abiding folks who don't trust cops.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Any wonder why there exist quite a few law-abiding folks who don't trust cops.

What's the point of having cops we can't trust? This is exactly the big-picture problem that NEVER gets addressed. Because the cops will go, "Hey, we admit it, this guy's a bad apple, but we've gotten him counseling/suspended him/fired him and now everything is fine." Everything is NOT fine. That kid will never trust a cop again. Christ.

[viridian.livejournal.com]

That made me so angry that there's a small part of me that truly hopes that cop gets shot or beaten to death one day.

ETA: and before anyone gets their knickers in a twist over me wishing death on anyone: everyone has triggers. This one happened to hit one of mine.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I'm right there with you. I look forward to this guy getting a drunk and disorderly that goes wrong some day. Maybe he'll end up being choke-holded to the ground and then stuffed naked in a drunk tank after being thrown in on his face (just to tie in all the shitty bad-cop abuses at once).

This is a KID. A friggin' KID. He didn't once flip off or curse out the cop, he just called him "dude." My God, he's a terrorist!

[viridian.livejournal.com]

I'm just SERIOUSLY disturbed by a policeman -- an adult whose job it is to protect kids, going off on the kid like that. If he'd just yelled, I would've said the kids should've just walked away, but he physically assaulted one of them.

And no, I don't agree with everyone who says he was probably just mad at his own kid, like it's an excuse. This man reminds me of nothing so much as the shop teacher I had who beat his girlfriend's dog to death. I'm sure, if he's willing to treat strangers like that, he's probably beaten the holy living fuck out of his own kids more than once.

:::RAGE:::

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I don't disagree on any particular point. This situation cannot come off AT ALL well for the police on any front. If these kids weren't disrespectful today, they sure as hell are going to be in the future. They were shown that the slightest thing wrong will end them up being manhandled, shouted at, threatened with juvie, and having the indignity of their parents being mad at them on top of it (unless Officer Fuckwit really lost his cool and couldn't keep a lid on his bullshit when he did get the mother of the one on the phone).

I fucking hope they sued. I hope that kid's mom hugged him hard and told him he didn't do anything wrong. Because there's nothing short of his having just shot a gun in the air that deserved this fucking response. ARGH.

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

And no, I don't agree with everyone who says he was probably just mad at his own kid, like it's an excuse.

Who the hell said it was an excuse? You know full well I don't like parents beating their kids, and I certainly don't like it when they beat other people's kids.

Still, this isn't Charles Manson, it's some idiot who freaked out and gave in to his inner Dirty Harry. I wonder why the hell he did this.

[viridian.livejournal.com]

I guess I don't even want to speculate on why he did it. I don't fucking want to know why. There's no reason you could tell me that would lessen my reaction to that fucker yelling at those kids like that, and you know me. I am ALL FOR YELLING. It just really upsets me that he's someone whose responsibility is the exact opposite of what he just did, there.

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

More like inner Eric Cartman. Matches the outer one.

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

He did it because he's a cop. He's been placed in a position of enforcing behavior from others, with no negotiations and no alternatives, and he saw somebody acting outside what he thought was mainstream.

I don't mean to harp on this, but police are notorious for this sort of thing for a good reason. It's only now, in the age of ubiquitous subtle video, that we're getting solid evidence of how widespread it is, and how really unjustified it is.

Imagine if the kid were black! Then he'd likely be dead...

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

Or perhaps someone will break his neck and someday his old friends will dump him out of a wheelchair.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Sweet, sweet karmic justice. We can only hope.

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

On the plus side, everyone's got video cameras these days, which makes it much harder for cops to get away with this. The cop should be fired, and the kid should sue the department and the cop individually for assault and battery, and a violation of civil rights.

[viridian.livejournal.com]

According to the Youtube page this happened a year ago, and he got suspended for like, a few days. Bah. I know one can't actually shoot people out of a cannon into the sun, but they could at least fire the fucker.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

My thinking goes "This is only a sign of things to come." This guy is CLEARLY an abusive, domineering person on a power trip and the only way to forestall his escalating to pulling a weapon on someone for no reason is to fire his ass now.

One of the posters on a message board where I picked up this video was like, "What the FUCK does it take to get someone fired from the police these days?" Apparently, a lot.

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

The wheelchair dumpers are currently only suspended, WITH pay.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Except the actual dumper. She's off without pay. But knowing how payroll shit takes forever to work out, she'll probably still draw money anyway.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

The cop should be fired, and the kid should sue the department and the cop individually for assault and battery, and a violation of civil rights.

Assuming the kid's parents have flexible working hours and are willing to do so (because the kid has no such rights himself), how much would that cost, approximately? $10K when all's said and done (or more), with maybe a $1500 retainer up front?

Real likely.

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

That's what public interest lawyers are for. The ACLU should have some lawyers that can get involved.

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

My guess is that this cop was angry at his own son, and transfered all his anger to the skateboarder. "You're going to get yourself killed" sounds like something a hysterical parent would say to his kid, not to an unfamiliar 14-year old who says "dude" too much. This is some guy who's found that "sticking his foot in you ass" doesn't accomplish all that much and is freaking out over it.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

I had that thought, too--the cop's reaction was far, far too overblown for the circumstances, which means that unless he's the most overly-excitable cop ever (unlikely), there was something else bothering him that got inflicted on this kid.

This is also the sort of situation where I don't blame the police department for a reaction like, "You're suspended for a week with a note on your record; if it happens again, that's your ass." The kid obviously wasn't seriously hurt, and presumably suffered no significant harm to his finances or reputation. He'll never trust a police officer for as long as he lives, but that's hardly something you can sue for.

The video posted earlier in the Pandagon link? That entire department should be out of a job and into a cell. That was grossly inappropriate for any circumstances--even if the reporters were lying about every shred of context, the police were still acting completely out of line.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I think the big picture, long-lasting effect is the problem here and in those other cases, too. You're creating a generation (literally in the case of the kid--he and his age folk seeing the video on YouTube) that won't trust the police. This means they won't seek legal means of redress for injuries and that scares the pants off me. It also means that they might not call when they're hurt (like the woman who was stripped) which could lead to serious complications or deaths. My God.

I do blame the police if they keep this guy around without MAJOR retraining. He's ready to throw 250 pounds (my estimate) at a 100-odd pound unarmed kid? What do you want to bet he'd have pulled a tazer or a gun if the kid in question weren't so obviously pre-pubescent? You want this asshole being the one giving you a ticket? He gets jumpy, you end up worse off. Maybe worse than worse.

This to me is a clear case of power-tripping. I agree that it seems as though he's bringing baggage into this from someplace else, but he is NOT allowed to half-choke a kid for skateboarding, for Christ's sake. I can't demand he do the inhuman and leave it all at home, but if he's carrying baggage that he can't manage, he can't have a badge. Period.

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

I agree that it seems as though he's bringing baggage into this from someplace else, but he is NOT allowed to half-choke a kid for skateboarding, for Christ's sake.

Oh, of course not. It's interesting to speculate, though. (There's a story in there!)

If this guy is my age, he grew up in a world where Joe Clark -- the principal who carried a baseball bat around his school -- was considered a national hero. (That was before all the unpleasantness with the strippers...) It was part of a common narrative in the 1980s that if we just used Tough Love we could turn delinquents into model citizens. It didn't work any better than love and understanding, but it was a seductive fantasy nonetheless.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The part that frightens me is that his inappropriate behavior might have been, even for one second backed up by the mother getting on the phone and hearing what happened. Because parents are going to trust that the police would tell the truth more than their kids. I sincerely hope that's not the case.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

From the perspective of someone who fears (perhaps rightly) that calling 911 in an actual emergency will lead to 20 minutes of hold music followed by an operator in India who I can't understand; and who's seen power-tripping cops firsthand; this behavior is terrifying. These kids have no recompense; even most adults don't because, as we've seen in many of edgehopper's posts, even an open-and-shut rape or harrassment case requires a hundred lawyer-hours of time. The police, and the legal system in general, serve to protect the rich/famous/powerful/connected and screw over the rest of us.

The police commissioner in charge of that guy could fire him or have him submit to no-pay suspension and mandatory classes. But he's probably on an overstretched budget with the politicians breathing down his neck to be "tough on crime", with a dearth of new recruits and a police officer's union that'll have his ass if he does anything without a damn good reason. So it's not a fight he's willing to have (or given limited reasources, should have) over this kind of incident. Not when he's probably got a closet full of illegal strip-searches to crack down on, certainly...