Waiting for an elevator while black
Amanda B Reckondwyth
Mystery Worship Editor
in Hell
So our wonderful, compassionate, humanitarian police force beat a man unconscious, and then continue to beat him, and finally slam his head into an elevator door, because he refused to sit down when they told him to.
The police chief says wait a minute, you don't know the whole story, I'm going to release the body cam video any minute now so you can see everything that took place.
But what's he waiting for? Why doesn't he release it immediately? Is he trying to edit it to make his bully thugs look good?
I don't care what the whole story is. I can't imagine any story in which four policemen beat an unarmed civilian until he is unconscious, and then continue to beat him and brutalize him, as having any "whole" other than that.
Can you?
The police chief says wait a minute, you don't know the whole story, I'm going to release the body cam video any minute now so you can see everything that took place.
But what's he waiting for? Why doesn't he release it immediately? Is he trying to edit it to make his bully thugs look good?
I don't care what the whole story is. I can't imagine any story in which four policemen beat an unarmed civilian until he is unconscious, and then continue to beat him and brutalize him, as having any "whole" other than that.
Can you?
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Comments
What I find hard to comprehend is that the ethnic diversity of police forces, which was supposed to help end racially-motivated abuse by police, doesn't seem to have worked. How can it be possible that in 2018 it is still about culture and training?
This paragraph is at the end of the linked article:
Cops have to be able to use physical force, but surely the standard must be 'necessary and appropriate in all the circumstances' or similar loose wording, allowing cops who are trained to use non-violent strategies first, and not lose their cool at the slightest challenge to their authority. A cop's weapon of choice should be her voice.
I think most of them aren't suitably trained (or at all) in non-violent strategies. Heard something on the radio in the last couple of months about a group that teaches non-violent strategies to cops. IIRC, it was rough going, though some cops said later that it was helpful.
I think I remember what show it was on. I'll see if I can find it.
"What cops aren’t learning" (Reveal, from the Center for Investigative Reporting). Audio podcast, summary, and links to deeper research. Transcript at the very bottom of the page.
IME, Reveal is a really good show. Manages depth without causing boredom.
Yes and No. From secondary school I knew an even division (2 and 2) who joined police forces. Two did it for the right reasons - to serve and protect - and one of those two also trained as a nurse beforehand. A man of the highest standard. (I really should tell him that some day.) Two did it, as you describe, for the wrong reasons.
For which I applaud him. Bravo! Well said! (Although I'm probably wicked to do so for the final remark.)
Of course, his reward for same was having his head slammed into the elevator door.
His lawyer has pointed out that words are not weapons.
This is critical. In my home state there is currently pressure to move the investigation and complaints process outside of Victoria Police. In my judgement if the current Govt is re-elected later this year this will probably happen. The Police Association opposes it.
Its ironic that these policemen were responding to a domestic violence complaint.
On violence, I have personal experience of the red mist descending, but my mist tends to involve shouting. I think I am capable of hitting someone in that state, and so it is one to be avoided at all costs. Shouting too is to be avoided. I guess I say that because part of me can comprehend doing what those cops did. Not coming in with the coward's hit to the kidney, not punching the guy in the face repeatedly, but maybe putting all my weight into kneeing him in the back.
I would need training in how to manage that red mist, how to insert a circuit breaker into my escalating scale of violence. Because that is what it is, that red mist. That's male violence, even if all I do is shout and stomp around. If I couldn't manage it, I would have to go.
So that's where I put myself in that picture. I'm an offender.
Many years ago I was detailed as a Petty Officer RN as ship's company of a destroyer, to temporarily assist the Red Cap shore patrol in Hong Kong, during the Viet Nam war.
There were some USA Navy ships also in port at the time on R&R so they had detailed off a Leading Hand to assist as well.
Our job was to approach drunken shipmates, present a known face and calm any disturbance with as little trouble as possible. The RN personnel were equipped with truncheons. The USA Navy Leading Hand had a large baseball bat, with which he sat opposite me in the Black Mariah van saying, while he slapped the baseball bat into the palm of his hand, "Gee I hope we get some trouble tonight, I want to break a few heads".
I get the impression that his attitude was not uncommon among his colleagues, indeed not uncommon perhaps among police officials the USA over.
That said, my expectation would be that if I didn’t respond to the reasonably worded, “Take a seat.” I’d get a much more explicit “Please sit down on the floor” and here I’d not be surprised if the officer addressed me as ‘sir’.
If I failed to respond to that, then I’d expect something more forceful - although still not the flurry of fists and knees that appears to have followed in this case.
Anyway my point is that if a higher level of deference is culturally expected then what just looks to me like rather sullen behaviour might be or appear to be much ruder by contrast. Still not an excuse for the violence offered.
Some good points there. I think that the guy had ample reason for anger at the police, but he was really unwise to say it to them.
If someone's already beaten you up, don't give them reason to do it again.
Yebbut, doesn't the same US culture which expects deference also laud standing one's ground and fighting back against the bad guys, in this case the cops?
AIUI, African-American kids--boys, in particular--are often taught by their parents how to behave during an encounter with the police--in order to get away safely, or at least not aggravate the cops further.
Insulting and/or fighting cops is never a good idea for anyone to do--especially people from a target group.
As I said, "If someone's already beaten you up, don't give them reason to do it again."
And don't give them reasons to charge you with resisting arrest, assaulting an officer, disturbing the peace, etc.
...yebbut...that all sounds a leetle like "don't wear short skirts, don't go out alone at night, don't walk down dark alleys," to my ear - and it seems we might, possibly, be entering an era where people are realising that a better message is "Don't freaking rape people!!" It's all very well to say that wandering around drunk and scantily dressed in the small hours of the morning is a monumentally stupid thing for a woman to do - but the wider point is that this is only the case because there are some monumentally horrible people out there - and should the rest of us, really, have to arrange our lives around their awfulness? Or should we call it out?
It's awful that they need to do that. And yes, the police problems should be fixed. But the problems are endemic, and there don't seem to be any solutions that would fix anything soon enough to prevent more hassles with the police.
As to the other example: I believe that everyone should be safe everywhere and everytime, with the possible exception of people out to do harm. But that's not the world we've got; and, since we're here, we need to protect ourselves wisely in *this* world.
So it's best to avoid dangerous situations, even if you (gen.) have to curtail your actions.
FWIW.
You're conflating two issues here - the broader societal one, where we need to remove the larger problem, and the immediate one, which is not getting one's ass kicked here and now. It's a good thing to call out police brutality - when in a crowd, protesting the government, etc. It's a different (and far more dangerous) matter to tell Officer Unfriendly "you can't beat me! This is illegal!" while he's swinging a nightstick...
This. I'm a white male who grew up in a largely African American neighborhood, and I got The Talk. (The police aren't *always* terribly worried about whose ass they kick in a "bad" neighborhood...)
This.
Obvious corollary: if interacting with the police is inherently dangerous for non-white people, one of the interactions they're going to curtail is interacting in any way with the police.
Just so we're clear, @Golden Key's advice inherently advocates the position that Hunter (from the article) only has herself to blame for expecting the police to be helpful.
My original post has been slightly misinterpreted, I feel. I wasn't trying to say that it was in any way inappropriate for someone, when confronted by potentially menacing cops, to take a softly-softly approach - more that, when, for whatever inscrutable reason, someone doesn't, it's inappropriate for another someone, on a message board somewhere, to effectively say, 'I can't understand why he would inflame the situation like that - he must've had 'the talk''. It was that which I was comparing to 'Well, don't walk down dark alleys by yourself'.
Perhaps. Or perhaps the world would just be that much shittier. Because authoritarianism doesn't need much excuse.
Parenting fail right there.
I grew up in a part of the country where white people were brutallised by the police possibly because there weren't enough BME people to harrass.
I've been on enough demos to know who they're policing and who they're protecting.
Sucks that this is likely true, though.
Oh, yes. An idiot.
Basically, what CK said.
So, no. Having been mugged didn't turn me into a Tory. And in an attempt to make sure my kids are at least marginally able to navigate (and help their friends) a potentially difficult situation with the police, damn straight I've told them what the worst can be.
None of which negates the problems of being black while. Except you think it does, because you're a special kind of arrogance and ignorance and stupidity.
Every parent needs to have that talk with their kids. Posh, rich white parents too, because they might have posh, rich black friends.
I deleted my offending post. I certainly don't want to get shot for posting while being an idiot.
Oh dear Lord, are you hiding behind this again?
Seriously, what you posted: What I posted: What you posted: So that's exactly what you said first time around. White people - working class people, left wing people, poor people, white people - have been having the talk with their kids since before the Peterloo Massacre.
And somehow, unless it affects the tiny amount of 1%s, you know, the ones who the police are paid to protect, you're willing to throw any suggestion of solidarity under the bus. If only your knee didn't spasm at slightest suggestion that someone with a paler complexion might just understand what it is to fall foul of the police force, we might have had an intelligent conversation about this and reached some modicum of agreement.
But no. You chose to be a dick. Well done.
That is a level of power that can accomplish things when it chooses to.
As far as allies, what should cause solidarity doesn’t. The working-class should be natural allies to the foreign and PoC. Brexit and history indicate otherwise.
That doesn’t mean I dismiss their problems, I don’t.
But this thread is about an issue of being black. And that is different to the issues of being poor.
Fear of losing what little they have to Johnny Foreigner I expect. Baseless fear, but fear nonetheless. Do people in Britain remember what it was like to be poor?
Some of us do. Some of us are (relative to others in Britain) but not, of course relative to others across the world.
Try reading Chav by Owen Jones. It'll help you to understand.
Not simply a case of remembering actually being.
I looked it up. Most sensible option is some kind of card for Pakistanis.
ETA: Oh, is it "People of Color"?
Thx.
No. The largest demographic of white people who voted Leave were older white people, many of whom lived in the more prosperous south.
This is not to discount that some of the poor white working class also voted for Brexit. Neither does it discount the 25%+ of BAME voters who also voted Leave.
But you don't get to make your own facts up. And none of which has to do with police interactions with members of the public.
https://unherd.com/2018/06/noise-victimhood-culture-drowned-plight-poor/