What say we all take a breath and wait for some more information…which I am certain is coming.
The fact that they even questioned the kid about the pictures on the mantle tells me everything I need to know. You start in with prying, personal questions that imply I don’t belong and need to explain my existence in a hurry or risk getting hauled off to the station? My reaction to this treatment would be instant tears. That a 18 year-old male would become angry in the face of this intrusion doesn’t surprise.
Especially if these cops just waltzed up into the house without so much as a knock and hello.
Of course they thought a crime was being committed. Their evidence that a crime was being committed was that it was a black kid in a white neighborhood in a house that had pictures of white people. Their evidence that a crime was committed consisted entirely of the color of the skin of people involved. And yet again, it was a black kid who got maced because of it.
I’m not making anything up here. The scanty facts we have explicitly portray racist behavior.
Yeah, well, fuck that. It’s wrong in a racist way that is part of a continuing history of deep injustice against black folks, and there need to be clear and intolerable penalties for police who perpetrate such actions. Maybe these cops are in the clear because right now they’re operating in a world in which they can mace black kids with impunity, but going forward we need to change procedures and laws such that police who mace a black dude in his own home because he got mad at them for barging in, those police face a world of hurt for this bullshit.
I think it’s the easy to be a coward and choose to assiduously avoid reading other news reports before responding and to belittle and minimize, deflect and divert. People’s egos are too fragile to say (gasp!) “I was wrong” or “I stand corrected” or “I’ve evolved on that issue.” Humans, by and large, are cowardly, highly neurotic creatures. Unfortunately, the effects of the neuroses and character flaws don’t tend to be limited to the individual.
The police department has already issued a statement, and in keeping with typical prudent policy, the statement was deliberately vague and didn’t bother stating precisely what the kid supposedly did to warrant pepper spray (as though to imply he’d done something that the police aren’t trained to deal with short of pepper spray). Someone who isn’t familiar with the thin blue line and how it operates is either wilfully ignorant or perpetrating a polite fiction.
These folks apparently moved into the house in July and hadn’t met all the neighbors. Evidently, the family should’ve been proactive and gone around together and introduced their black foster son and, without explicit mention of the purple (or in this case dark brown) elephant in the room, said “Gee, we hope this neighborhood is different 'cause we had a problem at the last place where someone called the cops on the babysitter [or dog walker or plant care person or whatever] and hope no one would be so silly as to presume someone who goes inside our home or onto the property is a trespasser or isn’t welcome. And, besides, we have a good security system to include Fido.” Would it be helpful if the foster parents had some pictures of the kid hanging on a mantel? Sure.
I think the outrage – whether or not it’s merely recreational aside – is deserved. Anyone is of course free to make excuses despite it being a persistent myth that (a) being a police officer is a terribly dangerous job and they’re always being injured and/or killed in the course of their duties by way of malintent, and (b) they’re any more or less likely than *your average person *to be honorable, or competent at their job (or care to be) and unwilling to abuse power or consider it and other things as fringe benefits.
Like any profession that doesn’t appreciate having a lousy reputation to whatever degree, there is a way to fix it: start observing your oath (in the case of those who hold elected or appointed office, to include judges, lawyers, doctors, law enforcement and others who agreed to abide by professional rules of conduct, including competence and diligence) and start policing yourself (no pun intended). Turn in those people who violate those rules or break the law.*
Or they can keep on doing what they do as a common practice/as a general rule and not the exception: shake their head whine about how unfairly they’re treated and misapprehended (no pun intended). When you sit idly by while brethren squander what *used to be *default respect and credibility and do nothing to preserve, protect or defend or restore it, you aren’t entitled to bitch or be bitter about what happens. You either do something about it or you exercise the option to remain silent (others here would say “shut the fuck up” or “shut yer pie hole”), take the outrage and, as needed/warranted, the figurative foot up the ass. It’s pretty simple.
Consider the future and that of your kids if nothing else. Ignorance is no excuse. EVERYONE has bias and prejudice for and against something, whether or not they’ll admit or realize it is another matter. It’s simple human nature born of evolution: tribe, clan, same, “undefective” = good. Different, “defective”, other/outlander = bad, not good, not optimal. Evolution is why animals … including the human animal … have an instinctual aversion to disability (whether physical or mental); some resist or limit the pull of that instinct better than others.
At any rate, what comes around goes around. When we (largely) caucasian (but in the U.S. in particular genetic mutts) become the minority, we will not be entitled to complain about the power shift and becoming the oppressed. That’s the way power and corruption works without strong controls applied uniformly and a cruddy, largely corrupt criminal justice system.**
We’ll have earned every single nasty thing that comes our way when the power shift comes. There’s a price to be paid for ignorance and stupidity and allowing base human nature to dictate our choices, and it will be the descendants who literally and figuratively will have to foot the bill.
The pontificatory purge felt good. Nighty night.
*Hell, same goes for anyone who creates a confidential relationship/relationship of public or private trust and who’s fine with fraud and abuse, even if by way of passive participation/collusion by saying/doing nothing when someone else engages in it. You don’t get to complain about how so and so or “a few bad apples” (sorry, more than a few) give you a bad name and do nothing to combat the problem.
** Relatedly, I highly recommend this book:
We know he wasn’t charged with anything. Not resisting arrest, not hindering an investigation, not anything- much less assaulting a police officer. It’s not proof, but I find it hard to believe they would let that slide. And if all he did was argue with them, pepper spray wasn’t needed. I doubt his parents pepper spray him every time they argue.
He wasn’t even accused of resisting arrest or being violent in any way. The police only said he was ‘belligerent and threatening’, which is vague enough that it could include “you guys better get out of here before my mom comes home!”.
Yeah, I thought Cop month was September.
It appears that there were crimes being committed in the area. And it appears that Currie couldn’t prove that he lived at that address??? And Currie became “threatening”??? pssst, psssst, psssssssssst.
*Responding to a neighbor’s report of a break-in, police said they used pepper spray Monday when 18-year-old DeShawn Currie “became profane, threatening and belligerent” and “refused to follow instructions” from officers.
…Police said there had spate of crimes in the area recently, but did not specifically say how many or what kind.
Authorities said when they entered the house, Currie produced identification showing another address*.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11339620
(This story has been automatically published from the Associated Press wire which uses US spellings.)
I’m sure Currie could have handled this differently. Maybe he could have updated his ID earlier???
Yeah, because he totally should have predicted cops would one day barge into his place of residence and demand to see proof that he lived there.
Yeah, that’s totally reasonable. ‘Hey, kid who’s been in the foster system for years - why isn’t your ID up to date? Get your shit together!’ No way that might be fraught with emotional difficulties. He’d also been there for all of two or three months, so it’s not like his ID was way out of date. And I see now he was profane. A profane teenager? Holy shit, the cops are lucky they escaped with their lives. How many medals do you think they’ll win?
Since he’s still living with foster parents and is under their care, perhaps you should be scolding them for not having his ID updated.
But that’s still bullshit. It’s not illegal to have an outdated ID, and he had every right to be where he was.
Does the question pop up in anyone else’s head as to why a NEW ZEALAND news site would be publishing a North Carolina story?
I missed this earlier.
So Shodan asking for facts of what transpired between the young man and the police that led to the young man being pepper sprayed which was labeled as “argues” by the OP on a forum “claiming” to fight ignorance is now considered trolling by a mod on said forum.
lol
Hey chief, I’m not telepathic. I was going by the words you used. If you wanted that in your scenario you should have said so.
He didn’t actually ask for anything. He implied “argue” might mean something else, but that was it. Great job otherwise!
Fucking bullshit. Maybe you don’t read so good so I’ll remind you of what he said,
or are you being a douchebag and claiming he didn’t ask for anything since it wasn’t in the form of a question? In which case you’re a fucking asshole.
Maybe you missed this line -
(This story has been automatically published from the Associated Press wire which uses US spellings.)
It’s a WORLD news kinda world now. You can even find stories in U.S. media about a recent volcanic eruption in Japan. Who’d a thunk it??? :eek:
Actually, he asked for a clarification. You seem to have jumped to the conclusion that something other was implied. I suggest that you imagined that implication. Or not.
I’m not scolding anyone. Are you scolding anyone? As I understand it, state laws require that drivers licenses and state ID’s be updated in a timely fashion. Weeks? Days? A month or two?
I’m saying he didn’t ask for anything. He insinuated something, but that was all.
Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you stay on topic for three sentences in a row. Did you run out of airplane glue?
You seem unfamiliar with Shodan. I’m kind of jealous. But seriously- no, he didn’t ask for anything. The meaning of “argues” is very plain. He was suggesting that DeShawn was being dishonest, and that he was actually abusive or violent and was downplaying that by calling it an argument. His next couple of posts make that pretty obvious.
By the way: Drunky Smurf, you’re agreeing with doorhinge- that’s a sure sign you’ve got an argument wrong. Also- doorhinge, you’re agreeing with Drunky Smurf, which is a sure sign you’ve got an argument wrong.
He will now.
Unless he’s stubborn or a slow learner.