That’s what the article says. That’s what Vision Zero means. Good thing they saved this guy from jaywalking- he could’ve been hurt!
The beatings will continue until morale improves!
So the beating was at least partly the old man’s fault because he doesn’t speak a non-official language?
You have to remember what this was like for the cops. They must’ve been shocked to find a person who didn’t speak English in New York City of all places.
Self-plagiarizing myself from an old post:
I remember a couple of years back the police were citing pedestrians for crossing diagonally across a certain intersection instead of crossing one street, then the other. The “walk” sign pops up for all directions at once for nearly a minute, and never for just one street at a time. There were comments from the police about dangerous practices and how “we need to create a culture of compliance” and about how people need to follow the law. Then a sign was put up that said “diagonal crossing OK” and it was suddenly safe.
This was near the University of Illinois campus. There had been some car/pedestrian collisions in 2006, so in an effort to do something, the police were ticketing people who weren’t doing anything dangerous. Probably because it was easy.
The intersection in question is terrible. Pedestrians there are idiots. They cross in front of oncoming traffic turning East from Broadway onto 96th St all the time. I’ve seen many car accidents on that corner. I’m surprised it took this long before people actually got themselves killed and I am glad they are finally starting to do something about it. Since last week when a man was hit and killed by a bus, police have been stationed at every corner stopping people from crossing into oncoming traffic and from the center island. I still see people crossing when they shouldn’t even with the cops yelling at them through loudspeakers.
The eyewitness I saw on the news didn’t say anything about the cops “beating” the man. Typical NY Post bullshit. He said the man starting struggling against the cops and fell to the ground, nothing about being beat. :rolleyes:
And there is no way the man was a tourist so don’t try to excuse his actions by claiming “oh what if he was a tourist in a foreign country, that’s why he doesn’t speak English.”
You really are grossly misrepresenting the situation.
The elderly man blew off the cops and walked away when they were ticketing him for jaywalking. When the cops grabbed him, he struggled and they got into a scuffle. Being elderly doesn’t exempt you from the law.
Three people had been killed and a couple of others injured in a two block radius in 9 days, and police had orders to crack down on jaywalkers in that area. The police had also placed barriers to prevent people from crossing mid-block. And they put up a portable electric sign at the intersection, warning walkers to cross with the light. Body outlines had been painted on the road with the names of the victims for visual this-could-be-you impact, and still people were jaywalking. So out came the $250 jaywalking tickets.
If anyone else had blown off the cops and walked away while being ticketed, what would you expect to happen? “Have a nice day, Sir!”? No, they are going to get thrown down and cuffed.
Sure, many people in NYC jaywalk, but it is illegal and you run the risk of a $250 ticket if you do it. If you want to take that risk, fine.
Witnessessay the 84-year-old seemed confused as police approached, cuffed, knocked him to the ground and hauled him away.
I suspect the intersection is covered by a camera so we should be able to see what actually happened.
The intersection was covered by reporters who were reporting on a jaywalking pedestrians death 12 hours earlier. They photographed the whole thing.
I keep picturing a 'roid-raging cop spraying spittle as he screams, “CROSS ON THE GREEN, NOT IN BETWEEN, MOTHER FUCKER!!!”
Being a police officer doesn’t prevent anyone from exerting common sense.
well I think a little less cracking is involved with the elderly. They could have done all manner of serious injury to this man. Broken hip, arm, leg… These are serious injuries as are head injuries.
well who could argue against assaulting an elderly person in order to save him. :dubious: We’ll just call it tough love. And if instead of 4 staples in the head of an already confused elderly person it kills them we’ll just call it natural causes because it’s naturally what police are trained to do.
Or, I’m just throwing this out for S&G’s, the police could adjust their tactics to accommodate the situation.
No, it doesn’t. But being a police officer doesn’t exempt you from the need to be sensible. Just because you theoretically have the power to forcibly subdue and cuff someone doesn’t mean that should be your first resort, and too often, that’s the kind of thing that happens and it means a routine situation escalates into a Tasing or a beating or something worse. We’ll see how the facts break in this case.
On the other hand this is a good point, and I wish I’d noticed that this was 96th Street. For those who don’t live in New York City: most streets here are single-lane, one-way streets, but some are larger two-way streets, and 96th is one of those. (Better-known examples include 34th and 42nd Streets). I think it’s a four-lane street, and it’s much more dangerous to jaywalk across those. This arrest seems to have happened right after the third traffic death in that area.
Have you looked at the photos? Doesn’t sound like it.
The one where he is being dragged back, I would say is the nicest most polite police drag back I have ever seen. They were well aware they were dealing with an elderly man. The only part of him that was getting any abuse was the heels of his sneakers.
well I was hoping you’d post a link. But I did a search and found some for anybody interested. Couldn’t find a video even though there’s a picture of someone with a large video camera (presumably from a news crew). You can see the city’s attempts to show the gravity of the problem with outlines of people painted into the pavement.
I’ll tell you what I see. 5 officers in the frame shot who couldn’t manage to cuff an old man without hurting him.
I don’t think I’ve mis-characterized the situation any. If you have any video of what took place that would help the discussion a bit. One of the witnesses said the man was moving with a crowd of people and they singled him out. If that is a true statement it sounds like he may have entered when the signal was blinking.
You have clearly never been dragged and you’re not 84 years old. That can easily hurt an elderly person. Again, they managed to let his head strike something.
Do they have permission to paint the graffiti?
You can’t get permission to paint graffiti. But you can find stuff like this at accident sites sometimes. There’s a group of people - maybe the same people - who put “ghost bikes” to mark places where bike riders are killed in car crashes.
The language barrier thing seems like a bit of a dodge. I’m sure the guy is familiar with the basic idea of police officers and tickets. Unless he’s senile (and his son in the article doesn’t say he was) it seems a stretch that he didn’t understand the gist of what was going on.
We’ll have to see the video to see if the cops used excessive force.
I really, really don’t envy all the cops who have been told to ticket New Yorkers for jaywalking . . .
I don’t either. Many of the laws are written so that if you step out when it starts blinking you are in violation. It would seem to me that if you hustle over before it turns red then you’ve fulfilled your legal obligation.