Thursday, July 23, 2009

The state of modern policing

Henry Louis Gates can now perform this routine with authentic conviction:

Because the proper response to an irate 60 year old black man limping along on his own front porch (Gates needs a cane to walk) who is yelling at you accusing you of racism is to, well... arrest him and prove it. Way to go, Cambridge PD!

BTW, I just love the name of the crime "disorderly conduct". It sounds so... German. "Ve must haff ORDER! Heil!" But hey, since pretty much any kind of behavior other than meek submission can be viewed as "disorderly", it makes a great catch-all for when you want to deal with an uppity nigger and teach him his place, yessiree!

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

8 comments:

  1. As has been pointed out in several other places, "disorderly conduct" can be translated as: "refusing to kiss the arresting officer's ass."

    VW: bulness. You can't make this stuff up.

    JzB the unimaginative trombonist

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  2. I loved Obama's take on the 'stupidity' of arresting a man in his own living room for resenting the invasion by the cops. Granted, the cops were responding to a possible b&e, but if it turns out to be a false alarm, apologize and GTF outa there.

    Throwing the cuffs on a renowned scholar of a dark complexion is one way to kill your chances for promotion. Message for arresting officers: McDonalds is hiring.

    Doug

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  3. How come freedom of speech is Constitutionally protected, except when you try to exercise it in front of a police officer?

    Am I missing something here?

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  4. Naw, you're not missing anything, LFC. Police officers in the United States, as in the old Soviet Union, appear to be a special class. You must be properly submissive to them and show them your papers when they demand them, or they will arrest you as an Enemy of the State and put you in jail for a while until a magistrate can be found to bail you out, at which point you usually end up having to pay a fine and do community service. Which is a nice difference from the old Soviet Union where you would have been sent to a forced labor camp instead, but it's a difference in magnitude, not in kind.

    Welcome to Soviet America, comrade. Please leave your right to free speech at the door.

    - Badtux the Sovok Penguin

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  5. Doug, it was his front porch, not his living room, but you're right -- if it's a false alarm, apologize and GTF outa there, don't arrest the dude.

    I do not agree that the cop's career is dead, though. What we find is that police officers involved in these kinds of cases never get fired. The Blue Wall of Silence draws up around them and coddles them and keeps them on the force until the inevitable day when they go off and actually kill someone in an unwarranted and public way that can't be brushed under the rug. Someone is going to end up dead eventually, but bad cops who've made it past their probationary period never get thrown off the force until that happens. That's just how it works.

    - Badtux the Sovok Penguin

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  6. Can you say, "Police Union"?

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  7. Wery funny, amerikanischer Pinguin!

    Actually, the criminal offense that would correspond to disorderly conduct would be "Widerstand gegen die Staatsgewalt" in German... resisting arrest or state authority at large ;)

    Oh, and isn't that kind of stereotyping racist?

    Remember: Ve haff vays!
    Ducki

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  8. BT - I am going to make a correction. Based on the evidence it does not look like the arresting officer was a racist. Great. But the major faling that qualifies the arrest as 'stupididty' was throwing the uffs on the guy in his own house. (I thing that was the location.)

    The Prof had not commited a crime - he was not suspected of a crime - other than being pissed at the cop for being in his home uninvited.

    So all the protests by the right that the cop was not a racist miss the point. The cop should have left as soon as the identified homeowner told him to get his ass off the property.

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