Whoops, Cops Picked The Wrong Black Guy To Harass

Can't say I agree with everything 93Devil posted, and the use of "boys" was definitely out of line, but his last post does answer some of my questions.

If there are lookouts shouting "Five-O," then you have to assume something is going on. I just wonder how this reporter was dressed. If he was really trying to "blend in," then maybe he just did too good of a job.

This isn't a DWB. This is a reporter trying to blend into a dangerous neighborhood with drug deals going on around him. Can't say I agree with how he was treated, but I can understand the officers being on their guard in this situation.

Still, 93Devil, a couple parts of your hypothetical don't quite fit. As jgmacg pointed out, is there any indication that anybody ran? And I still don't see any evidence that the police were there on a call. That does make a difference.

And I'm staying out of the Virginia Tech thing. I missed what people are talking about there, which I'm thinking is a good thing.

 

So if they run they're drug dealers? And if they stand still....they're drug dealers?

Here's a Modest Proposal, 93.

Why don't we just round up all the young black men in America - for their own safety, of course, and that of the local police - and send them off to some sort of quarantine? Some place where we could, I don't know, pre-emptively concentrate them? For their own good, obviously. Rehabilitate, or at least re-educate them. Keep them out of trouble. Make the streets safe for everyone. Or at least the folks left free to walk them.

Think of the savings in time and money and worry and thought. It's a win-win right down the line.

 

Are you allowed to yell fire in a crowded building?

Sure you have the right to write about college athletes, but good taste and professionalism should keep you in check.

There was about 30 pages written about this on another thread.

 

Thanks, jgmacg. I was trying to come up with an eloquent way to say that.

Let me add this: Maybe the reason they were yelling "Five-O" and running was because standing still gets you cuffed and arrested in that neighborhood, regardless of whether you're doing anything wrong.

 

These men were being detained, not arrested. I am not for arresting innocent men. If I am at a Klan rally wearing a white power t-shirt and the cops show up doing a raid, am I mad that they cuff me? No. So long as I do not get booked once I explain who I am and show my credentials.

Did the writer say he was arrested?

JG, you are getting a little extreme.
Funny though, what you described...

"Some place where we could, I don't know, pre-emptively concentrate them? For their own good, obviously. Rehabilitate, or at least re-educate them. Keep them out of trouble. Make the streets safe for everyone."

Sounds a lot like a public school. Not ripping the comment, but it made me think.

 

Happens to white reporters also from time-to-time. I had it happen to me one afternoon while I was covering a baseball game in a local park. A fight broke out in the parking lot and it seemed to be pretty bad because a half-dozen or so cop cars drove up.

Being the reporter I am, I figured I would go and check to see if there were any serious injuries/anything to report. I walked up to one of the cops standing off to the side and said "Hey man, what's going on?" He turned to me, grabbed my wrist, twisted it behind my back and shoved me over the hood of his car. He then cuffed me and put me in the back of his car.

The whole time, I was asking him what I did and he kept saying "Interfering with the duties of a police officer." I even told him I was a reporter and only checking out what was going on and he replied "Well, now you have a good story to write, don't you?"

After everything calmed down, another officer came to talk to me and find out what my story was and I told him everything. He walked over to the cop who placed me in custody, talked to him a bit and then returned to take me out of the car and remove my cuffs. He apologized to me, saying that they responded to a call of a fight between 12-20 individuals and didn't know who was who.

I guess I could have written a story about it, but I didn't. I guess I could have also mentioned that I was white and the cop was black. The chief of police called me the next day to apologize for the incident. The cop who cuffed me and put me in the car never apologized.

 

You could have and you SHOULD have.

 

Stagger, I kind of agree with you. I would not have written a story either. Writers should try not to be the news.

With how the situation was handled, you probably earned some points with the police department, and this might have helped a colleague down the road.

 

93,

I bet if you ever were "detained" while just doing your job or walking down the street, you'd feel differently about it.

 

Why is it that we have to "earn points" with the PD so they won't abuse their authority in the future? We are in a period now where most people will applaud cops for doing almost anything. This story should scare and/or anger anyone in this business and anyone who claims to be in this business who doesn't see that ought not to be in the business at all.
And people wonder what kind of law-enforcement culture produces a Mike Nifong.

 

I agree that this is a huge problem. Do you want police to solve crime, obviously after the fact? Or to prevent crime?

What steps would you take to prevent a murder, a rape, an armed robbery or a home invasion?

Maybe if the reporter wore his fedora with his press card in the brim, this wouldn't have happened. But in trying to blend in, he set himself up for this treatment. I'm sure he prayed for this as well.

 

Oh, of course, because wearing a white power t-shirt is exactly the same as wearing black skin.