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huckin harms
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   Posted: 17 Jun 2010 at 4:43pm |
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well said sisu
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Travisimo
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Posted: 17 Jun 2010 at 5:33pm |
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so sisu is implying that jaywalking is a bad law, and proposing civil disobedience to the point of pushing an officer? You can put any cute quote you want at the end of a post, it doesn't change facts.
Don't get caught up in "what ifs"
This is not a what if case. If you shove a police officer you deserve to get punched. Civil disobedience never includes needing to be held back by your boyfriend so you don't assault a police officer.
No matter how much you don't like what an officer does, there is a time and place to take that beef up. In this case that place would be a court of law.
I am again surprised that sisu is getting a warm response from anybody. She broke a law. If you guys are against jaywalking LAW you should take that up.
Don't push cops, in fact don't go pushing anybody doing their jobs.
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H2O please
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Ellingferd
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Posted: 17 Jun 2010 at 6:07pm |
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Seriously, when is pushing anyone you dont know okay? Imagine this, the girl pushes the cop and instead of punching her he says: "hey, please dont do that". I imagine the girl isnt going to say: "oh, im so sorry officer". No. She is going to keep pushing until she gets what she wants. So, he punches her and she is out of the scenario instantaneously.
Personally I am not a big fan of cops. Never have been. I have had my fair share of run ins with the law as a teen and in college and none of them were positive. Cops dont like punk skateboarders. However, I would have never even considered pushing a cop, despite how ridiculous and asinine the cop was being. It doesnt matter what the cop is doing, you dont push them. If you think they are acting beyond their rights, you take that up later, not in the moment. We have lawyers and due process for a reason. Advocating standing up to police officers, and being physical with them is simply absurd and will only result in you getting your ass beat and everyone else wondering why you would be dumb enough to pick a fight with a cop.
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Travisimo
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Posted: 17 Jun 2010 at 6:18pm |
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I agree 100%
I too have been harassed by police to the point that I really considered sueing the Kirkland PD for harassment. It was truly bad, I was often a target for police harassment. I too NEVER considered pushing one. Even when they were being downright rude and nasty to me I always responded with "yes sir" and "no sir."
I guess I was intelligent enough to realize not to fight that kind of authority with a physical shoving match. The people in this instance were not.
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H2O please
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SupaSta
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Posted: 17 Jun 2010 at 8:06pm |
Look at it this way. A cop's reaction to being physically assaulted is much the same as the reaction of a sleeping bear being poked with a stick. He's going to take a bite out of your ass. It doesn't matter if the bear was sleeping in the wrong place, at the wrong time of day, or if he was holding your blankie. You don't poke a sleeping bear with a stick.
It really has nothing to do with black vs white or jaywalking, gang banging, or drug dealing, it has to do with Darwinism and some people not understanding that real life has consequences.
dan
Edited by SupaSta - 17 Jun 2010 at 8:07pm
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Life is short, paddle hard!
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Sisu
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Posted: 18 Jun 2010 at 9:40am |
[ QUOTE=Travisimo]so sisu is implying that jaywalking is a bad law, and proposing civil disobedience to the point of pushing an officer? You can put any cute quote you want at the end of a post, it doesn't change facts.Not exactly. What I am trying to say that if a law is vague, and is being selectively or even discriminatorily enforced, I don't think I have somehow waived my rights to object because a police officer is doing the enforcing and he has the power to kick my ass and/or arrest me. In a perfect world, we make our points in a mutually respectful way and the matter is resolved in court. In reality, sometimes things break down, and police officers have on occasion been known to lose their tempers and abuse their authority. However, the job requires them to be better than that, and the good officers are, I think, the ones who are willing to save people from their own stupidity sometimes.
I understand that we disagree on whether the police officer acted appropriately in this situation, and I respect the fact that you and many others think he did. What I take issue with is the apparent view you and others express on the bigger picture, i.e. that there are no circumstances that justify civil disobediance or pushing an officer back. Have you seen the video of that (innocent) guy getting the "mexican piss" kicked out of him by 3 -4 officers a few weeks ago near Lake Union? What if you are his friend and you are there and you know he had nothing to do with the alleged crime? I hope that if I am his friend, I am going to make them kick me too.
Just as I don't know what was in the officer's head when he punched that girl, none of you do either. Please be willing to question authority and if you think it is wrong, be brave enough to challenge it even it the authority in question is in the form of a police officer.
By the way Alexander Bickel was a Supreme Court clerk to Justice Felix Frankfurter, a Yale law professor, and one of the most prominent Constitutional law scholars of his time. He is probably spinning in his grave at this quote being labeled "cute."
Over and out.
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Wiggins
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Posted: 18 Jun 2010 at 1:57pm |
The funny thing about this whole thread is that when you look at the bigger picture and remove the context of this one incident I doubt there are many of us here that disagree with Sisu.
Civil disobedience has deep roots in this country, but civil disobedience is a considered action. I think that is probably where the train goes off the rails for a lot of people when they hear about this case. People who are acting in protest of something have a point to make by breaking a particular law or rule. From the students that walk out of class to protest immigration laws, the actual protesters at WTO (not the sh*t starters), the people that marched with Martin Luther King, Harriet Tubman, the Whiskey Rebellion, to the Boston Tea Party participants; this country has a deep rooted tradition of civil disobedience. However, the examples above all considered that their actions would have consequences and accepted those risks because they felt their cause was greater than themselves (or, possibly in the first example, they just wanted to get out of class).
I think there is a difference between that, and what we see in the video, or hear in the story behind it. I doubt this girl was trying to make a political statement by jaywalking, and if she was you can bet we would of heard about it by now because it makes for a better headline. What most of us see when we consider this incident is a couple of teenage girls throwing a tantrum, and a cop unable to control his scene.
By contrast I was in traffic court once and saw a woman plead not guilty to a seat belt ticket. She felt that it should be against the law for school buses to not provide seat belts for children. So she jumped in her car and drove around until she was stopped for not wearing her seat belt because she wanted to stand up in court and go on record to bring attention to this issue. She was found guilty and paid her fine. She knew there was no way she was going to win, but that was not way she was there. This was an act of civil disobedience.
On selective enforcement: I don't know why this cop was enforcing a jaywalking law. It is something I personally have never enforced. I also know that everyday I enforce laws I don't like or agree with because those are laws that are important to the community I serve, or because my superiors have identified a problem they want to try and address. It may have been something that was out of his hands. Maybe he has a reason for enforcing the jaywalking law, and of course, he may just be a prick. We don't know, but what is known is that jaywalking is illegal, and if he observed the offense he can detain them for that offense (i.e. if his motivation for detaining them was because they jaywalked and not because he wanted to detain them and then saw them jaywalking). We don't know what was in this guy's head, but on the face value of the known information, we have no reason to suspect that any prejudices influenced why he was enforcing this law.
If you want to jump in and save your friend because you think the cops are wrong, and you have accepted the consequences, then I would characterize that as civil disobedience on some level. You may even kick the cop's ass, but ultimately there will be consequences. If you haven't considered your actions then you may be a good friend, but there is no higher purpose to what you are doing.
A room full of cops rarely have a consensus on whether any particular use of force was the best way to handle any given situation. It is always ok to question police tactics in the aftermath of something like this case. Agreeing to disagree in these types of situations is almost always the norm. I have enjoyed this thread because it has been a civil discussion on the subject.
Kyle
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Ellingferd
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Posted: 18 Jun 2010 at 2:17pm |
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I would agree, and I am all for civil disobedience. Civil disobedience, however, necessitates both disobedience and civility. Civil disobedience stops being civil as soon as you become physical. Read Thoreau and you will find this utterly apparent in his writings. He would have whole heartedly advocated for the two young girls standing up for what they believed, but not in a physical nature. If you dont agree with the rules of the state, then try to change them, but not with violent means. His ideas were the heart of India's fight for independence from Britain and our own civil rights movement. In both of those instances, Gandhi and MLK preached the same ideas: non-violent protest, which obviously would indicate no physical reaction no matter how violent you oppressor becomes. Read "Account of the Salt March" by Webb Miller, and you will get a first hand account of what civil disobedience really means.
These girls were not civil, they were merely disobedient and violent at that.
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Travisimo
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Posted: 18 Jun 2010 at 3:06pm |
The reason the cop was enforcing that law was because the school actually asked them to. It is a big problem there. Go ahead and drive there as school lets out to see for yourself. "The potential for jaywalking accidents was worrisome enough for Franklin
High staff and the school district to ask cops to make their presence
known at the bus stop." http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2012146689_pedestrian18m.htmlAs far as spinning in graves, we aren't talking about pie in the sky or relative instances. We are talking about THIS actual case. I would hope that a Yale graduate (My sis just got her PHD last Thurs from there... yay!!!) would be more offended that their quote was used out of context or in the wrong context. My "silly" comment was for you using it in this instance. The law that was broken was assaulting an officer, that is why she was punched. That law is just. An officer has a right to stop somebody from jaywalking when the school asks them to. Stop arguing what ifs, this case is cut and dry.
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H2O please
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huckin harms
Master Poster
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Posted: 18 Jun 2010 at 3:53pm |
NO travis, the case is NOT as cut and dry as you say it is....
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Travisimo
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Posted: 18 Jun 2010 at 4:06pm |
"(1) A person is guilty of assault in the third degree if he or she,
under circumstances not amounting to assault in the first or second
degree: (a) With intent to prevent or resist the execution
of any lawful process or mandate of any court officer or the lawful
apprehension or detention of himself or another person, assaults
another; or" http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=9a.36.031http://mynorthwest.com/?nid=11&sid=333947
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H2O please
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Wiggins
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Posted: 18 Jun 2010 at 5:21pm |
In my experience there is no such thing as a cut and dry case. Especially once lawyers, a judge, and a jury get involved.
If I were an arresting officer I wouldn't charge Assault 3 on anything I see in the video. Assault 3 is a felony assault, and typically the courts are going to want to see felony level damage from that assault. If she squared off with him and tried to duke it out you would have a strong case for Assault 3, but with it being a technical assault with no injury the case is much stronger for Obstruction or Rendering Criminal Assistance. Technically she is guilty of Assault 3, but the reality is that charging high sometimes creates a backlash against the prosecution and hurts their case. This is especially true when dealing with juveniles.
I had a guy slam me into a door frame so hard that the mark from it is still visible on my arm over a year later. I grabbed onto his arm as he was resisting arrest and he swung me into the door frame while trying to get away. I am sure that it was intentional, but I couldn't prove that he wasn't just trying to get away. I tacked on a Resisting charge rather than a Assault 3 charge as a result. If I had charged Assault 3 in addtition to intent the jury would have wanted to see a real injury, not a scrape and a bruise that won't go away. This guy ended up getting a class B felony plead down to a misdemeanor and got less than a week of house arrest for a sentance, but I kept my credibility intact with the judge and the PA's office and that will help me do more good with better cases in the future. It is far from ideal, but that is the world we live in.
By the way, the felony charge was a no brainer, open and shut case....
Kyle
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Travisimo
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Posted: 18 Jun 2010 at 11:31pm |
Since none of us here talking was there and cannot really speak to who was in the wrong... The fact that the "punchee" just apologized to the officer, it may be a bit more cut and dry than certain people here have hinted at. She was in the wrong, she has admitted it and apologized. She is young, and I do hope she learns. Being punched was enough, a felony is a scary reality now for her. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2012154761_rosenthal19m.htmlIf I were a judge, at this point I would show mercy. She is an adult, and a felony (that she DID commit one) carries serious repercussions. I personally think this is the best outcome considering the circumstances. I hope she gets off lightly and the officer learns how to be a lot more assertive to avoid this in the future. P.S.: the officer did NOT have a taser, so really I think he did about all he could do to control the girl and crowd quickly. I still say he was 100% in the right.
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H2O please
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Wiggins
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Posted: 19 Jun 2010 at 2:33pm |
Under the new court rules the officer could not have used a taser until about the same time as he hit the girl. The Taser is prone to failure. When they work they are great, but when you have someone charging you I want something more reliable.
Back when Tasers were on the same level of force as OC spray they used to end these types of disputes very quickly. Most of the time displaying the Taser was enough to get a situation under control when even drawn guns wouldn't because people knew the cop would use the Taser (this led to cops trying to use Tasers are a replacement to firearms when they needed there guns, but that is another subject). The failure rate on the Taser was less of a concern because it was used to deal with non compliant subjects rather than aggressive ones, so the situation often gave you other riskier options if the Taser failed.
As far as the officer doing all he could do to control the girl, he certainly needed improvement in this area. If you watch the comments video from the instructor at the Basic Law Enforcement Academy you'll note that he only talks about whether or not the officer was justified in hitting the second girl, and does not comment on how he was dealing with the first girl. The reason for this is that BLEA teaches that non compliant suspects who are resisting handcuffing get taken to the ground and cuffed there. The reason for this is that it limits their ability to resist. When you fail to do that, as this officer did, you get the sh*t show that we saw here. If he had controled the girl faster, then he would have minimized the size of the crowd, and likely the need to control it.
It is probably very telling that out of all the non field assignments they could have given this guy, he went to a training squad.
Kyle
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I smell bacon
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