Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Awesomeness in Action

Because I know everyone loves to see a touching story of public servants doing their part to improve our lives...


It gets pretty funny when you get pulled over by a cop and the cop starts acting in a way that makes you call the police.

I really don't understand why he needed to get her signature. It's not needed. Like a parking enforcement loser can put the ticket on your windshield. You can throw it away and the info is still sent to the city hall. They really don't care. This fine officer could put the ticket on her windshield or check the box that says, "Driver Refuses To Sign". It's irrelevant. She'll get the citation. But the relevant part is the assertion of his cocksucker attitude to a woman having a miscarriage. They must train for that in police academy.

If this happened in Germany and this whole video was in German you'd think, "Holy shit what a fucked up country!"


 But the comments on this video were mostly on the cop's side, so I must be an idiot. Here's a sample:

"All she had to do was roll the window down. If that would have been a young black man they would have tased his ass a long time ago and probably Rodney King'd him. When will some women learn that passive aggressiveness does not work with police. It only pisses them off more. Just do what they ask. "

What do you think? If you think like the above person then you're an asshole. I recently talked about this scenario when going to the border inspection and now I'm second-guessing myself. I didn't see the point in asserting rights but then I see a woman asserting them and getting fucked over and I start to wonder if it's not the best way to weed out the bully cops, the ones who aren't peace keepers but long arm johnny with a grudge against hippies. Maybe civil liberties are kind of like teeth; ignore them and they will go away.

You don't have to do shit for a cop unless you're being detained with probable cause...at which point you keep your mouth shut.  If he is asking then it's because he has no authority to do anything. And it's irrelevant to the ticket he wrote. You can't get out of that. But you don't have to sign shit and you don't have to answer shit without a lawyer present. You have the right to remain silent BEFORE the cop gives you that right...not just AFTER.

But this scenario usually doesn't escalate when the activists start in with their "Am I being detained?" mantra. Truthfully, if the cop does not already have his knee on your neck then you are completely in the clear. If you don't escalate anything then it's all up to the cop to escalate it. In this case the cop obviously escalates it. He grabs the window and then claims he's in danger because if she rolls it up then he could be injured. That is like when I was 7 years old and my brother walked toward me swinging his fists and said it was my fault for standing in the way if I got hit. How about, "GET YOUR FUCKING MITTS OFF MY CAR, Starsky!"

I watched one video of a similar situation where after a ten minute verbal standoff the cop threw the license and citation into the car with contempt and walked away the big hero for the day.

I'm really baffled by his statement, "You are being charged with resisting arrest!" Classic gestapo tactics...to instill more fear in her, knowing such a charge will never stick. But that doesn't answer the question of what she is being arrested for. You can't be arrested for resisting arrest. Right? Maybe I skipped that day when I was shuffling around Harvard and sneaking into classes for fun.

I recall the cops who rolled up on me in Corpus and in seconds had my hands behind my back in a King Kong Bundy wrestler move as I tried to play gospel songs in a park. Totally illegal personal search that turned up my dirty underwear. No probable cause. I played dumb knowing no camera footage would ever surface of their mistreatment...and since God is all out of awards for martyrdom I thought I'd better let the dogs have their day. I didn't resist. This lady is trying to get to the hospital and ends up in jail.

I think the moral of this story is the cops can do anything they want to you as long as no one cares what the cops do to you.
Sorry I interrupted your cheerios.

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Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.