I got this news story from my mom who heard it on the radio. I can’t even begin to write about it. Go read this and tell us what you think.
I was raised that police officers are our friends and they help us in time of need. That they protect us. My dad was a volunteer fireman and they were like family with police officers. My opinion of this is that we should be respectful and not hit nor push an officer and I think we should talk to them with respect. I think the only thing this officer did wrong was he was too wimpy in cuffing her. I think even in my weakened state, I’d have knocked her on her butt.
What do you think? Racist or not? Did this police officer smack her because she was of African-American decent or because she shoved him? I find no racism in this. No matter what color, age or sex you are, you do NOT do this to a police officer. We have to protect our officers before nobody wants to do the job.
I personally find that most people who “hate the police,” often find themselves on the wrong side of the law.
What’s your take on this?
Us Girls..Our Views 
I’ve seen this on another site. It seems the reviews are mixed.
Personally, I think he hit that woman because (a) she didn’t look like a minor, (b) she was smacking him around, and (c) he had to demonstrate control over the situation. Her buddies (or whoever) were trying to hold her back but she fought them off for the purpose of going and being violent toward the cop. Why would anyone think she wouldn’t keep hitting the cop and even worse if the cop acted namby-pamby about it? 2 vs. 1 on a cop is just asking for trouble. She’s lucky it didn’t get worse. So is the other girl who was arrested.
It struck me that all the other bystanders showed considerable restraint (physically, at least – I don’t have sound). Obviously they knew the videotape was running. And they knew it would have been wrong and stupid to physically interfere with an arrest.
I don’t believe it’s fair anyway to go on about this “child’s” age. There is nothing about her looks that suggested to me “age 17.” She could have easily been 25. Does a cop have to get proof of age before he’s allowed to defend himself? Gimme a break.
Her mother and community should be telling her off, not encouraging this whole “poor me” spectacle. God help my kid if I ever see her in a video like that. I guess if she’s 17, I can still whip her, right?
1. Not racist. NAACP, ACLU, and all those other alphabets need to sit down and shut up. Not everything involving a black person and a white person is a racist situation. If I had to say that it was “racist”, I’d come down on the side of “reverse racism” – black racism toward a white cop. But honestly, I don’t see anything but a bunch of punk kids thinking that they are entitled to push around a cop.
2. Why the (bleep) do cops have to travel singly now? WHERE the heck is a partner? Yeah, yeah, budget cuts. EVERYONE is taught, from day one, don’t go anywhere without a partner. We teach our children, from the very youngest, there’s safety in numbers. Why then, do we send our officers out into dangerous situations without a partner? I submit that if that cop had a partner, none of this would have happened. Nobody would have been hit, and if that girl needed to be subdued and brought in, she’d have gone a lot more willingly. A pack doesn’t fight so hard against two as it does against one. And that’s exactly what this is a video of – Pack Mentality. We can beat you, because there’s four of us and only one of you. We expect these men and women to go out every day and put their lives on the line for us, but we can’t let them go out in twos? When we won’t even go to the BATHROOM alone??? How pathetic is that? Hope the mayor of that town is enjoying the posh new car that the extra cop’s salary just bought him.
and no, this doesn’t piss me off… not one little bit. [sarcasm button needed]
Well from what I see, this police officer didn’t do anything wrong. You do not resist and officer. For ANY reason. And in a neighborhood like that, he never should have been alone. That is just stupid. In my opinion they should always be partnered up. Whose to say someone wouldn’t come up behind him and seriously hurt him. No, I don’t think it’s a black or white thing. This could have happened anywhere, but we all know this is more prominent in the those neighborhoods. Believe me, I know. I grew up around it. Not in it, around it. We’d have to drive through the “ghetto” to get to my grandmas. The intimidation factor is enough for me to never go there alone. Surly being a police officer, that should be required.
I think this officer needs to take more defensive classes or something. He seemed way to weak to handle this girl, how could he ever handle a grown man?
OMW!Watching that video I was wishing the cop would punch out the one he was arresting too!JK!She was driving me nuts!Good grief,resisting arrest like that and then saying HE did something wrong when clearly the girl he punched was grabbing at him while he was JUST TRYING TO DO HIS JOB-THE RIGHT THING!This world is so topsy tervy it scares me.
“Does everything boil down to black or white?”
The truth? You all seem like nice women and I’ve commented on some of the more ‘benign’ posts (benign- for lack of a better word, not that I find this post bad, but touchy, sensitive; also I pretty sure I will be the only commenter with the opinion that follows, but I wanted to contribute honestly to this discussion) and have read a lot of them, as I am subscribed to this blog.
But my honest opinion is not when one is white, I don’t think so.
The thing is, yes, officers do deserve respect- as they are servents of our communities. My father was a county sheriff. But to punch a citizen in the face? There are other ways to take someone down. Making statements like: “She fought me so I’m going to fight her.” demosntrates a lack of emotional maturity and strength that would be found, and needs to be part of, an officer’s mentality. An officer needs to exercise restraint as well as power.
Given the sour relationship and reputations between officers and people of color, especially in certain places like Seattle, an officer would take precautions to serve justly to not only preserve his/her reputation as an officer, but to truly serve and protect the community in which he/she works.
Should she have struggled? No. Should she have been treated as violently as she was? No.
Everyone who comes here is absolutely welcome to have a difference of opinion. It would be pretty dull if we all thought the same way.
I don’t for one minute think because I’m white I don’t think some things are racist. The only thing, like I said in the post that I found wrong in what this officer did was his slowness in getting her in cuffs. I feel he needed to do whatever he needed to do to get her in that car. She had NO right to jump into this situation. It wasn’t even her that was getting the ticket. It was none of her business and had she not shoved him, none of this would have happened and I was really afraid in the beginning that there was going to be a riot. I’m sure the presence of a video camera running had a big part of people keeping in check. I also agree with the other commuters that for this officer to be alone on patrol in a known “troubled” area is just asking for trouble. He shouldn’t have to play patty cake nor solve race relations while on the beat. He was giving someone a ticket, this woman jumped into the situation and I find the “fault” of it all on her shoulders and I think because she was black had nothing to do with it. Whether I’m white or not.
c, what you are saying would be more convincing if it was one citizen against one cop. But here, the cop had his hands full with trying to handcuff another person who was resisting arrest. He didn’t have the option of using various humane holds on the woman who interfered in the arrest by pushing and shoving (and who knows what else she would have done had he not struck her).
While cops do need to try to use the most humane methods reasonably available, they also should not be afraid to defend themselves. Imagine the chaos that would exist if “citizens” like this found that they could get physical with cops any time they wanted to.
If this guy was acting out of racism, then why didn’t he bash in the face of the first girl he was trying to arrest (he was extremely gentle with her), or any other “person of color” besides the one who physically attacked him repeatedly?
And by the way, as a white woman, I would not dare interfere with a cop (regardless of the cop’s skin tone). I cannot imagine pushing and shoving or ganging up on a cop and expecting to come out without a battle scar. To suggest this was “racism” is to suggest that this cop would be all “how do you do, ma’am” if a white woman had done the same thing to him. I don’t think so.
I totally agree with everything you said in this post Joy.
It absolutely was not anything racist in what went on here.
Just to clarify what I said- or my answer to your question- I didn’t say that white people do not recognize racism. I’ve been present when white people have called out racism when it occurs. I was trying to say that white people do not recognize a lot of rscism when it occurs because, I believe in a lot of cases, they just aren’t that familiar with it. People of color experience it and know it better- it’s just a fact. That’s not to say that everything boils down to race. But for people of color, who are wary and feel they must be on guard at all times, it very often does.
In fact, I was, and still am, preparing myself for possibly hurtful responses to my comments.
Thanks for considering my thoughts and not negating them. I also want to make sure that you know that my comments are in no way meant to accuse or attack you or your fellow contributors. I like to discuss race and other issues honestly.
It’s the only way to heal and grow, I think.
I agree that it’s important to honestly discuss racism. But unfortunately, there is often a presumption of racism whenever there’s a white cop dealing with an individual who isn’t white. That’s racism, too, frankly.
Suppose you were in charge of our local police department. Suppose most blacks lived on the East side of the city and most whites on the West. What would you do? Deploy all the white cops on the West side? That’s what they used to do, because if a black cop arrested a black guy, at least nobody could scream racism and get the case thrown out (or start a riot). Isn’t that sad? They are trying not to perpetuate this problem, but obviously it is very challenging.
Peacekeeping is too important a job to bow to political correctness.
Interestingly, I’ve dealt with plenty of black cops, and it never once occurred to me “this guy is bothering me because I’m white.” Not once. And I am pretty sure it’s not because blacks are colorblind. It’s just, when I get stopped, and I’ve done something wrong, I feel responsible. And if I haven’t done something wrong, I think the cop (regardless of color) is an arrogant jerk (though I keep that to myself). But maybe I’m too naive. Should I presume black cops are racist?
And to look at it yet another way, if the cop in this story were black, would this young woman have assaulted him? How come nobody is asking whether her actions were motivated by racism?
@SKL, where have you been? It’s commonly accepted by those in the media that ONLY WHITES can be racists. Duh.
LOL!!!
Hi C,
You’d be surprised…this bunch of men and women are actually friendly …even if you don’t agree with them. I often have a different opinion, but they still are polite and respectful. Its one of the reasons I’ve stuck around! 🙂 Hopefully you will too… its always nice to be able to have a good discussion with people who have different views.
Thanks Lucy. What a nice thing to say.
First off, C, welcome to our little corner. We’re glad you’re here, and you seem like a pretty nice person, so please come back! We’ll be gentle… and even when we get passionate, we really do try to stay on our best behavior. You’ll never be insulted here – not intentionally, anyway.
As to your assertion about perception of racism… I think, like you said, it’s a cultural thing, but I think that’s where it ends. Well, maybe I’m saying that wrong. Here’s what I’m trying to say: white kids, when we’re brought up, when we’re bring up our kids, aren’t looking at every situation through “colored glasses”. We look at a situation the way it is. Now, I’m sure there are situations where an individual has been brought up in a racist home, to believe that (for example) Blacks are inferior. And that white child will likely grow up to be a racist jerk.
But it seems like the black culture revolves around racism. Where no racism is occurring, people like Sharpton and Jackson rush in and stir up trouble, screaming “Racism!!” So a whole culture has been told, from the first, that they should EXPECT to be treated in a racist/poor/rotten fashion. So they go into situations looking for it. Even where it doesn’t exist. Even when Sharpton, et al, aren’t present, they’re still looking for it. To continue the problem, we have things like ‘Affirmative Action’, which were enacted to “equal” the playing field, when in actuality, it caused people to be hired BECAUSE, not despite, their skin color. Institutionalized racism.
My flower-power way to stop it? Get people to sit down and shut up. Worry about your own back yard. If you’re looking through the world through “colored glasses” – thinking things like “oh, he must not be smart, because he’s [insert bias here, race, religion, sex, whatever]”, then you have a problem, and you should fix it. I know it can be done, because I’ve caught myself doing it. I’ve heard others do it. And people who consider themselves “leaders” should examine their life choices – does Sharpton really need to go racing into every situation, stirring the pot, when the locals are very likely to shake hands and be friends in a couple of days when tempers have simmered? No. Let people deal with each other one on one, get Political Correctness out of it, get Politics out of it, and it’s amazing what can happen.
As for the Officer in the video – he needs to take some Karate classes, lift some weights, and take his job seriously. If he can’t subdue a girl, he’s got a problem. And yeah, maybe he shouldn’t have punched the second girl, but he’s human, and humans have defensive reactions. He reacted to a person at least as large as himself (I don’t recall, was she taller?), aggressively attacking him. He was right to defend himself. He just wasn’t PC about it. Those two girls, it seemed to me, were being egged on by the bystanders, and possibly by the idea that – hey! this is gonna be on YouTube, and I’m gonna be Famous!!!
It’s ALL about race. Just listen to this guy.
http://politics.usnews.com/news/blogs/news-desk/2008/03/21/obama-typical-white-person-comment-delights-clinton-aides.html
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1634819/michelle_obama_why_do_you_hate_white_people/
But then again this is only the President of these United States. He doesn’t know everything.
Although I disagree, I appreciate you sharing your perspective with me.
I’m a little on the fence about this one…
I think that anyone who doesn’t respect/follow orders from a police officer is just asking for trouble. I think that any person (regardless of their race) would get in trouble for hitting/touching a cop in a violent manner. Unfortunately being a police officer is a high risk job and the officers do not know whether a person/suspect is nice/evil. …Whether he/she is armed or unarmed… or what his/her intentions are. That being said… he was trying to arrest the girl for jay walking ….SERIOUSLY??!! Do officers have nothing better to do…. ???!!! I also think that he should have acted differently and not used (what in my opinion) was excessive force.