And wearing respectable pants.
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Donāt forget to get a haircut first.
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I think itās high time we all start using the term āescalateā a bit more responsibly. Asking for a reason why, or whether one is being detained is not escalating. This is only true if escalating is being treated as equivalent to āpiss off.ā Yes, an authoritative police officer might get more pissed off if someone questions their decisions. Some people get angry when called on their bullshit. But asking a question of a police officer, even in an annoyed, or exasperated tone, in a stressful situation such as being questioned by the police, is not escalating, or at least, shouldnāt be.
If the answer is that āresearch has shown that people who assert their rights are X times more likely to become violentā that might change the story, but Iād like to see that research. Police choose a job that is going to be highly stressful, they need to be the kind of people who are only āescalatedā by true signs of physical danger. They need to show that they are the kind of people who are brave enough to be honest and patient with people, and wise enough to intervene (to the extent that it is possible) only in situations where they are truly needed.
Police need to work as hard as possible to continually reassure the populace that they come in peace, and make every attempt to be fair, reasonable, and transparent. They are public servants, that humans have decided are necessary to keep us safe, and whom we will give extra privileges and powers to help create an environment conducive to the living of peaceful life. Walking around with a badge and a gun, and a thick blue line backing you up is a privilege that comes with agreeing to take on additional responsibility. Walking around outside of prison, living life as a civilian is not a privilege. We cannot, and will not take their word for it that they are fulfilling this promise, they must prove it to us, every day.
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Also, if they want people to cooperate, they would need to let people know whatās going on, and let people ask whatās going on.
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Sure, but they donāt want you to cooperate. After all, if you cooperated, they might get a slap on the wrist for beating or murdering you. If you resist, they can do all the things they joined the force to do, all the things that their equipment is designed to do - pretty much with impunity.
Turns out thereās more to this one than they would have originally lead us to believeā¦
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I have no idea why people want to be police officers, but then again I have no idea why people want to be accountants, soldiers, or lawyers either. Probably something to do with the mythos, or good interactions with them when young, or a family thing.
The news is always biased towards nasty. The cop that really helped me out when I needed it, isnāt going to be on CNN, while the assholes in Ferguson will be. This doesnāt mean that the former doesnāt exist, it just means we donāt get to hear about them because of ratings. Nice isnāt sensational, violent thugs are. We also only hear about child molesters and murders, and not people who help lost children or people who try to help other people.
I would actually say that towards just about anyone who anyone claims is an asshole. Its a well-known psychological ālawā called the fundamental attribution error. When we, as individuals are nasty we blaim external circumstances and stressors, when someone else is we blame them as a person. THEY are an ass because of their fundamental makeup; WE are an ass because we didnāt have enough coffee this morning.
She has a husband and a boyfriend?
Even if it were true, also not illegal in California.
So some racist saw them kissing and decided that must be suspicious. Part of the copās job is knowing what heās actually doing, and just because a racist called in a tip doesnāt mean he needs to be a racist also.
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One eyewitness told cops they cleaned themselves up afterward with a tissue.That one made me giggle out loud like a little schoolboy... (read it as the eyewitness was doing the cleaning)
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No, the court allowed Nevada to require an officer who has reasonable suspicion about a crime to ask for identification. Thatās not the same thing at all. There are some states that have such laws, but California is not one of them (though drivers are required to carry driverās licenses with them when theyāre driving, and can be required to produce them.)
Furthermore, Californiaās been sued before - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolender_v._Lawson - by a black guy who would wander around white neighborhoods looking very black, and get arrested or detained for it (sometimes even when eating in restaurants.) Edward Lawson (the black guy) won, Kolender (the cop) appealed the case, lost again. And according to the Wikipedia article, the LA Sheriffās Department asked the legislature to repeal the law (presumably because it kept getting them in trouble, but the article doesnāt say.) So the LAPD should know.
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Hawaii is not without racism; try going to junior high school there as a minority (i.e. haole mainlander living out in the sticks), but thereās much less of it than being a minority living out in the sticks in many parts of the mainland. And mixed-ethnicity couples are much much more common there, and that was normal even in the 60s and 70s. (On the other hand, there arenāt a lot of black people there, except at the military base, much less Africans; most people are Filipino, Japanese, Chinese, or Hawaiian, and there are also cultural divides between the Portuguese (who came there as farm workers) vs. the other European-ancestry folks.
But that only goes forā¦ Who? Not the police officers, obviously. Not politicians. Not anyone who says anything the internet looks on negatively eitherā¦ Nor people who donāt share my general philosophyā¦ Everyone else is, obviously, jackbooted asshole racist sexist Republicans who either hate or love Jesus.
presumption of innocence is a good concept and, like the golden rule, a good basis for interactions with others. such a presumption does not last any longer than the words and actions of an individual allow it to last. the actions of the police in this situation make a strong case for either the deep-seated racism of the lapd or the stupidity of the officers involved in this incident. my father often told me not to mistake for malice what can be as easily attributed to stupidity so if the lapd has had no history of racism then this could be a case of the officers involved acting stupidly and making an innocent mistake. tragically, the lapd has been notable for its difficulties in the are of race relations and has been infamous as an institution for its tendency to profile blacks in its jurisdiction. iāve known many police officers and sheriffās deputies here in texas and while one or two of them have been dedicated and impartial public servants the large majority have been racist and overbearing to the point that it has seemed to me that the profession of law enforcement attracts a certain personality typeācontrolling, authoritarian, and deeply suspicious. as for the racism within law enforcement, i can only point to what i mentioned earlier in this discussion about my experiences which is that despite my questioning of demands that i provide identification and occasional refusal to provide identification i have never been cuffed, arrested, or even excessively detained. the fact that i am a white male may have nothing to do with that but comparing notes with my black and hispanic friends i find that doubtful.
by all means, defend law enforcement officers to any extent you feel necessary and your advice to submit to the demands of law enforcement officers without question is probably good advice for anyone without white skin since they are obviously more likely to find themselves in cuffs when they assert their rights. i would not dream of standing in your way. what you have yet to do is to convince me that your point of view is correct and the trend of your arguments seems unlikely to do so but by all means keep trying.
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A) Iām not trying to convince you of anything. My whole point that there as no evidence of anything here, pointing either way. That isnāt a defense of the police. Iām just saying that anti-police bias is as dumb as pro-police bias.
B) my other point was against confusing individuals for whole populations. One bad cop doesnāt make all cops bad.
C) Iām not defending anyoneā¦ Not the cops, not the couple. Again, I donāt have enough information to do so, and I donāt hold snap judgments or prejudice as values.
would the cop have ever suspected the white male of being the sex worker? i mean there were 2 people involved right?
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C) Iām not sure whatās so wrong about forming an opinion based on the limited information we have. If things turn out differently, canāt we just change our opinion at that time?
B) Not all cops are bad, but tons are. We arenāt dealing with all cops here, we are dealing with a cop who did something that got into the news because it doesnāt pass peopleās smell test.
A) There is absolutely lots of evidence of something. And anti-X bias is manifestly not as dumb as pro-X bias. It is either more or less dumb based on the amount of evidence available to support the point. Hate to go all Godwin, but no one would argue that anti-Nazi bias is just a dumb as pro-Nazi bias. For a very large number of people, being suspicious and afraid of police by default is pretty much just rational.
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The problem is that the information we have is so limited that forming an opinion is completely a work of bias in this case. The connotation presented in the summary is that all of this is because racism, but outside of the fact that the police werenāt black, and the woman was, there is nothing to support it. Sure, you can pull a whole bunch of external facts and statistics into it, but that doesnāt really change the fact that we donāt know anything about what happened hereā¦ Iād rather not stand on a chair and scream āRACISM!ā, or āCOPS ARE FASCISTS!ā, or whatnot, without enough evidence to do so. Iād rather do this no more than Iād rather claim that a minority group are all criminals based on limited information.
But we canāt say that, really. We donāt have information enough to even administer the smell test. All we know is that a cop briefly detained a black woman, perhaps because of suspicions of prostitution, perhaps because of a call to that effect. The woman, also, didnāt present ID, whatever we can draw from that. This is all we have, which is pretty much nothing. Was the cop acting like a racist authoritarian storm trooper? Was the woman being belligerent? Was the call reporting the couple as a pimp or john and a prostitute? Is there area generally plagued by this sort of thing. Is this how police handle other like situations in this area? Is there anything pointing to the officer being racist; past history, trends? Too many āperhapsā and question marks to really say much of anything here. For all I know the cop is a racist asshole, or the lady was belligerentā¦
We know that a black woman and a white man were jointly briefly detained by the police and they handcuffed the black woman but not the white man. Maybe we disagree on whether that reasonably points us towards any conclusions, but it certainly more information than āa cop briefly detained a black woman.ā
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Aaannnddd hereās more information. Sad.
http://happyplace.someecards.com/celebrities/yeah-the-arrested-django-unchained-actress-was-indeed-having-sex-in-her-car-with-the-door-open/
