Let’s not forget that hierarchies naturally play “follow the leader”.
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I laughed pretty hard at the look of confusion on the cop’s face as the tables started turning.
“I’m asking the questions.”
“Uh, uh, uh… I’m asking the questions!”
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Haha! I like be this video. Yes the cameraman is an asshole, with brass balls, but I agree with what the cameraman is doing. How does it feel to be on the other end of being barraged with questions?
I remember years ago at my house a woman ran to me asking for help bshe had jumped out of her boyfriend’s car while he was beating her. Her face was bloody and she was crying. We called the police against her wishes and she ran off. When the police arrived there were several if us neighbors trying to explain to the officers what had happened and that we didn’t know her prior to today. The officers were assholes to us acting like it was our fault. I’ll never forget that day. I ended up walking away telling the officers, “I don’t have time for this.”
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Sometimes, it’s just them doing their job. Not that police never abuse their power, or act like jerks, or get a little too nosey - we’ve all witnessed bad behavior on the part of law enforcement.
But in order to investigate crimes, police do have to get up in people’s business. That’s how it works, like it or not.
If you think this guy is some sort of hero to behave like this, take a breather and have a look at your assumptions and biases.
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Cops abuse their power all the time. They’re legally entitled to lie, and the standard for entrapment is so narrow.
They’re allowed to do all kinds of things that would otherwise be illegal, such as unionize in Texas.
I’m biased as hell because I’ve never met a cop who wasn’t, deep down, an authoritarian. It’s part of the spec. Treating other citizens as below them. Treating themselves as above the law.
You have a long row to hoe if you want to try and convince me all cops aren’t bastards.
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Given that he didn’t have a gun and the authority to use it with impunity, I’d say he’s about 1/1000 as much of an asshole as every cop who ever does this.
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the guy filming is lucky he is white, well I assume he is white on account of him not being beaten to death
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Forgot to ask him about donuts.
“Officer Gibson? No wonder you joined the police, with a name like that! What else were you going to do, right?”
“‘Officer’, eh? Did the other kids ever bully you for that?”
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An unknown person, walking through a police parking lot, looking in vehicles and taking pictures…
No, nothing at all to be concerned about there, nothing at all.
Bollocks. The guy’s a douchebag.
Apart from “being an asshole”, can you guess why the guy asked the cop all those particular questions?
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AKA “What goes around, comes around.” Mmm, delicious schadenfreude.
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You could see on his face the detective briefly wondering if the guy asking him questions might be someone with authority because in his world only law enforcement harass people like that.
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In parochial school, one of my buddies showed me this magazine that included Ripley’s Believe It Or Not blurbs about individuals, one being an unlucky fellow named Al Cohol who was reportedly arrested for DWI. Now – even at 12 years old – I was no great fool; RBION could have fabricated the tale. Still, it was easy to imagine someone with that name (or a name that with just a little fiddling, could be connected to alcohol) taking an interest in alcohol (or – because of his name – being teased or even bullied to a point where he develops a heightened curiosity about alcohol).
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Yeah, someguy got it. The sovereign movement with an interesting black heritage twist.
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and C) he claims to be an investigative journalist. I’m sure being a white guy recording the interaction helped tremendously, but I’m betting that every cop knows somewhere inside that the media can bring them some heat, so claiming to be a journalist was apparently something that this particular cop didn’t seem to want to test with an “oh yeah, can I see your press pass” etc…
Thanks for this. If anyone ever asks me for an example of white privilege, I can just send them this video.
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I know one guy who was a fundamentally good person (and two guys who became cops who are not), and I still count the “good guy” as not so much as he can tell you all sorts of stories about cops being bad.
He’s really a broken person, keeps his head down and doesn’t see anything. Found a way to get himself a desk job processing paperwork so he doesn’t have to deal with broken people on the street, and to a degree the broken people he works with. Just push your papers until you can retire. He’s actually a really smart and creative guy who signed up to earn money to attend art school. Yeah. I don’t know that he does that anymore.
But as much as he’s been broken, and his intelligence and creativity squandered, he’s not a good guy anymore. He’s seen enough, and couldn’t find the strength to speak out or fight for what’s right. I’m not sure that anyone can do it from within.
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