This could just be reason # 345,754 as to why I generally don't like the police. I view them as at best a necessary evil. Police often escalate situations unnecessarily. Below the jump check out a May 2013 video from Fayetteville, North Carolina that somehow I missed but that The Janitor brought to my attention. It was hard even for me to believe that it was real at first just because the person arrested literally wasn't doing anything questionable, let alone wrong. The blog lawyers can discuss if any laws were broken. What I took away from this is that some police assume:
any black men gathering anywhere must be up to no good
no black man anywhere has any right to not be pushed around by any cop.
There's a lot of talk about school bullying or online "bullying" because someone implied on facebook or twitter that someone else could stand to drop a few pounds or wasn't the most beautiful person. I think this is real bullying. The citizen Christopher Beatty, a military veteran, is indeed lucky that the cop didn't shoot, tase or beat him. I think the cop made a wrong assumption. To pump up his ego and show Beatty who was the boss, he invented a reason for arrest. Fundamentally this is because some police and their enablers do not concede that black people have a right to public spaces. Watch the initial video and the updated interview video below. We've got driving while black, shopping while black, walking while black, and now standing and drinking iced tea while black. To be fair though it's not just a race thing. Police make mistakes and bad assumptions all the time with white people too. Such incidents are why I think that "victimless crimes" or "lifestyle crimes" should be decriminalized. Police should have limited reasons and authority to interact with or detain their fellow citizens. And no matter who you think you are I don't want your hands on my food or drink. It's just a pet peeve...
