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I have not read any other posts so as to give my view without knowing what other peoples perspectives are.
That said, I do not accept you trying to conflate the Gates arrest with this one, as the two are completely separate issues. I also do not accept you trying to justify or explain Kaepernicks disrespect toward America and the 9/11 victims based on this encounter.
I will start out by saying that up until about the 8 minute mark everything seemed fairly routine in the interaction between police and the suspect. I do refer to him as a suspect, because the police didn't just happen to stop and find him, they received a call from someone saying a suspicious man was doing something with a shovel, therefore the police already suspect something might not be right with this guy. I will also note that the suspect having prison tats and the cop noticing this heightens the suspicion level.
The cop tries to empathize with the guys story, and even is heard laughing with him.
In my view the trouble starts when the guy again tries to leave despite having been told to not attempt to go to the guys house (Charlie) next door, and the cop who is standing on the steps puts his hand out to prevent him from going any further. He tells the guy to sit back down, and the guy begins to have a change of attitude.
Then the guy makes a huge mistake by calling a friend and asking for them to come to the scene because the police are harassing him. As an individual I'd never have done that as it will only escalate the tension between myself and the cop.
From the cops perspective, he now wants to prevent any further attempts to have this guy have other friends of his head toward the house.
Now the first question I have for you, is if you were the cop in this situation, would you want this guy calling his friends to come to the scene?
If not then you obviously would demand he turn over his phone. The suspect obviously refused to hand it over and that is when everything escalated. . Under normal circumstances cops probably do not have the need or maybe even the authority to take someones phone who has not committed a crime. However that clearly changed when this guy calls his friend to come over.
As I watched the rest of the video, it was hard to tell what exactly was going on. The cop regardless of the physical arrest kept jawing back and forth with the suspect, which was an error in my view. He should only have stated commands and expected the guy to comply. By jawing back and forth, it only served to keep the tension high because the suspect was belligerent and it served to make him more so.
Now, regardless of whether the guy should have been arrested or not for refusing to turn over his phone and pulling it away from the cops grasp is one thing. We can 2nd guess whether the cop could have verbally commanded the guy to put his phone down, and if the guy complied, maybe none of this would have played out this way.
We can also wonder if the suspect had kept his seat and just let the cops do their job without trying to leave the area, or call his friend to come over, maybe none of this would have happened.
In my view both could have handled the situation better to avoid the physical arrest. Frankly, I do not see a racial component to this as I suspect if the cop were black and the suspect were white, this still could have happened if both acted in the same manner. Many a white suspect gets punched or injured when scuffling with the police.
With all that said, I'd like to know what the end result of the story is, regarding whether this guy should have been at that location. The article made it sound like no charges were filed against the suspect, which leads you to believe it was ok for him to be there. It also made it sound like the cop was stripped of his credentials to be a LEO.
Even if the cop was fired, I would be surprised they would attempt to take his ability to work away for this one incident. Neither he nor the guy were seriously hurt. So for the cop to lose his career over this one incident seems suspicious. Either he had a jacket full of incidents showing too much aggression, or it was a politically motivated action against him.
Anyone know or have a reasoned view on why he was dealt with so harshly?
That is the problem with these videos, they are nothing more than a sound bite of a bigger story.
When you work as a police officer in a community, you start seeing everyone there thru the view of its worst elements. and there is no training that deals with this. and there is far too little interaction between the police and the BEST parts of the community.
This is an important point that many people don't realize, or care to empathize with. If you tend to deal with the dregs of society on a regular basis, it hardens you in ways you might not even be aware of.
I have LEO's in my family, so I am very aware of the desensitization and jaded views that can become normal if not recognized. The trouble is that being suspicious is part of the job, as it helps to prevent crime, make arrests after the fact, and most importantly, helps to keep them safe.
The day you start assuming the traffic stop will just be routine and let your guard down, is the day you might not come home to your family.
So it is a tough balance to treat people "normally" when doing so might endanger you.
Why should the rest of the Black population pay for the shenanigans of the worst of the Black population? And don't give me the "it is what it is" line. Tell the merit of it.
It is human nature to be suspicious. I said a certain segment, how does one determine good from bad. And btw, I did say this cop was wrong.
The man spoke proper English to the police. He "code switched" when he spoke to someone on the phone. That's about the same as a Latino or Asian or African switching to a foreign language in the same situation.
I don't know why he didn't call his mom to validate him. The guy admitted to being in prison. The cop was an ass, but the guy should not have fought with the cops, he likely would have been released same day if there were no warrants.
I don't know why he didn't call his mom to validate him. The guy admitted to being in prison. The cop was an ass, but the guy should not have fought with the cops, he likely would have been released same day if there were no warrants.
You seriously have no business posting on this thread. You have no idea what you're even talking about, it's downright embarrassing.
Maybe learn how to speak proper English! Ghetto speak is nothing more than bastardized English and is hard to understand for anyone(white or black) in the middle class since we weren't raised to speak it. So now the police have to be versed in ghetto speak, didn't know this was a requirement. How about black kids pay attention in school and learn proper English.
You should watch the video before commenting. A poster here claimed he was speaking 'ghetto'. He was NOT. He did use the 'f' word, like many people do from time to time.
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