You’ve all probably heard this story by now:
“Django Unchained” actress Daniele Watts says Los Angeles police allegedly detained her because they thought she was a prostitute.
Watts, who is African-American, and her white boyfriend accuse police of racism for questioning them after they were seen showing affection in public.
An LAPD spokesman told CNN Sunday that officers from its North Hollywood precinct were responding to a citizen complaint.
“There was an indication on the radio call that a male white and female black were involved in a sexual act inside a Mercedes with the vehicle door open,” Officer Sally Madera said.
Her boyfriend — Brian James Lucas but better known as celebrity chef Cheffy Be*Live — wrote in a Facebook post that police “saw a tatted RAWKer white boy and a hot bootie shorted black girl and thought we were a HO (prostitute) & a TRICK (client).”
“Two people were briefly detained, but it was revealed no crime had been committed,” Medera said.
The man was not handcuffed, but the woman was, according to the couple.
My favorite (and by favorite, I mean the absolutely most mind-boggling and disgusting) part of the story is this video clip:
The cop at this point knows he is in the wrong, and yet he stands there while she is still handcuffed, berating her for insulting him.
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
No self respecting white guy would kiss a black woman unless she was a hooker – QED!
We live in a post-racial America now so stop whining!
Also too plus: I have no clue, is that a normal costume for a hooker? It does not fit the mental image I carry around.
terraformer
Goddamn it. Can we even begin to roll back the military-police-industrial State at this point?
Or is this just another example of modern first-world society where, along with corporate greed and the entrenched power structure, it’s going to have to get bloody before any positive change can happen? Most police surely have no idea what the Peelian Principles are, and probably don’t care. But that’s how it’s supposed to be.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]:
Daytime hooker. (Great line from My Name Is Earl.)
PurpleGirl
I’m gonna go watch a kitten cam… the kittenses make me happy and the news makes me want to scream “Stop this shit.”
greennotGreen
I’m not really up on prostitute fashion, but tee shirts and baggy shorts? Is that what’s bringing in the business these days? And who the hell are these people calling cops about black people walking around Walmarts and kissing and being normal citizens, anyway?
Lolis
Not excusing cops at all, but some of these instants have been set in motion by racist citizens tipping off police. We have this problem in abuse hotlines too. We get tips from people that are based on racial assumptions/prejudices that we have to follow up on. However, it seems like we are much more aware of this problem in my field and we are trying to mitigate the problem. Cops seem all too happy to arrest/kill people based on bad information and they certainly have their own prejudices as well.
NorthLeft12
Are the cops that gullible? I mean, time after time they are entering situations primed for a specific action based on a 911 call or some other information. ie. The Walmart BB gun execution.
Don’t they stop to assess the situation on their own on the “off” chance that the original information was incorrect?
That might be a daily talking point at their morning meetings. At least I suggest it might be one.
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@Steeplejack (tablet):
I miss that show! Don’t remember the line but OK, I suppose the different shifts need different outfits.
When we moved to FLA I used to drive to work early & noticed many times that there were women walking by this one street I drove on. I thought it was odd that they were dressed up as if going out for the evening at 6AM. It took me a few days to realize they were working women, I assume on their way home after the night shift.
lamh36
I think from the story that the police asked the woman for her ID but not her whitw boyfriend, correct?
The CNN story says that the police are within their rights to ask for ID, but we are within our rights to decline giving one right?
As for the person calling police isn’t this thw same situation that lead to the killing of that young Black man in that Walmart? Some whitw guy called saying the Black guy was threatening or something and I believe the white later said that the Black guy wasn’t really threatening anyibe?
lamh36
Also too I feel the need to once again post this article from Wash Po that someone posted in a thread last night.
JPL
It’s the you made me treat you poorly defense. The guy needs to be fired.
chopper
chief justice roberts really was right, wasn’t he.
Ben Cisco
On my bad days I fear that nothing much will change until those who do the persecuting are every bit as threatened, in real life and in real time, as those they victimize.
Not that THAT’S going to end well for anybody (well, maybe those who are left)…
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]:
It was said about some character with the connotation of low-level fail that that show was such a great chronicle of. Stuck in my mind.
MikeBoyScout
Ummmm, it is beyond reasonable suspicion that the probable cause the police agent found to physically detain and remove her 4th amendment rights is the color of her skin.
I’m so FK-ing tired of this sh*t
OzarkHillbilly
According to the Urban Dictionary, a RAWK is
The sound an albatross makes.
Rawk rawk, I’m an albatross, rawk!
so WTF is he talking about?
The thing that gets me about this latest “cop” incident is the fact that she got cuffed, and he didn’t. Does he really look that harmless compared to a 105 lb black woman?***
***sarcasm
gnomedad
Couldn’t hear much, but the posture of Officer Cool Bro speaks volumes. Also, if he “knows he is in the wrong” and doesn’t uncuff her stat, he is guilty of false arrest, or whatever term applies.
TaMara (BHF)
I’ve dealt with the LAPD on several occasions. My experience was they are cynical, angry and sarcastic. You’re guilty until some high priced lawyer proves otherwise. Really unpleasant experiences.
We had an experience here where SWAT arrived in our neighborhood, screaming obscenities and threatening to shoot our falling down drunk neighbor because he couldn’t understand or obey their screamed directions.
And why? Because his equally drunk girlfriend called 911 and said there was a man with a gun. No gun, just a bunch of terrified neighbors.
When I’m terrified, I generally get pissed. I gave the cop a piece of my mind about showing up in a family neighborhood, fully automatic weapons drawn, screaming fuck this, fuck that. I guess I’m just lucky I’m white, huh?
rikyrah
And, still, White people don’t get why the average Black person…
not Pookie, Ray Ray or Little Boy…
have a deep distrust of the police.
MAYBE this kind of stuff happens to the random White person, and we just don’t hear about it..
But, I somehow doubt it.
Elizabelle
I cannot make out what the cop is saying. I’m not sure it’s berating as much as it’s calming, but agree that he realizes the cops are in the wrong on this one.
I don’t understand why he didn’t uncuff her by this point.
Morbo
I dunno, for me the most disgusting part of the story is which words are nouns and which ones are adjectives in this sentence:
Elizabelle
@OzarkHillbilly:
Maybe the RAWK refers to his chef specialty is raw cuisine?
MikeBoyScout
@Morbo: u made my case much better than I did.
Belafon
@terraformer:
Don’t confuse the handling of the crowds in Ferguson with this. This is straight up racism, and was going on long before the DoD started giving their old toys away.
The Moar You Know
Somebody remind me what century this is again…
@greennotGreen: Hey, this is how we roll in SoCal. One of many reasons not a lot of black folks live here.
Botsplainer
@terraformer:
By the time Our Progressive Betters© get done breaking down large multiethnic states which tend to respect individual aspirations into small, minority oppressing ethnic enclaves that are susceptible to manipulation and total subjugation by transnational corporate interests, there won’t be any ability to fill those trenches.
Remember, the real tyranny is the existence of an NSA database that could, in theory, be searched for your porn habits.
That, and being part of a 300 year Union where you and many generations of your ancestors owned property, voted, participated fully in defense, taxing, government and infrastructure decisions…
Belafon
@lamh36: From what I understood, they were within their rights to refuse to show it, so she didn’t, but her boyfriend did.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ben Cisco:
Yeah, we saw how well that worked in Ferguson: “Scary black people demanding we respect their rights… Like they have any.”
Tone In DC
I read about this last night.
I doubt that the two of them were in a state of undress while the PDA was going on (which might have been a legitimate reason for the police to show up).
When I’m out and about, I occasionally see some couple(s) doing what they were doing. I’ll grin a little and keep walking. Cuz as much as they might need to get a room, the couple’s activity isn’t my business.
As for the prostitute/john angle… all I can say about this is, the working girls down on L Street don’t dress like that. You’d think a cop would know this. Obviously, this level of knowledge is too much to ask.
Elizabelle
Ms. Watts did not choose this battle, but she could be an excellent spokesperson.
Have to read up on the case, but I would adore if it turns out to be HER silver Mercedes.
WaterGirl
@Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]:
I call that “summer” if you’re young enough and have a body that can pull that off.
Edit: Un-fucking-believable! This story makes this white girl want to slam my head against a wall.
WereBear
Mr WereBear made just that point last night.
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@OzarkHillbilly:
RIGHTS? Oh, I believe the USSC covered that already:
[blacks] “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever profit could be made by it.”
waspuppet
@Ben Cisco: No question, they need to feel a little fear. Not sure how to go about that, but it’s clearly necessary.
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@Elizabelle:
So she HAS to be a hooker . . . or a car thief. Right? Drug dealer would be a male occupation or I would have included it already.
Belafon
@The Moar You Know: It’s not what century we are in, but what a powerful segment of our population wants to return us to. A little over 100 years ago, blacks were getting voted into office, becoming middle class, and making inroads into sports. So the wealthy, with a lot of help from Wilson, put a stop to that. Now we have black man as president. We have to end it soon or there’s no telling what will happen, people might find it normal that blacks and whites are marrying.
If you haven’t seen the thing about the Indomitables, the paramilitary unit being formed by the League of the South, check out their logo. I am going to show that logo to anyone that tries to accuse the Democrats of being fascists.
Edited the last sentence.
JPL
@Elizabelle: Maybe she has granite counters.
@chopper: Roberts is just misunderstood. He probably does have black friends.
OzarkHillbilly
@rikyrah: We don’t run into it unless we have black friends (opened my eyes)(to some extent at least). I used to have a running bet that I could always tell when a black person was pulled over in West STL county: If the driver was black, there was more than one cop car.
Never lost any money on that bet.
TaMara (BHF)
@TaMara (BHF): Added to clarify – white is probably why I didn’t end up in handcuffs. My Hispanic neighbor was almost not as lucky. And all he was doing was standing there.
Cervantes
@NorthLeft12:
That’s not how ordinary people react to things, especially when they are under stress and feel a need to react quickly.
Even here, for example, at this extraordinary establishment entirely free of stress, inaccurate assertions don’t necessarily slow people down. Recently a front-pager claimed that the elected mayor of a Boston suburb had derided college students on the Internet. Not only was this claim unlikely to be true (as you might guess upon a moment’s reflection), it was not true as a cursory examination would have revealed — and yet the claim was posted and people — as in we — fell right in, either praising or criticizing the “mayor” for her remarks.
A trivial example? Certainly, yet this kind of thing, amplified, occurs here, and everywhere, quite a bit. Being correct about the facts can take a modicum of effort and a certain habit of mind. But people get lazy, they develop other habits instead, and soon enough, stupidly enough, they find themselves allergic to being corrected. That’s what happens. Often it does not matter — but when some fool handcuffs a woman for kissing the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time — or when some hothead is deceived into loudly supporting an insane war — then it’s not so trivial or funny. People get hurt. Consequences present themselves.
Anyhow, if you want to tell these particular LAPD police officers what they did wrong, here’s their “community police station.” They’ve started an internal investigation.
Needless to say, if you call them, be nice.
Botsplainer
@Elizabelle:
It is the body language and tone of a young man who knows he won’t be held to account for this.
Villago Delenda Est
The police in this country are totally out of control. I don’t know how to solve a problem so pervasive as this by incremental measures. Something huge needs to happen.
Joseph Nobles
Who the hell calls 911 over indecent exposure anyway?
Betty Cracker
@Botsplainer:
Can you translate the above? I must be behind on the latest hippie-punching memes because, while I understand the individual words, I don’t get the larger meaning. TIA!
Cervantes
@Joseph Nobles: Fools. Including racist fools.
Belafon
@Joseph Nobles: Wasn’t that what George Michael got in trouble for?
Gex
So basically, the police now claim they need to be an extension of every racist white American’s complaints about blacks. From the guy who was shot in Walmart and the guy in St. Paul who was waiting for his kids to this poor couple. If a white person objects to someone black, they call the cops and get the cops to shoot, taze, or cuff the black person. The cops have no responsibility whatsoever to apply the law and act with individual judgment or restraint.
Jesus H. Christ. I can’t take this shit anymore.
Amir Khalid
Wasn’t it The Los Angeles Times that recently ran a policeman’s op-ed piece explaining that he has discretion over whether to recognise your civil rights?
Cervantes
@Botsplainer:
Villago Delenda Est
@chopper: There is no apple tree sour enough to properly deal with John Roberts.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: Yeah. The bottom line of the entire piece was “respect my authoriteh!”
Elizabelle
@Botsplainer:
Officer be wrong about that. At least he’s the public face of a debacle.
Per the Guardian, Mercedes belongs to the boyfriend, Brian Lucas.
Originally no incident report on this. Wonder how much that happens.
And the threat to be drugged, or hospitalized for psych evaluation? That’s horrifying.
WaterGirl
Today is jacy’s surgery. Good thoughts and prayers headed your way, jacy!
SFAW
@JPL:
The only one he knows semi-well is a sock puppet, who fortunately escaped a high-tech lynching. (Well, the only one outside of Roberts’s darkie servants, that is.)
Gex
@waspuppet: Except a lot of what we are seeing now is that older white men feel scared. When white men are scared, it goes very badly for everyone else. And they haven’t even been treated the way they treated others politically, legally, and socially. They are just having to endure the rest of us asking to have the same rights and freedoms as them, with no need to have power to legally and socially keep them down.
Monte Lukast
If you want to believe TMZ, they were actually fucking in the car and were witnessed by numerous people. They were seen wiping up after themselves.
SFAW
@Villago Delenda Est:
Wasn’t it more like “Obey, if’n you know what’s good for you”?
danielx
Shit, she ought to consider herself lucky she wasn’t tased for getting in the cop’s face.
Botsplainer
@Betty Cracker:
Specifically, it’s about the unicorn dreams of the Progressive Utopia of Scotland and the firedoglakish wish list being proposed by the “yes” forces who have no answers to the difficulties beyond “Westminster will do the perfectly right and just thing”.
Catalonia and Texas are eyeing it approvingly, and an England dominated by an unbound set of multinational financiers (and governed by a race-baiting Tory-UKIP coalition) isn’t going to be a positive for the world.
A world dominated by a transnational corporate superstructure capable of subverting small governments is being midwifed into place, and I don’t like it.
coin operated
@Joseph Nobles:
Old, white people. The North Hollywood / Burbank area just happens to be filled with ’em.
Cervantes
@JPL:
Here’s an odd little Reuters/Ipsos poll on that general subject. It’s from last year.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]:
Speaking as someone who lived most of their life of the edge of bad part of town she dressing nothing like a street walker – not to mention street walkers don’t kiss their clients in public. At a distance I might think she is possibly a drug addict because she is so skinny, but certainly not a street walker dressed like that.
And I am shocked, shocked to see an LA cop having attitude, they are the only police I’ve seen who walk like gang bangers.
Iowa Old Lady
Hooker outfits vary widely. When we lived in Detroit, a nearby street had lots of hookers. One morning I was waiting at the bus stop in jeans and T-shirt and a white guy pulled up and tried to coax me into his car. Scared the crap out of me.
coin operated
There’s some weapons-grade bullshit around the police story. Their story last night was ‘no record of the incident’, and now they’ve conveniently found a indecent exposure call?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Botsplainer: This is Scotland and they do have a history being sucked by bankers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darien_scheme
matt
This is deliberate Republican policy – they call it ‘profiling’.
SFAW
@coin operated:
Yeah, they called the Ferguson PD for tips on how to “find” stuff to blame the victim. Ferguson offered to send them a “Photoshopped” (so to speak) surveillance videos from a convenience store, thinking it might help
TaMara (BHF)
Regarding jacy’s surgery today, her email is here (it’s public and linked to her BJ screen name, so I’m not sharing anything secret here). Why don’t we just send her a ton of well wishes?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Cervantes: Fearful fools, who are often (mostly?) racist.
chopper
“Cheffy Be*Live”? seriously?
OzarkHillbilly
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Naw, just jealous. Probably can’t even get it up anymore.
Jack the Second
The purpose of a system is what it does.
The purpose of racist, abusive, asshole cops is to make life unbearable for minorities, so they’ll leave and racist, abusive assholes who live there can have their white paradise. This video isn’t a failure of the system, it’s a success.
WaterGirl
@TaMara (BHF): Thanks for that. I just sent her a message.
Cervantes
@Botsplainer:
Yes, it’s so, so sad. Just think, if only the US government and its various military and intelligence agencies were free to work against this domination … and yet here they are being hamstrung by Your Progressive Betters© worried merely about their pathetic little pornography collections. It’s a crying shame.
Unrelated question: Crocodile tears are the best tears ever? Or crocodile tears are the saltiest, bestest, most teary tears ever?
Patricia Kayden
@Elizabelle: They need to sue. Obviously, if she was not a celebrity, this incident would have escalated. The police need to understand that they are paid by all citizens to serve all citizens — not just paler skinned ones.
Tone In DC
@Gex:
My emphasis. Well said.
Botsplainer
@Jack the Second:
The greatest liberty in the world is to be able to live in a society where you’ve chosen the rules under which society is ordered, I’m told. If someone is oppressed by operation of those rules whether by gender or race, tough shot.
Mah Freedom!
SatanicPanic
What does this have to do with the police state? Does anyone think that this scene wouldn’t happen if cops were limited to carrying around batons?
Ruckus
@Gex:
I take exception to this. I’m on old white guy and I don’t think at all like you attribute to me. I also read several other old white guy comments on this blog and I don’t see them having the attitude either. You want to be taken seriously don’t lump us all in one group. It’s bigotry, plain and simple.
hoodie
@Botsplainer: Seeing as Westminster is owned by the City, and much the same goes here in the US, this seems questionable. Seems like big governments can be as effective, or more effective, as tools of multinational corporate pirates.
Cervantes
@SatanicPanic: Not much. As I said , I think it has more to do with a literally stupid disregard for the facts; with people — in this case the cops — allergic to being corrected — by, in this case, the young couple. Indeed, if there was any attempt to correct them it probably made things worse.
Cervantes
@Ruckus:
I agree, she could have phrased it it little more felicitously — but I think the point, such as it was, wasn’t really that all such people feel a certain way, just that when enough of [us or them] do, bad things happen.
Belafon
@Ruckus: As an older white guy, I didn’t see that statement as including everyone. It’s kind of obvious who Gex is talking about.
Waynski
@Villago Delenda Est:
This! I live in a tiny lilly white town in NJ and we have way too many cops just looking for something to do. I’m afraid to drive a mile to the grocery store stone cold sober. My Grandma used to call them the Bully Boys, an old Irish phrase, but that’s what they are these days. Also too, they have an economic interest in arresting and charging as many people as they can. The fines help pay their salaries. And one final point, I’d like to quote Bukowski, “I don’t hate cops, but I feel better when their not around.”
Chris
@rikyrah:
It’s not exactly that white people don’t also have shitty experiences with cops (though at a far less serious rate than nonwhite people). But a white person getting bullied by cops is as likely to be spun as proof of the persecution of white people, as a reason for empathy with black ones.
When the whole Ferguson PD thing was going on, I saw a couple stories circling on Facebook of white people who’d been abused by cops, accompanied by outraged proclamations that “see? Why isn’t Obama caring about THIS? Why isn’t the media reporting THIS? Nobody gives a shit about white people anymore! Black people have all these liberal elites and big government bureaucrats looking out for them, but we’re on our own!” I saw even more of it back in the Trayvon Martin case.
White racism can be twisted into a dazzling number of different shapes to avoid caring about black people.
Tommy
@Waynski: I am lucky. My town is almost 96% white (that is not what I am lucky about I might add — kind of sad really). Rural. Middle to upper middle class. I look at the anual crime report and a few DUIs, kids being kids, and way too many domestic voilence calls. But outside that almost no crime. I often don’t even lock my front door.
Same as with your community our cops are looking for something to do. But were we differ is they aren’t looking to harass people or makeup crimes. They seem to be find just driving around in circles are standing in a convience store chating with the customers. It is actually kind of nice and something I wish everybody else has. I feel safe with them being around and also not that if I encounter then the last thing I believe is on their mind is finding some way to arrest me to give me a ticket.
Ben Cisco
@Gex: Truth, and taken to the Twitters.
Fear and loathing of the other is more of an immediate threat to the US than ISIS/ISIL/EIEI-freaking-O.
Ruckus
@Cervantes: @Belafon:
You are both correct. I understood who Gex was talking about as well. My point is that we all belong to some group that others can take negatively, including Gex. Lumping everyone in some group they belong to by just being alive and applying negative labels is bigotry. We should stop doing that. It is so common, I even do it with the word conservative, although that is a group to which no one has to belong to. This post is about this being done to a black person, which happens all the time and is just wrong. But we need to change the whole concept of grouping and applying labels. That’s what Gex has asked for on this blog on more than one occasion and I’m just agreeing with that and saying that we all can be guilty of this. And we should stop.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
It was actually the Washington Post that published that editorial, but it was an LAPD officer who wrote it, so I’ll give you half credit.
charluckles
@lamh36:
The comments are…educational. I especially enjoy those responding to statements that people of color are far more likely to be harassed and arrested by the police by stating that people of color are far more likely to commit crimes. How do they now they commit more crimes? Well by the simple fact that they are more often arrested for those crimes. We start talking about race in this country and the brains of half the country go into shut down mode.
Hillary Rettig
@gnomedad: yeah I noticed his posture too. shows zero respect for her or the situation; also a lack of empathy. If I had someone weeping in front of me I wouldn’t be standing around like I’m chilling at a BBQ.
Ruckus
@charluckles:
Yes. Getting arrested on bullshit charges is still being arrested. What were the stats on the number of open warrants in Fergeson? Wasn’t that number larger than the number of residents? It’s money and racism. Or racism and money. I think the racism was here first and the cops have just figured out how to make money off of it. So really no different than 150 yrs ago.
Joey Maloney
@Ruckus: #notalloldwhiteguys
Tommy
@charluckles: I think about 99% of the population, regardless of the color of their skin are not breaking the law in any willful manner. Now I’ve not read all the laws of the State of Illinois, my county, nor my town. But willing to bet if a cop wanted to be a “dick” they could find something to either arrest or ticket just about everybody on. I feel that is what happens to many African Americans.
And in a related manner, I think laws of course are passed to target minorities. Like to lower drugs, African Americans now can’t stand on a street corner. Bullshit like that, which IMHO makes no sense.
Ruckus
@Joey Maloney:
I don’t do twitter. You may have noticed that 140 characters might have a tendency to cramp my style.
Tommy
@Ruckus: You mentioned what is staggering number and as a person that lives about 35 miles from Fergeson something I’ve been trying to follow.
The St. Louis Post Dispatch (and in the national media as well) has reported that for each household in Fergeson there are a total of three tickets and/or open arrests. I mean ponder that for a few seconds or a few minutes. How is that even remotely possible?
I could attempt to explain why this is the case but it would take a little history lesson on the area, culture, politics, race, town budgets and a ton of characters.
ruemara
@Ruckus: stop it. The nicest thing that should be done is to listen and understand it isn’t about you. Should we ignore that in large, this a problem that older white people, in particular males, have with black people? It’s not an attack on older white males, it’s a statement of fact that as a majority demographic, when they get scared, it does not go well for anyone who isn’t in their group.
NorthLeft12
@Cervantes: I would hope that cops, through training and experience, understand that there is a good chance that the original information is wrong in some aspects, because that too is human nature. Veteran cops should have multiple experiences with this kind of false report that they go into a situation being somewhat skeptical, but still carefully.
Especially that Walmart case. If someone was waving a gun around, there would have been multiple 911 calls and the cops would have had to fight their way through the entrance. Apparently, there was no panic going on until the cops showed up and blew the guy away.
Elizabelle
I will be interested in whether people in Los Angeles do have to produce an ID, when asked by a police officer. It’s possible they do.
I’d be interested in how this escalated so far. I don’t understand when the handcuffs came out.
Here’s a CNN interview with the couple.
I have a nephew who’s planning on a career in criminal justice, and I am wondering how he would be treated in this situation.
Seems this turns on whether it was reasonable for the police to demand ID, since nothing (apparently) was happening when they rolled up, and it was a phoned in tip.
I don’t like people being profiled, or a young woman being assumed a hooker, but I’m thinking the police might have a credible side here too.
CNN audio has police telling Ms. Watts he does have the power to ask for ID.
SatanicPanic
@Cervantes: This is true. There are legitimate reasons to fear the police state, but this just seems like racism + ego, i.e. something that could happen at any time in US history
biff diggerence
An archaic phrase in need of revival:
“Off the fucking Pigs”
NorthLeft12
@Gex: This is exactly what I mean by “gullible cops”.
The response by police to white guys waving guns around in public is markedly different and frankly what the response should be to any person.
Punchy
Awhile back, I read a story about a black man who had a young white step-daughter (or maybe the other way around) and would walk with her to school, the park, etc. CONSTANTLY had the cops called on him by peeps assuming she had been kidnapped or abducted in some way.
Interracial families….how the fuck does that work?
Joey Maloney
@Elizabelle: According to Wikipedia, California is not a “stop-and-identify” state – you are not required to show ID just because a cop asks you to.
Ruckus
@Tommy:
Not really hard to understand.
1. A lot of people are racist.
2. A lot of cops are racist.
3. Police in some areas directly get paid by the tickets/arrests they do by the fines. As I understand it a lot of the midwest is that way. I’d bet this is the same in other areas.
4. Making those arrests builds stats which then are used to justify the racism and continuing arrests for bullshit stuff. It’s a closed loop system that can only be broken when enough people think it’s wrong. See #1 for why this ain’t going to happen soon.
Cervantes
@NorthLeft12: Not excusing them; just saying that, in these examples we do hear about, it seems that, at best, their training emphasizes other things than determining the facts of the situation. One could, I suppose, excuse their … well, let’s call it abject incuriosity … if guns are being waved about and bullets already flying — but in this latest situation, The Case of the Amorous Couple, they really have no justification for what they did. Yes, worse things happen — but this thing is bad enough, horrible for the people directly involved, and should not be countenanced.
(Not a counter to your view; just an elaboration of mine.)
Cervantes
@biff diggerence: No.
Punchy
@TaMara (BHF): You wouldn’t be alive to type that if you’d been black/hispanic.
Gex
@Ruckus: I don’t ascribe this to all old white men. I’m sorry if I gave that impression. But I am also tired of constantly being put on the defensive and having to caveat accurate descriptions of how society works.
Who is Fox New’s demographic again?
Villago Delenda Est
@charluckles:
Assumes a fact not in evidence: that said brains were ever actually operating in the first place.
Elizabelle
Personal experience: I spent several days volunteering for Elizabeth Colbert Busch last May. She was running for Congress against Mark Sanford. (sigh) Charleston, South Carolina area.
Anyhoo, in Virginia, we’re pretty much allowed to knock doors and visit neighborhoods — it’s political free speech.
I was canvassing a private townhouse development, politely. I am a middle aged white lady; was out on my own. Two white guys in a pickup truck roll up and tell me it’s private property and that I have to leave.
I tell them it’s political free speech. I stood my ground, politely but resolutely, against the white guys; they left.
I knocked on a few more doors, and up came a very polite black security guard (think he might have been offduty police, too), who tells me again it’s private property and I have to leave. I tell him that I think I have the right to be there, and we talk for some time. He’s extremely kind and respectful to me, and I can tell he’s not thrilled to have to be delivering the message. And he is not aggressive about the law being on his side. No threats to me whatsoever, just polite requests to leave.
My approach would work in Virginia, but apparently in South Carolina the law is different and management of private properties do get to tell you to leave.
Finally, I thank him and tell him I will check in with the campaign office. Which checks and says the development might be right, and come on back and they’ll send me to another neighborhood.
I did drop by the security office on my way out and let them know I was leaving, and apologized for not knowing the law.
That could have gone a lot differently were I black, or not alone, I would suspect.
The security officer/maybe police officer was wonderful and lowkey, and I was more strident than Ms. Watts was, on the video we’ve seen so far.
I was not aggressive or mean, but I really thought it was political interference by the management company. And I thought the (mostly African American) residents living there deserved to hear about the Democratic candidate.
So I am wondering a bit more about the cop’s side, because I don’t see an out of control cop so far.
Tommy
@Ruckus: Tickets and fines are how the city finances itself. Basically, St. Louis was an economic powerhouse. People forget that in 1904 when we had the World’s Fair we were the third largest city in the national. Fastforward to the 50s and many African Americans from the Jim Crow south started going north. You hear about them going to places like Chicago, but many stopped here.
This freaked out the “whites” and they started “white flight” to the burbs. Places like Fergeson. Infact exactly Fergeson.
At this point you have to understand there is St. Louis the “city” and St. Louis the “county.” When the whites started to leave the “city” the “county” started to gain a lot of power (it dwarfs the city in influence these days). There are now 90 cities in St. Louis County (or thereabouts, a few are outside of it — not sure the exact number).
Well in the 70s and 80s as St. Louis started to go downhill losing manufacturing jobs.* The Mississippi River and transit of goods not what he used to be. Well African Americans started moving to the same burbs the why whites had decades before.
Again this freaked them out as it had decades before when they first moved into the City.
So communities that were not really even towns, no tax base to speak of, started to incorporate. They did this to pass laws, like only single family homes, so these “dirty African Americans” couldn’t come and live in an apartment (housing projects was the phrase used). This is again how we have 90 incorporated cities in St. Louis County.
But again they had NO money. No real tax base. So their solution, ticket the fucking hell out of people. Those people tend to be both black and lower income. That is a very quick manner is how we have gotten to where we are today!
*In the last four Census reports St. Louis the city has lost population in each. The City itself is close to below 500,000 citizens. It is sad!
Gex
And I guess, while I’m at it and it has been thus demanded, it should be acknowledged that we wouldn’t have advanced to where we are at without the help of white men either. Nothing could have changed if there haven’t been those willing to relinquish the privileges they have received in order to make things better. But that STILL doesn’t change the fact that we are dealing with the consequences of the attitudes and power that primarily belong to one demographic group. I NEVER said all white men make it bad for the rest of us. I just said that when things go bad for that group it gets bad for us. Not one bit of that is untrue.
Ruckus
@ruemara:
I agree. This isn’t about me, Gex wasn’t making that point. But bigger picture it points out that this is a pervasive thing that humans do. We should at least try to stop. We have to try be better, it’s all that hippy crap about being the change you want to see. I was able to use this as an example because it was labeled about a group that I belong to just by being alive. You belong to a couple of groups that I can’t ever belong to and that you belong to by birth. I shouldn’t attribute stereotypes to either of those groups, you and everyone with those attributes deserve better. As does Gex, who also belongs to a couple of groups that have a lot of stereotypes attached to them. It isn’t right for you, it isn’t right for Gex and yes it isn’t right for me. That’s the bigger picture. That was my point. Maybe I should have stated it better the first time.
rikyrah
@Punchy:
I remember the one of the White grandfather who had the cops called on him as he walked his Black granddaughter home from the park.
Waynski
@Tommy:
Respectfully disagree. Our cops are nice too, but we just don’t need that many. Is it a quiet place because we overpay for policing, or is it a quiet place because it’s a bedroom community with alarm systems? I think it’s the latter.
Mnemosyne
@lamh36:
@Belafon:
@Elizabelle:
I’m not sure why CNN is calling Lucas her “boyfriend” — the original story said he is her husband, and he’s listed that way in IMDb.
Rafer Janders
@Elizabelle:
No, actually it turns on whether it was reasonable for her to refuse to provide ID, which it was — in California there is no requirement that you produce ID upon a police officer’s demand unless there the officer has a reasonable and articulable suspicion that you have committed, are committing, or are just about to commit a crime.
In other words, he can ask. And she can say no. And that should be the end of it. Once he didn’t accept her no, once he handcuffed her without cause, then it became an assault and illegal arrest on his part.
SatanicPanic
@Gex: mmm, I don’t know. I don’t like the idea that we have to beg white men for rights that belong to the rest of us. Their power is growing weaker every year, I’m not really inclined to coddle them.
Tommy
@rikyrah: I totally believe it. I live in a small rural town in Southern Illinois. I moved here from Capital Hill in DC where I was the only white dude on the block. I have been in multiple businesses in my town, not homes, but bars and hardware store where people openly called people “ni**ers.” I hate that I even have to admit or write that in 2014.
The first time or two I did nothing in protest, because for lack of a better word I was left speechless. I couldn’t compute what I had just heard. The last couple times I came down on the people like a sledgehammer and will never spend a penny in either place cause the store owner didn’t back me.
But I note this because I am sick (not here on Ballon Juice I might add) but on Fox Noise and even sometimes in more liberal places like MSNBC people argue race isn’t much of an issue anymore. The fuck it isn’t.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, first report I heard on this identified the “partner” as her husband.
Ruckus
@Gex:
As I’ve stated I understood what and who you meant. You have commented on here long enough to show a little about who you are and I believe I have as well. My initial reply may have been a little strong according to some but I think this is important. Yes I’m an old white guy. Honestly I can not remember the group that you belong to, I think something in the LBGT area and I know you are rightfully passionate about the discrimination you see and feel. My point is that we should all be aware of being discriminatory, even when we don’t intend it that way.
Tommy
@Waynski: My town has 8,700 residents in 2010. Up from 5,500 in 2000 I might add because I like to think it is a nice place to live and people want to move here. Public schools, schools, we have the best schools in the area. Heck almost the entire state of Illinois. Seems people like that :).
We only have two police officers on duty at any time. I think a total of 7 on the payroll. Three police cars. Well two cars and a new SUV. I have never asked at a City Council meeting, but I am willing to bet we’d only have one working, but we have two in the off chance something bad happens and the other officer needs backup.
We actually had a murder in our town earlier this year. The first murder in 57 years. Pretty sure that cop would have wanted another officer, some backup, when he walked into that murder scene. Just saying.
lamh36
I remember reading about this story. ..
UPDATE 4: 12 yr old girl beaten by police; mistaken for a prostitute.
http://wearechange.org/twelve-year-old-girl-mistaken-prostitute-four-plainclothes-officers-beat-flashlights-leaving-hospital-later-arrested-school-resisting-assault-peace-offic/
Belafon
@Mnemosyne: Thanks. When I started the comment, I wrote husband, but scrolled up to the original comment and went with boyfriend. I thought I had heard husband.
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
I’m guessing it’s the usual assumption that a married couple would have the same last name, even though many of us don’t.
Mandalay
@Ruckus:
Well said. And your argument doesn’t only apply to groups we gain membership to through birth.
Not so long ago a nine year old girl accidentally killed her instructor at a shooting range in Nevada. The abuse and vilification the dead man received here was astounding. His crime? Being a shooting instructor. Nobody here knew anything more than that about the man. He was just a member of the wrong kind of group, and that was sufficient grounds for some here to pour on the abuse.
The Dangerman
As someone that was handcuffed (white guy here) while police investigated an alleged crime (which, by the way, didn’t occur and I was released in relatively short order), I don’t have any problem with this actress getting the bracelet treatment initially….
…but why she’s still cuffed in that video after the facts are apparently known is rather inexplicable.
Belafon
@lamh36: Because the appropriate response to a prostitute hugging a tree yelling “Daddy! Daddy!” is for three men to beat her with flashlights.
Tenar Darell
@chopper: Roberts: Will no one stop providing these multiple proofs that I am a twenty-first century Roger Taney!?
Betty Cracker
@Mandalay: That’s not quite accurate: It wasn’t just that he was a shooting instructor, it’s that he was the type of “in-your-face-libtardzz” gun enthusiast who slurred opponents with homophobic imagery, etc., as evidenced by his social media activities. Did he deserve his fate? No, and I agree sometimes grave-dancing is unseemly. But he was an obstacle to the very kind of sensible gun control laws that could have prevented his accidental death.
ETA: To your larger point about refraining from lumping all members of a particular demographic into a single label, on the one hand, I can sympathize with people who are sick of walking on eggshells around members of privileged groups. “It’s not about you” is an understandable response to that kind of complaint.
On the other hand, it’s probably a good idea for those of us who want to change things to consider the fact that we need allies among those privileged groups to effect change, so it’s at least counterproductive to insult them by lumping them in with people who don’t share their politics but only share their race and/or gender.
Eric U.
@Ruckus: I was just the other day thinking about how it’s a good thing I was born an old white guy because I’m barely making it with all the privilege I have and I think it would be a problem for me if I had to live with the rules that a lot of other people have to live with. So I am generally not too concerned about being lumped in with some unsavory characters like the fox news crowd
Belafon
@The Dangerman: you mean you weren’t sat down on the side of the road without having your identity determined, then hauled off for jail for 6 hours, in the process of having a $100K bail set on you, before they determine who you are?
The point being, even in your case, you didn’t get treated like the black guy under the same circumstances.
Tommy
@Rafer Janders: Let me hop into this thread if you don’t mind.
I read this story yesterday and looked at the pics her boyfriend took. She was in ratty clothes.
Now, that is no reason to assume she is a prostitute. I went to the hardware store last weekend while I was working in the yard for hours on end. In ratty cloths. Pitted out with sweat. I must have looked like a train wreck. Saw the nice steak place in town had a lunch special that sounded good. Felt bad walking into a somewhat fine dinning place to order that special to go dressed as I was, but I did. Nobody cared.
I say this because I don’t assume every movie star in LA is in Gucci from dusk till dawn. Or just every person in general. But I am 110% sure from reading the story her cloths maybe more than the color of her skin caused the phone calls to the cops and what happened afterwards.
I am a snappy dresser. But I don’t order cloths from LL Bean to work in my yard. I wear what is functional. Often not a pretty outfit. I don’t assume if I go outside a hardware store if I am dressed like that I will get profiled. That IMHO is clear what happened here.
Gex
@Ruckus: To say that white men have more power in society than other groups is not discriminatory. To say that when things go badly for that group it gets much worse for the rest of us is not discriminatory.
But I get what you mean. It is actually painful to me personally when I think about these things and I find myself thinking and speaking about a specific groups’ actions because it is uncomfortable. I know it’s not all white men. But it’s a tough situation because while it isn’t all white men how else do you describe the people who wield power and abuse the rest of us? It’s hard. I will definitely take your comment to heart and try to find ways to phrase it better in the future.
jake the antisoshul soshulist
@OzarkHillbilly:
I think “rowdy ass white kid”
Based on a “PAWG” as a phat assed white girl.
Mnemosyne
@lamh36:
To me, the saddest part of that story is that the jury deadlocked on whether or not the girl should be convicted of resisting arrest rather than finding her not guilty. WTF?
(That was the second trial for her — the first one was declared a mistrial by the judge because one of the cops tried to claim during his testimony that the girl’s father is a drug dealer, which is 100 percent irrelevant.)
Rafer Janders
@The Dangerman:
You should. Why on earth where you handcuffed? Were you assaulting the police, or fleeing the scene of a crime, or an obvious danger to yourself or others? Absent that, or a formal arrest, there’s no reason to have handcuffed you.
Rafer Janders
@Tommy:
I have no idea what your point is supposed to be. It’s LA. People dress in all sorts of ways. None of that is any reason to be handcuffed by the police.
Here, fill in this sentence: she was handcuffed because….?
Tommy
@Mnemosyne: My brother married a women in her mid-30s, wonderful lady. She kept her last name. Why, she was known in the area as a business person by that last name and wanted to keep it for that reason alone.
I recall when they had a wonderful little girl, I asked what last name I should use in addressing her and on cards and stuff. Mudd (his wife’s last name) or Young (my family’s last name). They said Young.
I would have thought this would have freaked out my mom and dad who are kind of conservative on issues like this. I mean my last name has a III after it, so naming is something important to us. I found I was wrong. They could freaking care less the last name of their only grandkid. They were just happy she was both well healthy, happy, and well cared for.
Ruckus
@Eric U.:
You were born an old white guy? I had to spend decades getting to be one.
Cervantes
@lamh36:
Disgusting from start to finish.
Rafer Janders
@Tommy:
Having lived in LA, I am 110% sure from looking at the pictures and video of the incident that she is dressed exactly the same way several million other Angelenos and tourists in LA dress every single day. She’s in a t-shirt and shorts, for god’s sakes. What’s wrong with that?
Ruckus
@Gex:
And I will try to be less of a dick in making a point.
I am sorry that I didn’t say things better in the first place. Like all of us I’m human too and sometimes things just strike me a certain way. I am a work in progress. You’d think I’d have accomplished more, given the time I’ve had to work with.
Cacti
@lamh36:
It’s a murky issue and varies by state.
If you’re not the driver of a motor vehicle, you are generally not obliged to produce photo identification. In the 24 states with “stop and identify” statutes, it’s generally sufficient to provide your legal name, address, and date of birth during a police detention.
To determine whether you have to identify yourself, you should ask the officer requesting identifying information if you are free to leave. If you are free to leave, you are not obliged to answer any questions, including identifying yourself. If you aren’t free to leave, you should identify yourself, then state that you invoke and do not waive your 5th amendment right to silence.
Sad_Dem
@Elizabelle: “And the threat to be drugged, or hospitalized for psych evaluation? That’s horrifying.” Ahem.
Tommy
@Rafer Janders: I think you have mistaken my comments. She looked, if you use a stereotype, the why she was dressed looked like she was maybe homeless. Now again that is NO reason for the police to question her much less handcuff her. I did some work in my garage in the early AM today and I am dressed far worse than she was. Need to shave. I am sure if I was thrown into a “nice” part of LA people would think terrible things about me because of my appearance.
But I think, to address your question/fill in the blank, she was arrested (1) because somebody called the police, so they HAD to do something, anything. (2) she was dressed in ratty cloth while being black. (3) she kissed a white dude in what I bet was a nice car, must be a “whore” (god I hate that word).
Where I agree with you and didn’t really ponder it, is your comment people dress in all kinds of ways in LA. I guess maybe the “I am working in my yard shitty cloths” look might be popular :). That then does beg the question of the stop. The handcuffs. I have been put in handcuffs once in my life. I wouldn’t say it was painful, but to be detained in that manner, to feel helpless, well not something that should be done in the manner it appears it was done in this case. Just tell her “go stand over there and don’t move” would seem to me a way for the cops to go.
Calouste
@Mandalay:
He wasn’t abused for being a shooting instructor. He was abused for being a fucking idiot who gave a fully automatic weapon, switched to full automatic, to a 9 year old girl.
Punchy
@jake the antisoshul soshulist: Never in a hundred million billion quadrillion years would I have guessed this. Wouldn’t FAWG make more sense, or am I trying to be sensical when I need to think like a Bieber fan?
Cacti
Exhibit A of how law enforcement treats white criminal suspects differently:
In Pennsylvania, a white teenage girl in a BMW hits someone, flees the scene, hits two more cars while trying to get away, then kicks the apprehending officer in the head.
And somehow, after all of this, she managed not to get shot, tasered, pepper sprayed, or beaten senseless with a nightstick.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Tommy:
Clearly we have different ideas of what “ratty clothes” look like. The outfit shown in the video above is far from my idea of ratty. It looks like stylishly casual warm weather wear for those who have a figure to pull it off. Which she does.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Tommy:
The fuck? Have you ever seen an actual homeless person?
I’m not sure you grasp the concept of “shitty clothes,” but what Ms. Watts was wearing at the time of the incident is not an example. Hint: lay your shovel aside, son.
RobertB
@Tommy: What Ruckus said. 3 tickets per house is easy. My wife and I have lived in this house for years. While we’ve lived here, I’ve had 3 speeding tickets, and my wife has had 2 (1 speeding, 1 using a gas station as a shortcut).
I’d count 1.0 arrests/household as high, but I’m not an expert on criminology or sociology.
Rafer Janders
@Cacti:
In California there is no stop and identify statute and no legal requirement to carry ID or produce it upon request. Unless it was a Terry stop, she was under no obligation to identify herself and produce ID.
Mnemosyne
@Tommy:
I think you’re missing an important piece of information: right now, we’re having our fall heat wave in Los Angeles. It’s been over 100 degrees every day here in the San Fernando Valley, and Studio City is squarely in the SFV. So what would you expect her to be wearing in 100-degree heat?
Rafer Janders
@Tommy:
Well, first, so what even if she did?
And second, no, she didn’t look maybe homeless. She looked like she lives in Los Angeles.That’s about all you can infer from her clothes: “likely to live in LA or elsewhere in Southern California.”
Tenar Darell
@Tommy:
Doesn’t change your point: they look like schmates, but to expand on it, there are lots of clothes that are deliberately designed to look like that.
That outfit could be cutting edge designer “summer beach wear.” Why do I think that? Based on the colors, and the thin weave of the t-shirt. They weren’t dirty, as far as I can tell. The colors on those shorts are bright! and look clean. (Based on pix, not the video, no bandwidth). I’m guessing that someone on the web could find those clothes. /someone better and more dogged than me.
The Dangerman
@Rafer Janders:
No.
No.
That might be a “maybe”; I was apparently falling asleep behind the wheel very early on a New Year’s morning (about 2am, give or take) and gleefully submitted to a breathalyzer test (I passed easily; .03, IIRC)…
…so the first cop (idiot) thought I had to be under the influence of a drug. Thus, the handcuffs. A supervisor came around and checked my pupils which, apparently, proved the first cop was, indeed, an idiot (or, by that time, my car had been fully searched, which, coupled with the pupils and patting me down, proved the idiocy) and the cuffs came off.
I wasn’t happy (obviously) but I can understand the actions of the cop in my event and, initially, in this action. Again, why the cuffs stayed on in this case is rather sad…
…but that’s the limit of my disgust (given rather limited knowledge of the details of the event). Sorry that I don’t reflexively see police misconduct without, ya know, evidence of it (Ferguson, for example, and I’m shocked that cop hasn’t been arrested yet). Seems like the LAPD agrees with me as they have come out and stated this was pretty basic police work (I think that was their quote).
Mandalay
@Betty Cracker:
You are correct – I had forgotten about that – but still pretty thin grounds for the celebrations.
I can’t. This is exactly what wingnuts do when they glibly assert that blacks are lazy, blacks don’t want to work, blacks are less intelligent, blacks are violent, blacks are criminals, etc.
We should always be “walking on eggshells” (i.e very careful) when we want to generalize about the behavior of groups. Members of the KKK are racist (by definition), and it’s fine to say that. But old white men as a group are not racist. You can make the case that as a demographic group they are more racist than (say) young white men, but you don’t get to shortcut that argument, and you can’t play the “walking on eggshells” card. If anyone wants to make volatile claims about group behavior they need to be damn precise about it.
WereBear
Um…. there was that… you know, thing he did. Which was: give a nine year old an Uzi? Which, kinda, led to his death?
That kind of thing.
Cacti
@Rafer Janders:
That’s why it’s a good idea to ask if you’re free to leave from the outset of any police encounter. Police aren’t obliged to tell you that you don’t have to identify yourself in non-Terry situations.
Rafer Janders
@Mandalay:
No, his crime, and what we knew about him, was that he handed a fully-loaded Uzi set to fully automatic to a nine-year old girl and then told her to go ahead and fire while standing off to her side.
Belafon
@The Dangerman:
I believe part of the point of the past few months is that us white men don’t tend to receive a lot of police misconduct for a reason. And because what we receive is so minor, that we can shrug off the little bit of actual misconduct as a minor thing.
Mnemosyne
@The Dangerman:
The LAPD claimed that killing homeless woman Margaret Mitchell was justified. They claimed that shooting Anthony Dwain Lee through a window at a Halloween party was justified.
So, yeah, excuse me if I don’t take the LAPD’s word for it when they claim they were totally in the right.
Cacti
@Rafer Janders:
The parents and the owner of the range should be charged with negligent homicide, child endangerment, and reckless endangerment of everyone else present at the range.
The Dangerman
@Belafon:
There is no doubt about this fact.
scav
That “We find this is in accordence with standard Police procedures” is one of the most hard-working and over-used phrases that always gets trotted out on speed dial. Is that the procudure manual right next to the free ex-mil tank and the water cannon etc? And if those are normal, in fact, judged best and perfected practice, what number do I call about the ferociously unnormal lax policing I keep seeing?
rb
@Mnemosyne: Not just ‘resisting arrest.’ Texas juries twice failed to find her not guilty of felony assault on a police officer.
Cops are out of control, but if you think that’s bad – and it unquestionably is very, very bad – then it’s depressing to contemplate that even bigger problems are our bootlicking citizen juries and careerist, unethical prosecutors.
Tommy
@Tenar Darell: All these people pushing back against my comments are not listening. That might be how I thought she looked, but as I said I looked worse in the last day after working in my yard. Heck for all I know she paid $1,000 for that t-shirt. I mean it is LA. Maybe that look is hip. I don’t know, I am not hip. Nor do I live near LA.
But I think, and I won’t back off these comments, what she wore and also the color of her skin, put together, was why what happened, happened.
Rafer Janders
@Cacti:
Oh, c’mon. It’s not like they let her play alone at a playground or anything.
Incitatus for Senate
@Mandalay: He was a fucking moron who endangered the lives of a 9 year old girl, the girls’s parents, anyone else within range, and himself. The girl could easily have been killed. And you are defending him.
The Dangerman
@Mnemosyne:
Didn’t say that taking their word for it is the end of it; this should be fully investigated.
Rafer Janders
@The Dangerman:
What do you mean, “thus, the handcuffs”? Thus what? From what you’ve described, he had absolutely no reason to handcuff you, and what you actually suffered was assault and false imprisonment. He had (a) no justifiable reason to think you were on drugs (other than you being sleep at 2 AM and passing a field sobriety test, horrors), (b) you weren’t assaultive or abusive, (c) you weren’t fleeing, and (d) you weren’t being charged with a crime and arrested. There was absolutely no rational reason to handcuff you. You were victimized.
Mnemosyne
@rb:
To be fair to the first jury, they never even got a chance to deliberate because asshole cop decided to try and bring in irrelevant information while he was testifying and the judge rightly called a mistrial at that point. It’s the second jury that I’m having a hard time with — really, you think a 12-year-old girl being dragged off by three grown men was actually assaulting them when she resisted?
Rafer Janders
@The Dangerman:
Unless women who kiss their husbands on the streets of LA are routinely stopped, have their ID demanded, and are handcuffed, then no, I don’t think it’s pretty basic police work.
Cervantes
@Rafer Janders: Sounds like a party I once walked into, accidentally.
Tommy
@Rafer Janders: I say this over and over again. My family members. My best friends. All avid gun owners. I might say I want to go hunting with them. They laugh at me. Tell me I need to complete a weapons class. Then they will talk to me about how to use guns around them. They will not let me near a loaded gun. Much less their guns.
I looked at a gun a few months ago, liked it. Almost bought it, just I’d assume to use on a range. Pretty sure my family/friends would rip it out of my hand if I didn’t tell them I was taking a class and learning about the gun. Something the NRA can’t do but they should.
My dad has a lot of guns. Illinois is anal about guns. If he dies tomorrow, and clearly he won’t, I have a gun permit through the State of IL to inherit his guns. Anal.
Cckids
@rikyrah: I was at the grocery store a month or so ago, at the next register was a black man with his 13-ish daughter; she was mixed race. The clerk wouldn’t sell him the beer he had with his order ” because you are with a minor, can you prove she’s your daughter?” It was surreal. I’ve bought wine & beer all the time when my kids were minors, as did my husband, no one ever questioned us. Several of us witnessing it basically said “this is f*cked up”, my cashier got mgmt involved & the gentleman got his beer.
But WTF? Just racist BS.
rb
@Mnemosyne: Yup. Even when the evidence is irrefutable, juries will not charge, no less convict, cops who brutalize citizens. And if juries can get in a few brutal licks of their own – like punishing a 12 yo for the crime of being put in the hospital by grown men wielding flashlights – they’ll go for that, too.
We are a bootlicking nation that loves licking boots.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Tommy: We are pushing back because your comments suggest a significant lack of awareness about:
1) what ratty/shitty clothes look like to much of the population and
2) how actual homeless people dress.
As noted – from what a low res photo shows – her clothes were clean and in good repair. In fact they appear to be pretty stylish summer wear (for women with her figure) It’s hotter than the hinges of (a dry!!) hell in Los Angeles at the moment.
I am suggesting that your privilege is showing. You may indeed think her clothes look ratty/shitty/like homeless attire to you, but that says more about you than what Ms. Watts had on. I never doubted that you included melanin content as part of the reason she was investigated/cuffed. But your view of her clothing is unlikely to have been shared by southern Cal police. As you may have noticed, it’s not shared by a couple of us here.
Rafer Janders
@Cervantes:
Sure. Accidentally.
Cervantes
@Rafer Janders: Further deponent sayeth not.
scav
I’m suddenly reminded of both the arresting a (guess!) TV Producer and holding him for hours before checking the video to see if he matched image incident, plus the four black men in a car reported so lets pull over an entirely unlike car with a mom and four little kids in it, making sure to have out guns out screaming incident. Descriptions don’t really freaking seem to matter.
rb
@Tommy: I think, and I won’t back off these comments, what she wore and also the color of her skin, put together, was why what happened, happened.
I call bullshit. You are trolling. She is basically wearing the young person’s warm weather uniform.
If that cop thinks she looks “ratty” or “homeless” (and it’s a mystery why looking “ratty” or being homeless should get somebody assaulted and illegally detained but, you know, cops) then it’s because that cop has a problem with her body, not the clothes he somehow manages to ignore on 10s of thousands of other people wearing the same damn thing she is every day.
daveNYC
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Eh, maybe he’s from Winnipeg and considers shorts and a t-shirt in September a sign of extreme poverty. Personally, those duds look pretty styling for SoCal.
Tenar Darell
@Tommy: There are clothes, and clothes if you know what I mean. If I didn’t know something about this, I would think that was dressing down. I come from prep-landia, Bermudas and polos on men and women all the way. I figured you’d be interested to know that based on cut, color and fabric, that outfit doesn’t say “homeless” as much as it says “designer.”
As for what you meant, I do actually understand…I almost always go food shopping and do other errands in my sweaty gym clothes, I look very disreputable that way. But if I were homeless, I’d be in multiple, unwashed and obviously dirty, layers. Because even in high heat, it’s easier to wear your clothes instead of trying to figure out how to carry them and risk having them stolen or thrown away.
Based on what I understand about California, particularly LA dressing, this was perfectly appropriate street wear for a 100 F day. I believe that LA/Burbank cops do learn about clothes (including that homeless tidbit), so unless these were both rookies (unlikely), it really was only the fact that she was brown that was the cops’ problem, not her outfit.
I and others up thread are trying to make sure you really understand this. I suppose I’m participating in this repetition to clarify my own ideas, but also because it is hard to know what will be that final fact that helps someone else see your POV. Shorter: Sometimes re-phrasing things works.
rikyrah
@Cacti:
no shock in the least.
it amuses me, how the police always seem to be able to ‘negotiate’ with White criminals who have done horrible deeds….but, Black non-criminals get shot dead without a single question asked.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
They still aren’t down with Loving v. Virginia.
LAC
@Mandalay: again,so funny you are saying anything against sweeping generalizations.
Roger Moore
@scav:
That’s not true at all. Exactly one word of the description matters.
LAC
@rb: seriously correct. If you took a gander of the clothes challenged monstrosities at http://www.peopleofwalmart, you would see that inappropriate clothes are not the reason they were harassed by police.
So, for the scared white folks out there, it’s hoodies, Facebook or Instagram pictures of “gang signs”, hot weather clothes, music too loud at a gas station, being black while voting, jay walking… Anything else?
JaneE
This sort of thing happens every day to ordinary black people. Maybe if we get enough publicity about just how badly our police have acted, something will be done.
There are honest mistakes, and even good cops can make them, but 50 years ago they were men enough to admit it. I knew one victim of police brutality. It was a genuine misunderstanding, and he got a settlement and an apology from the officers involved. Under those circumstances, it probably would have been the same if he had been white. But it was still not right, and the people involved could, and did, recognize that fact. Would they today? Personally, I doubt it.
scav
@Roger Moore: Sorta a flammable inflammable meeting of the meanings there, :)
Cervantes
@Roger Moore:
She is quoted calling the chef her “boyfriend” while on the phone with her dad.
Could be a mis-quote, of course.
Another_Bob
“Pucker up . . . don’t shoot!!! Pucker up . . . don’t shoot!!!”
Mnemosyne
@Cervantes:
It could also depend on how long they’ve been married — from personal experience, your brain doesn’t instantly switch from identifying someone as your “boyfriend” to calling him your “husband” just because the certificate has been signed.
Elizabelle
Just listened to the audio up on the TMZ site, and this sounds like a mountain out of a molehill.
Actually, the police come off fairly well.
I hope Daniele’s career does not suffer. She was very good in Django Unchained.
I don’t doubt that whites and minorities are treated differently, one bit. It’s a race and a class issue. It’s sad when something like this can be used to distract from far more egregious mistreatment by the authorities.
Have been watching your discussion of civil liberties and, yes, in California you may not be required to provide identification when asked, in many circumstances, but if you do so, civilly, you may find the police departing way faster.
Daniele has a good message — she was within her rights to refuse to provide ID — but is a flawed messenger, because her behavior escalated the situation.
All that said, I think working in a society awash with guns and contempt for them has some cops whacking out or checking out.
Every police officer is not like those we saw in Ferguson, Missouri. That said, many departments need to improve their communication with and respect for their communities.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne: Sure — nor do I really care whether CNN calls them married or not, and it should not make a difference to the police.
brent
@Elizabelle:
You know, I often see this language of “escalation” surrounding discussions of police behavior as if police officers are these untamed wild animals that can only be controlled with with proper handling or children who can’t be expected not to act out of pique.
They aren’t. They are adult human beings and professionals hired to do a specific job. They should know that job and be careful to obey the rules around that job or be relieved of the duties of performing that job.
None of the rules surrounding that job involve “escalating” a damn thing because they feel insulted or bothered or annoyed by the person they are questioning. In fact, the rules, which is to say the law, which is, in certain circumstances, the constitution of the United States of America, require the exact fucking opposite. It requires them to in fact, respect and PROTECT the right of this and every other person’s right to say whatever the hell they want regardless of whether they actually like it or not. In fact, that is how every single other person who is not a cop is required to behave. A requirement, by the way, imposed and enforced by the police.
To put it another way, if some jackass insults me in a bar. He does not have to verify his identity to me and I am not allowed to fucking cuff him or lock him in my basement. Doing so would be unlawful and I would certainly be detained by the police for such behavior. Certainly no cop would be interested in discussions of “escalations” from me because he didn’t escalate shit. I did by deliberately acting with no cause or justification in violating his rights.
The police, as it should be, are restricted by exactly the same set of rules. Lets stop pretending that they aren’t.
lou
What I find depressing about this story: How many commenters said “Just show your ID, end of problem!”
Yes, we live in a police state.
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
Seriously, you would not be insulted and offended if the police accused you of being a prostitute because you’re wearing shorts and a t-shirt? It’s fine for them to walk up to you on the street and demand that you show ID to prove that you are not a prostitute?
I can say with pretty good certainty that if the cops accused me of being a hooker, I almost certainly would not respond with maturity and respectfully show them my ID. I would tell them to fuck off. So would that make it right for them to handcuff and detain me?
Mandalay
@Incitatus for Senate:
@Rafer Janders:
@WereBear:
@Calouste:
I am not defending the man who died. I am saying that the bar set around here for gloating over someone’s death is set really low, and none of you posted very persuasive reasons for cheering his death.
If you really feel the need to proclaim your joy about his death then have at it, but I’ll think you’re an asshole and a loser.
Rafer Janders
@Elizabelle:
Um, why should it be a citizen’s responsibility to violate her own rights to ensure that the police don’t abuse her, rather than the police’s responsibility not to unlawfully abuse citizens who choose to exercise their rights?
I mean, the message here is really “just do what the bully wants and maybe he won’t hurt you.” How about the bully just not act like a bully?
Rafer Janders
@Elizabelle:
I don’t think Ms. Watts handcuffed anybody. It’s the police who escalated the situation by assaulting her after they refused to take her — completely justified — “no” for an answer.
Rafer Janders
@Elizabelle:
Why should that be my responsibility?
Or, in other words, the police are trained and paid to be professional in these situations, which they encounter many times a day. I, as a private citizen, am not trained and paid, nor should I be expected to be, a professional police-interacter-with. Let them be civil. That’s their job. It’s not mine.
Rafer Janders
@Mandalay:
Oh no!
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne:
I would hate it. But I would realize this is a cop responding to a called in complaint — albeit an inaccurate one — and do what I could to resolve the matter speedily and get them away from me and on to their next call.
I might try to turn the topic to false reports, and what a waste of their time this whole thing has been.
If I did not have ID on me — could happen — I would provide my name and address, if requested.
Courtesy and cooperation go a long way.
And, yeah, it would get my back up if a cop was treating me shabbily, with no provocation, as happens to some folks way too often. I don’t doubt that.
Seeing the other party as a human goes both ways.
And if you have a truly abusive officer, document it (cell phone recording, etc, if you can) and follow up in writing after the fact.
It was interesting the police made such a good audio recording of the encounter with Ms. Watts.
And it’s fascinating that I’ve not yet seen any pertaining to the actual handcuffing. Just before and after.
Rafer Janders
@Mandalay:
I don’t know, I think that a bar of “loading an Uzi submachine gun, setting it on full auto, handing it to a nine-year old, and telling her to fire away” is set pretty high, actually.
Rafer Janders
@Elizabelle:
Why? You, presumably, know who you are, so that info isn’t helpful to you. How is giving the police your name and address going to help them clear this situation up? Would they Google your name and address pull up a link that says “does not have sex in public with men for money”? Then they’d see that and send you on your way?
Which, again, is the responsibility of the police. After she’d said “I’m not giving you my ID” — which, legally, is well within her rights — they could have courteously cooperated and sent her on her way, rather than escalating the situation.
Elizabelle
@Rafer Janders:
That may be. It’s your right not to comply. I don’t care to live in a society that treats public employees so shabbily, and come from a socioeconomic group where I see the police as a public resource.
Most of them are fine; some might be jerks. Generally, you can tell what you are dealing with. They are humans too.
I don’t think most of us live in a police state. Sadly, some of us do, though.
There are lots of Fergusons out there.
Also, it would be better to adequately fund our police and emergency services through taxes, and not have them freelancing, harrassing the citizenry to run up fees.
(Don’t get me started on the privatized parking enforcement either. That’s a boondoggle and could stifle business districts.)
brent
This rather misses the point Elizabelle. Yes, one can courteously relinquish their rights, and MAYBE that will go a long way, although that might be assuming way too much. But the question is why should they have to do that in order to obtain that to which they are already entitled – the right not to be harassed and questioned by the police absent probable cause?
To put it another way, what would even go a longer way would be the cops respecting citizen’s rights. That would go a really long way. Why shouldn’t that be the expectation?
Elizabelle
@Rafer Janders:
Rafer, I listened to several audio clips. Interestingly, the one pertaining to the actual handcuffing is not up yet.
Ms. Watts flew off the handle. She was on the phone with her dad when the police arrived; she took issue with the cops asking her male companion for her ID as well. Maybe they do that to see how the second party reacts, to gauge a relationship; maybe it was expedient since she was on the phone.
Her husband/boyfriend was cooperative, and mentioned he had her passport on hand too. She forebade him to turn it over to them.
Yes, that may have been her right to refuse, but it was how she handled it too. She goes straight to accusations that this was a racial stop.
I feel for her; she was very distressed. But — in the audio released so far — she was not treated badly, and the request for ID is not unreasonable.
For all we know, the police do that partly to prove they’ve responded to the call at all. How much do they want to report back “yeah, there were two people near a car, but neither would give me their address or the time of day; nothing was going on so I left.” Couldn’t you make reports all day like that, from the comfort of Dunkin Donuts?
I wonder if they would have left her be if she’d refused politely, saying there was clearly nothing going on.
As it was, the cop called for a female backup.
Calouste
@Mandalay:
Obviously other people could have been killed because of that asshole’s macho incompetence. Luckily he killed himself before that happened. That other people won’t get killed because of his demise is something to cheer about.
Yes, I also cheer if a drunk driver kills himself by crashing into a tree. That means they didn’t kill other people by crashing headlong into their car. Society is better off if some people remove themselves from it, if they can’t alter their behavior that puts other people in mortal danger.
Rafer Janders
@Elizabelle:
Of course she was treated badly. She was handcuffed.
And while the request for ID is not unreasonable, neither is her refusal to provide ID unreasonable as well. Once she said no, that should have been the end of it.
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
Well, YMMV, of course. If a cop wouldn’t believe I wasn’t a whore without me showing him some ID, I’d probably end up in jail. I guess it all depends on how much tolerance you have for people insulting you to your face.
Elizabelle
She was handcuffed, true that. And that clip is not available yet.
I see society as more than rights, rights, rights. There is room for civility and cooperation.
If citizens treated me like Ms. Watts treated the responding officers, encounter after encounter, I would find another field or start really resenting my job. It would make you more and more cynical.
Is that what you want to see? Literal armed camps?
rb
@Elizabelle: For all we know, the police do that partly to prove they’ve responded to the call at all
Nope. By their own statements, they kept no record of the encounter, consistent with their policy. Try again.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne:
I think the whole thing could have ended without Ms. Watts showing ID if she had treated the officers courteously. They just wanted to see what they were dealing with. Maybe I’m being naive.
The cops do not necessarily think she’s a whore with a john. That is the complaint that was called in. They did not arrest on sight. They turned out to evaluate the situation.
Why assume there’s an insult behind every situation? If there is, there are other and better ways to deal with that.
Incitatus for Senate
@Mandalay: Well, I happen to think that giving a 9 year old an uzi is a pretty fucking high bar. And in general, almost killing a 9 year old is a sure way to lose any sympathy from me.
Elizabelle
@rb:
Actually, there seems to be a pretty good audio record. Paper record, I cannot speak to.
brent
I can’t speak for anyone else but I have already expressed what I want to see. What I want to see is cops respecting other people’s rights like professionals.
But lets assume your assessment of Watt’s behavior for the sake of argument. Lets assume that her anger at being treated like a criminal for completely normative behavior is unjustified and that she just randomly decided to be an asshole just for the sake of it.
You know who else has to deal with people being assholes to them frequently? Every other single person on the planet. You know how they, by and large, react to those assholes? They move on. They don’t handcuff them. They don’t detain them. They don’t demand that they prove that they aren’t criminals. They behave that way in part because they know there are serious consequences for not respecting the rights of other citizens and because they realize as adults that they have nothing to gain from getting into it with someone else just because they have made them angry.
The police, for some mysterious reason, are given to believe by too many of their fellow citizens that they don’t labor under the same requirements. They shouldn’t believe that and we shouldn’t let them..
Felanius Kootea
@Elizabelle: Because there was an insult behind implying that she must be a prostitute for PDA with her boyfriend/husband; PDAs are seen routinely in LA with no consequences for most.
I mostly fault the person who called the police in addition to the police themselves. Without that initial bigotry, the police wouldn’t have been there in the first place. I wish there was a way to fine people like that for wasting public officials’ time/resources or something along those lines.
Also, if the police truly felt that this was a hooker/john situation, her boyfriend/husband should have been cuffed as well no matter what ID he showed.
Juju
@Tommy:
This is word for word what you wrote about Ms Watts outfit:
Rafer Janders
@Elizabelle:
Fill in this sentence: they handcuffed for the reason that…..
And remember, it generally has to involve safety: for the handcuffing to be justified, they had to believe she was a danger to herself or others, going to assault them, going to flee, etc., or they were actually arresting there. Absent those, there was no reason to handcuff.
So they handcuffed her because….? How does that sentence end?
Juju
I’m using my iPhone and I can’t edit my formatting error. Oops.
brent
@Elizabelle:
I have no idea if thats true. What I am much more certain of is that the whole situation could have ended without Ms. Watts showing ID if the officers had simply walked away and respected her right not to have to identify herself. I am still left wondering why I should spend more energy advocating for your scenario rather than mine.
Prometheus Shrugged
@Elizabelle: You’re also missing the obvious point that even “cooperation” and “de-escalation” are white people’s privileges.
Since many commenters here have related their experiences with Southern California cops, I’ll share a recent anecdote as well. I often walk my dogs down a deserted frontage road that leads to a power substation (I can let them off leash there safely). One evening at dusk last week, I had just finished putting the dogs in the car when a cop came roaring down the road. The cop threw on his spotlight to blind me, got behind his car door and yelled “get your hands behind your head!”. I complied, but then when the cop saw who I was, he just yelled, “What are you doing down here? Get out of here” Since he was rude, I was not exactly polite either, letting him know that it’s public space, and that I walk my dogs here all the time, even when other cops are around. He then just yelled something incomprehensible and roared off in his squad car.
The point of this story is that there is zero doubt in my mind that if I hadn’t been white, there would have been serious escalation and/or I would have been lit up like a pachinko game, all with “probable cause”… I was not asked for I.D., by the way.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Elizabelle:
LAPD introduced the “armed camps” model of policing almost 100 years ago with William H. Parker (I can’t link, so look him up on Wikipedia). It’s what they do — approach every citizen as a probable criminal. It’s happened to me, and I’m middle-aged and white.
So if LAPD wants people start treating them with courtesy, they have to do it first. Those of us who live here are sick and tired of treating cops with kid gloves and getting barked at in return.
Elizabelle
@Rafer Janders:
Since it’s in your list, the cop in the transcript says she was cuffed because she walked away from them — so they may have used the “going to flee” justification.
Although, honestly, I think she ended up in cuffs because they got tired of her yelling at them. Will give you that point. You can see it a bit in the transcript.
Here’s a partial transcript from the UK Daily Mail:
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2756988/It-s-right-enjoy-Django-Unchained-actress-insists-did-wrong-harassed-LAPD-witnesses-claim-having-sex-public.html#ixzz3DQYtAW1K
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Elizabelle:
So the cop basically admitted he put her in handcuffs for talking back, and you’re defending him for that?
brent
@Elizabelle:
This is not a complicated legal question. If she was not being detained – and let us be clear that the officers had no probable cause to detain her – then she can refuse to present ID, walk away and call the officer’s mother all sorts of names while she is doing it. What he told her – “You can’t walk away ma’am” – is flat out incorrect and he should know that. He either lied to a citizen about their rights or unknowingly violated them because he didn’t know the law himself. Why should any of us consider that acceptable behavior?
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
Also, if you’re a cop in any city and you don’t realize that the people you encounter are going to be extra sensitive to any hint of bias against African-Americans right now, then you’re a fucking idiot.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
Because I see the officers as human too.
And I put that transcript up realizing there may be plenty in there for a lawsuit. I did not cherry-pick.
This story is not over, by any means.
I am not a perfect person. Are you? Do we expect cops to be perfect? Because that’s unattainable. They have audio and video. Which goes both ways here.
brent
@Elizabelle:
I certainly don’t. I don’t expect it of anyone. What I do expect is that anyone, cop or otherwise, who detains another person without cause and in direct violation of their rights and dignity as human beings suffer serious consequences for doing so, whatever they believe the provocation to be. For sure, I do not believe that is “making a mountain out of a molehill.”
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Elizabelle:
They’re human, but they also have a responsibility to stay in control of themselves. There are plenty of times when the people I interact with drive me crazy, but I know I have to stay polite and professional, or I could get fired. So why is it okay for cops to act like petty tyrants and behave in ways that would get me fired in a heartbeat?
And, no, I don’t buy that we should let cops get away with asshole behavior because their job is “dangerous.” A convenience store clerk is more likely to be killed on the job than a cop is, but we don’t say it’s okay for that clerk to be an asshole to everyone he encounters because his job is hard.
Rafer Janders
@Elizabelle:
No, “going to flee” is “going to flee from a crime in commission.” Since it wasn’t a Terry stop, she had the right to walk away. You’re basically admitting that they handcuffed her without any justification.
Rafer Janders
@Elizabelle:
No, but I expect cops to (i) know the law and (ii) follow the law. That is the very least they should do.
raf
Some folks need to check the batteries in their BS detectors. Listen to the longer audio clips on TMZ (ugh that site tho). There are issues with race and law enforcement out there, but this ain’t one of them.
Elizabelle
That’s fine.
Don’t let me stop you all from applying for the police exam for a big city department.
You’ll be great.
gwangung
@Elizabelle:
You have it ass backwards.
I do not care to live in a society (THIS society) where the police can arrest or treat people as criminals for mere impoliteness.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Elizabelle: You mentioned the CNN interview (20:36 YouTube linky) with the couple earlier. He said the cop was asking all kinds of questions that made the racial aspects of his thinking apparent.
As others have said, the policeman has the responsibility to treat people they encounter respectfully. They’re given the power of life and death while on the job, and they need to be able to put their egos away while they’re on the job in return. (Too often, of course, they don’t do that.) In the bits of the tape that I saw, he was telling her that she had to comply (when she legally didn’t); that he was more powerful than her (which is irrelevant when it comes to probable cause for detaining her); etc. It was an ego thing for him – she wasn’t “respecting his authority” the way he wanted. Maybe he was trained that way. If so, the training needs to change.
I think most of us would agree that this incident wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t been African American. The 911 call wouldn’t have been made, and if it had, he wouldn’t have immediately been asking leading questions about prostitution. And if the officer had asked for her ID and she refused (saying instead “am I free to go?”) do you really think that she would have been handcuffed if she were white?
Yes, we can construct scenarios where the cop was 100% reasonable, but the evidence thus far is that he wasn’t. You shouldn’t give him the benefit of the doubt, IMHO, and instead put yourself in her shoes.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
chopper
@Mandalay:
I thought ‘handing a loaded Uzi to a 9-year-old standing next to him’ was a very persuasive reason.
Comrade Mary
@Elizabelle:
September 15, 2014: The Rob Ford Defense replaces Godwin’s Law.
Elizabelle
@Comrade Mary:
Oh for fuck’s sake, you guys. Get over yourselves.
I feel for Ms. Watt, but was initially more horrified than I am now. There is a great chance there is more to this story. I am not going to rumor-monger.
I think she’s a talented young actress and probably a good person. I hope she has a brilliant acting career. She was great in Django.
This has started to look like a rush to judgment to me. We are all so quick to point and laugh at the unloyal political opposition for jumping on bandwagons, no matter what.
I am starting to see problems with this story. Could absolutely be wrong.
But I hate being part of a pile-on.
And I can’t stand the hive mind at Balloon Juice sometimes.
rb
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): @Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): So the cop basically admitted he put her in handcuffs for talking back, and you’re defending him for that?
Like I said: a bootlicking nation, that loves licking boots.
Annamal
For crying out loud, our local cops treated the guy who broke into our house late at night with more respect that this police officer is showing (he was also a lot more agressive than Watts is being and with much less cause).
Rafer Janders
@Elizabelle:
If police officers treated me like police officers treat African-Americans, encounter after encounter, I would start really resenting them. It might make me more and more cynical about what their real motivations were….
Joel
Boy, I hope there’s an expensive civil suit coming.