Right, and before someone brings it up, I do recognize that in some aspects of their jobs police should be scrutinized by the public. If I see a police officer asking a black man to leave a park, when he was just sitting quietly on the bench, and then proceed to arrest/beat him when he refuses to comply that’s a situation where a citizen has a valid concern for what is going on.
When a police officer is using their police power they are inherently subject to public scrutiny, and both should be and must be in a free society. When they are not using their police power, and are just going about their day I don’t think they need to explain themselves to random passer by anymore than a person sitting at their desk in a government office building should have to explain why they’re eating a turkey sandwich at 10:30. Maybe they work a really early shift and that’s when they take lunch, maybe they got hungry etc. That’s no one’s business but their supervisor.
Are you really trying to compare questions from a 12 year-old to questions from a cop?
iI is improper given that any reasonable person knows a child is not gonna have an ID.
How do you know loitering is against the law there, or that it is something that can be unilaterally enforced on private property?
This is a truely dumb statement. It’s even more annoying that such things almost always come out of the mouth of someone who doesn’t typically find themselves on the wrong side of said “discretion” through no fault of their own. Should cops have to give every speeding car a ticket? Probably not, but they should make that decision based on the facts of the matter, and not whether the violator is Black, or a pretty woman, or a cop’s wife. Alternatively, they should not have any discretion in a murder investigation for example. Painting this as a black and white issue is just an attempt to justify bad behavior on the part of LE.
Now I don’t think what the cop did was particularly egregious, but it was really bad PR. Despite your rhetoric about how cops don’t need to be civil or friendly, they actually do if they want public support. If they want cushy pensions, new cars, witness cooperation, and the like, then they need to realize that their job is based on the serving the public.
Again, so what? Look at the title to this thread, the kid didn’t pwn this cop. The kid was a smartass, and for some reason wants to show the world his major fail.
Based on the video I’m 99% sure (not 100%) that this is a private parking lot abutting a private business, most likely a strip mall or a business you turn into from a main road. So the walk is not a public sidewalk but a private walk leading to the business entrance. Generally speaking the police do not enforce parking on private lots, in fact everywhere I’ve ever heard of municipal parking ordinances do not apply in private lots. The only real exceptions are handicap parking spots which can be enforced by police on private lots. Otherwise, it’s up to the owner(s) of the parking lot to pay to have their parking regulations enforced and/or to have vehicles towed when they are in violation of their private lot regulations.
Even if this is a public sidewalk there is no evidence presented thus far that police officers actually aren’t allowed to do this. In many places the entirety or large segments of the parking ordinances exempt emergency vehicles.
I don’t think it’s been established that the cop did anything illegal.
I don’t think cops are required to debate or explain the various parts of the state or local vehicle code, at the whim of anyone not in his chain of command, “out in the wild”, except when they are citing you. I don’t think cops have to play by any of the rules set by [YouTube] trolls, if, in his judgment, that’s what’s going on.
IMO, The cop should have just given his badge number and left.
The cop was calm, didn’t press for the kid’s ID or try to arrest him for something, and it looks to me like asking for ID and mentioning loitering was simply intended to parallel the kid’s request for the cop’s ID and suggestion that the cop was breaking the law.
What on Earth do some of you think the cop should be reprimanded for? Some people are saying he should get in trouble, but, “sadly,” probably won’t. The OP even wants him fired.
What, precisely, has he done that he could be given a warning for? His parking an emergency vehicle on a private lot is certainly not an offence.
You know what would have been great? If the cop asks his age (12) and where his parents are (not supervising him) and then called in to CPS and had the kid taken into protection since the parents were leaving an underage kid alone on a busy sidewalk where he could get hit by a motorcycle.
Above I suggested responses which involved answering the question, but even that’s not necessary. Just give the identification and be on your way. Let the kid take it up with your supervisor if he’s so inclined.
The cop is in the upper 40% of douchyness, and the kid is in the upper 15% of being too big for his britches. I don’t see any bullying just the cop wanting to get out of there with as little awkwardness as possible. There is probably a little bit of embarrassment of being his minor legal violation of no consequence is bing pointed out by some kid. When asked for his badge number he knows that the kid will then file a complaint to his department, leading to someones time being wasted looking to that report, and his time being wasted responding to it. So since the whole affair is much ado about nothing he decides to stonewall. Not probably the best course of action, but understandable and hardly criminal. The kid persists and so he tries to turn around the question to ask the kid for his ID. A sort of how do you like it if its done to you. The accusation of loitering is the same thing as if to say “Yes my parking might be against the rules, but so is your loitering.” All this time he is working towards his primary objective which is just to get away from the kid. The situation could have been handled more deftly but nothing I see that is out of the ordinary.
