I don’t see how that’s possible given the shorts she was wearing. She would’ve had to remove those. I thought it might’ve happened if one was giving the other oral but not intercourse. It’s more likely that they were dry humping and simulating actual sex.
Then surely you must know a little bit about the rise of the NSDAP. Then again, given what you’ve said, you probably think that was a good thing, so who am I kidding.
Given the shorts she was wearing, I don’t see how it’s possible for you to determine that having intercourse was impossible.
With the shorts she was wearing in the video - I think sex is entirely possible.
(looks at join date)
I must have been a highly precocious 2-year-old.
I don’t believe police should be able to go on “fishing expeditions” and just start investigating people randomly to see if they’ve done anything wrong. I don’t think they should use high-pressure interrogation tactics to squeeze confessions out of people. I think that, when possible, they should give a clear verbal warning before using force.
Since last month, I have come around and decided that wearable cameras which cannot be turned off by the officer are a good idea.
No, I don’t think it was a good thing. You seem to be conflating my acknowledgement that something is possible with a belief that it must be good.
Lots of things are possible. What is likely matters more.
I’d said multiple times that, given the legal analysis here, that the cops overstepped their legal authority. I’ll say it again:
The cops appear to have overstepped their legal authority
ok?
If you want the “benefit of the doubt” don’t start the conversation with “you’re a fucking racist” and “I’m going to sue your ass” (paraphrased comments).
You have a point, I did not include an “assert your rights” option in between “play ball” and “annoying asshole”. You can assert your rights. Step one is to understand your rights.
The police frequently have legal authority to detain you, question you, and demand your ID. This authority has nothing to do with the fact that you were “just kissing” your BF, and everything to do with the information the Police are working with in their investigation. Information that you don’t have, and information that the Police are not required to give you.
Assert your rights. “Am I being detained?” “Am I free to go?” “I do not consent to a search.” Yelling at the police, threatening the police, calling them racists, is not asserting your rights, it’s just being an ass. It also needs to be understood that asserting your rights isn’t going to stop a police officer from detaining you.
Unlawful detainer, and perhaps assault? I don’t know if the police can be held liable if somebody is injured in the process of being detained.
Lots of smarts going to waste in this thread. Some ignorance just can’t be fought y’all.
I dunno, it looks like she was throwing a tantrum ala my 4 yr old. It’s possible to fight the power and stand for your ground without being a spazz about it.
Rude or immature people shouldn’t have their rights violated either. I might not react like she did, but I’m not comfortable second-guessing someone’s response to a situation like this.
IMHO, all this focus on the technical legal aspects are misplaced. OK, let’s grant that the cop overstepped his bounds and committed some sort of violation. That’s not why there’s a thread about this or why it’s a national story.
The core of this story was the notion that this woman was arrested for PDA while black. At this point it seems pretty clear that this is not the case, and that she was arrested because she got confrontational with a cop who was (apparently) unfamiliar with the fine points of when he could or could not detain people for refusing to identify themselves.
So it’s pretty clear that the outrage which spawned this thread was unwarranted, regardless of the legal technicalities. (What’s a bit odd is that some of the posters who are here arguing so vociferously for page after page about legal details seem to be the same people who elsewhere have argued against this very approach.)
It’s reasonable to approach this story as part of a trend in which black people are often treated differently by police than white people. And it’s reasonable to look at a story in which a police officer treated a black person improperly as part of this trend, whatever the motivations were of the officer.
It’s entirely possible that this was a decent cop doing his best, and that much of the disparate treatment of black people is performed by decent cops doing their best, and that decent cops doing their best are just not enough to counteract systemic discrimination in both the justice system and society at large. Training, procedures, unconscious biases, and a million other factors are very likely playing a role in this, and Watts’ detainment may just be yet another symptom of this very large and long-lived problem.
You raise a good point. I amazed (and gratified) to see some of the people here supporting the legal issues, when they have earlier been vocal opponents of the legal analytical approach.
Maybe it’s a case where morality and ideals coincide with the law. That’s not a criticism of the legal analytical approach, but only to say that it’s not always the only way to consider such things.
However, recently I have been trying to look at these issues leaving aside the aspect of racism and I was a little hasty in my initial post.
I don’t understand why the racial angle is being dismissed so readily.
Again, the cops were summoned to the scene because of a call for public lewdness. When the cops arrived, no lewdness was going on; they just saw two people hanging around on the street being casual. So then they looked at these two people and jumped to the conclusion that prostitution was potentially involved.
But why? We’re talking about two sex-related crimes that really have nothing in common. Public lewdness in broad daylight —> prostitution is a non sequitur. So what would make cops think this couple wasn’t a pair of romantic partners but rather a hooker and a john? Cops should be thinking horses not zebras, especially if the circumstances don’t argue for zebras.
It’s perfectly reasonable to think race was the thing the cops glommed onto. Lots of black women in relationships with white men have taken the brunt of that assumption, probably just as often as they encounter the “you must be the nanny” assumption when they are seen in public with a racially ambiguous looking child.
Years ago, I briefly dated a white guy and while eating out one night, he quipped that if his co-workers saw us, they’d think I was a prostitute. I was young and stupid and didn’t read too much into what he said, but the implication was clear. I didn’t (and still don’t) look stereotypically like a hooker by any stretch of the imagination, and yet that association comes to some people’s mind whenever they see a white guy with a minority.
There’s one person in the audio log who reacts in a racist fashion, and it isn’t the officer.
Having listened to the audio tape, I’m afraid I don’t see any evidence that the police jumped to any conclusion about prostitution.
What is the basis for your statement?