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Officer Discretion
I was asked in a comment how I would have handled a situation that has gone viral on YouTube. A woman attending her son’s football game was confronted for not wearing a mask. She refused to leave the game and was tased, handcuffed, and then removed from the game. You can find the video on the internet so I’m not going to include it in the post.
My personal belief is that police officers assigned as school resource officers can be misused by school administrators. They end up enforcing administrative rules rather than state statutes concerning criminal law that has been legislated by elected officials.
Do you see all those empty seats in the background? Even if the officer was approached by a school official to remove this woman the officer has some options. He could have told the official let’s ask here to move a bit further away. If the school official is a bit dim the officer could say let’s solve this without creating a bigger problem.
Talk to the woman and simply say: Would you do me a favor and sit at the end of this row if you won’t wear a mask. Would that have worked? We’ll never know, but it would be worth a try.
Published in General
It happened more than once, so not really a type, but more of an ongoing error, Mr. Giordano.
It bothers me because my name is spelled correctly at the top of every quote. It is right there if people just bother to get it right.
Are your really having this much difficulty understanding me? You must be, because here you have three paragraphs saying something else than what I am saying when I say that the police do not automatically deserve respect.
I may have no real choice but to follow the law. That is not respecting the law, that is enforced compliance of a law I not only don’t respect, but a person who I don’t respect. I might obey, but please don’t confuse obeying the law at the point of a gun with respect. I have nothing but contempt for this school, its school board, the cop in question, and everyone involved other than the woman who was clearly not a danger to anyone else. I respect her standing up for what she believed in enough to take the consequences. Like Rosa Parks.
Now, maybe in your state, or this state the laws allow this. in GA you are not allowed to force someone to wear a mask with a medical condition, and you cannot make them prove they have it, even if you are a private property owner, (and a public school is not even close to that).
This cop was wrong and there is nothing you can say in defense of this tyrant that will ever change my mind because I know right from wrong, and it is wrong to enforce such a rule at the point of a gun, which is what all police action is. All state power, all of it, stems from the point of a gun. Period.
I don’t say that police never appropriately use discretion in enforcing the law. But what they very often do is not tolerate feedback from the person they’re interrogating and call this a failure to comply.
There is a big difference between enforcing the letter of the law and enforcing the spirit of the law. Laws are supposed to actually bring about something good: that is the spirit of the law. It seems that you advocate following the letter of the law at the cost of the spirit and the intended function behind the law. Police use any disagreement about the spirit of the law or any explanation of the immediate circumstances as frank disobedience and then follow that track to harass people, arrest people, lase people, handcuff them, take their children to CPS, and throw them in jail, at the point of a gun. Arguing compliance to the authority of the officer is how they, the police, break the spirit of the law and make them, the citizen, pay for their breaking the letter of the law.
The spirit in this case was that the woman was endangering no one, but the “law” was unbending and violently enforced.
She has asthma. Social distancing should be enough. Ask for medical records and, if she was truthful, dismiss charges.
Ah, death threats. The universal last cry for sympathy from those who deserve none.
Death threats are too far, but I did primitively wish for him to have an accident, relating to falling, and steel steps, and reaching the bottom, and such. But I do need to bless him and not curse him and let God take any appropriate action.
I don’t wish him any ill worse than a firing. I’m just pointing out how frequently we see the, “Somebody says or does something infuriating,” -> “That someone invokes death threats in an attempt to gain sympathy,” pattern play out. Much like calling a person racist, it’s starting to lose its impact.
Your point is well taken. I certainly agree. And events have shown that it’s not so much from the right, other than hyperbole. I’m not so sure about when anti-fa and BLM make death threats. As bad as some of these Democrat governors and mayors are, the marching on their houses is very disconcerting. Not that that isn’t deserved, but it still isn’t right. In their places, though, they really brought it upon themselves.
Fair point. I would suggest that it’s slightly different when there’s an actual mob at your door. :-P
Yes, those mayors etc only want the actual mobs at OTHER PEOPLES’ doors.