Officer Rivieri Builds Bridges Among Baltimore's Youth (R.O.)

The BBQ Pit
21

Nobody’s defending the officer or saying what he did was in any way professional. We’re just saying that in cases like this, there’s often something that went on that we’re not seeing. I’ve had enough run ins with dickhead cops to know that even when they’re acting like the one in the video, you don’t be rude to them. Period. That doesn’t make them in the right, but they do have handcuffs and a night stick, neither of which I want used on me.

ETA:

[QUOTE=Trunk]
“Stop calling me dude” is very funny.

One of the funniest lines was, “are you from the county?” (IOW, “you seem like a molly-coddled brat.”) It was actually going through my mind when I was watching those kids. Turns out he was from Anne Arundel county.
[/QUOTE]

I think he was asking if he was from the county, because somebody from the city would know that skateboarding wasn’t allowed at the park.

“Stop calling me dude!” is pretty funny, almost the antithesis of “Don’t taze me, bro!”

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[QUOTE=George Kaplin]
But the kid wasn’t being a smart ass. He just wasn’t being deferential. Rivieri didn’t want respect. He wanted submission. And he flew into a rage at the first hint that he wasn’t going to get it. Fuck him. He’s a cunt.
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and this:

[QUOTE=Kinthalis]
Wow, just wow. Fuck you people defending this prick, lousy excuse for an officer. I don’t care that the asshat has a clownsuit for a uniform, or that he was having a bad day, or that his partner ate the last doughnut.

Being called “dude” is not an excuse to act with extreme unprofessionalism, assault a 14 year old 1/10th his size, threaten to kill him (cause the last bit was nothing short of a veiled death threat), and STEAL his fucking skateboard.

The scum bag was on a power trip, the kid did not bow down to his authoritah, and his macho neanderthal thugh side emerged, as it probably does whenever he thinks he can get away with it.

I’ve had the misfortune of meeting asshole cops like this. Had them punch me, threaten to kill me, threaten my mother and generally be corrupt shit bags. (And if you’re curious, the reasons - in order - were: Asking why I had to leave a public park in the middle of the day - the reason turned out to be he didn’t like the music Iw as playing on my guitar, after witnessing a cop punching an elderly homeless person, and because my mom asked the police to perform a sobriety test on the guy who just smashed into her car - turned out he was a cop)

It pisses me off that there are always some clueless pricks who will always dismiss this type of crap with a wave of the hand and a “He should of known better”, as though kissing a police officer’s ass is expected or whatever comes your way is deserved. Fuck you.

It boggles the mind that if a tape of me berating a client in my line of work and assaulting him as this cop did the tiny teenager, were to be played everyone in this thread would think I was psycho and would expect nothing short of my termination from my job and possible jail time. But because he’s a police officer things change? Someone care ot enlighten me as to the hell why??
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Seconded. I cringed while watching that video.

*Who * was disrespecting the badge, again?

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[QUOTE=Santo Rugger]
I’ve had enough run ins with dickhead cops to know that even when they’re acting like the one in the video, you don’t be rude to them. Period. That doesn’t make them in the right, but they do have handcuffs and a night stick, neither of which I want used on me.
[/QUOTE]
This can’t be emphasized strongly enough. There is a certain personality type - not limited to law enforcement, and whether they’re drawn to LE or LE is drawn to them, I won’t speculate here - but this type is drawn to bait, to intimidate, and to escalate.

I’ve seen them in action myself. They NEED for you to play into their hands and they will take any small show of resistance as reason enough. The only way to deal with them is to exhibit some basic, low-level compliance in hopes they don’t get the urge to push things further.

Stand up for yourself once too often with a person like this and you can get hurt, framed, or worse. It really doesn’t take much - especially if you don’t look, dress, or act like them. I don’t get much trouble because I’m a stocky white male who dresses fairly well, but I can only imagine what it’s like for other types of people.

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[QUOTE=Santo Rugger]
Well, the kid had done something wrong, he was skateboarding where he wasn’t supposed to be. By acting out of line, I meant “acting in a way that he shouldn’t”, in other words, don’t be a smart ass to the angry man yelling at you.

Again, I’m not saying that the cop was in any way in the right, or acted in any way professional with his escalation of the situation. But the kid was being a smart ass, and if he wasn’t, this situation never would have manifested.

The cop was probably just taking out his anger of the little buggy they gave him to patrol in!
[/QUOTE]

Bingo.

The kid clearly wasn’t hurt, he just had his skateboard taken away. The cop acted like an asshole; you almost NEVER see that :rolleyes: .

Sure, the cop should have been more professional, but it’s not like the kid was being nightsticked for using the wrong water fountain. Send the cop to anger management classes and get on with it. Oh yeah, and get the hell rid of those uniforms and cars, Christ on a cracker that’s silly lookin shit.

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[QUOTE=buttonjockey308]
Bingo.

The kid clearly wasn’t hurt, he just had his skateboard taken away. The cop acted like an asshole; you almost NEVER see that :rolleyes: .

Sure, the cop should have been more professional, but it’s not like the kid was being nightsticked for using the wrong water fountain. Send the cop to anger management classes and get on with it. Oh yeah, and get the hell rid of those uniforms and cars, Christ on a cracker that’s silly lookin shit.
[/QUOTE]

I respectfully disagree.

I’m not one for letting kids (or anyone, for that matter) get away with disrespect, but there’s teaching children the right way to behave, then there’s being an irredeemable cunt. This asshole cop chose the latter, and in my opinion, that’s inexcusable. Cop, parent, average Joe on the street, whatever–it’s just not right. Or, IOW: If I wouldn’t want someone to berate me like that for an infraction that is, all things considered, relatively minor, I sure as hell shouldn’t subject someone else to said treatement.

Send him to anger management? Fuck that shit. I say fire his malcontent, “my dick size is as big as my inflated, I’m-the-law-damnit!” ass, and give that badge to someone who truly has an appropriately humbled appreciation for the authority with which the state has endowed him, and who wields that authority judiciously.

Badges and guns don’t earn my respect–*respect * does.

26

[QUOTE=Beware of Doug]
This can’t be emphasized strongly enough. There is a certain personality type - not limited to law enforcement, and whether they’re drawn to LE or LE is drawn to them, I won’t speculate here - but this type is drawn to bait, to intimidate, and to escalate.

[/QUOTE]
You can emphasize it, but people sometimes like to antagonize people like that.

We used to; and we also used to always have one kid telling the rest of us kids, “just do what he says. Just do what he says.”

Some people’s natural reaction to authority is to kowtow to it, and some to bait it.

This is from today’s Sun article

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Well, considerin the cop has been suspended over this, I’m thinking that the powers that be aren’t too impressed with him either. The kid was being co-operative and non-threatening. There is no excuse for the cop to put him in a headlock and throw him to the ground.

28

What angers me is that this kind of thing happens a lot - there are what, two recent threads about similar police misconduct in the pit? And the only time the “powers that be” do anything about it is when it they get caught with their pants down on the nightly news.

If no one had video taped the incident with the skater kid, or the one with the paraplegic, what do you think the “powers that be” would have said after complaints were made? I’d wager it would be something like: “Officer Rivieri is a fine officer who volunteers to help sick children in his off-time and would never mistreat one of a our young citizens!” and “The accusations of abuse against a disabled person by this department are outrageous! There were several officers attending mr ___ and everyone of them would have reported any mistreatment! The allegations are completely unfounded!”.

Same old song and dance.

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[QUOTE=Swallowed My Cellphone]
Well, considerin the cop has been suspended over this, I’m thinking that the powers that be aren’t too impressed with him either. The kid was being co-operative and non-threatening. There is no excuse for the cop to put him in a headlock and throw him to the ground.
[/QUOTE]
Non-threatening maybe but definitely not cooperative. I don’t know Baltimore laws but the cop may have had every right to confiscate the skateboard and the kid wasn’t giving it up, while quite possibly continuing to use the skateboard and insisting, “I wasn’t doing anything dude!” It’s already been pointed out these kids like to videotape encounters with the cops because it’s fun. Does anyone here really think the kid wasn’t being a dick?

Cops pretty much automatically get suspended when embarrassing video shows up on the news.

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[QUOTE=levdrakon]
Does anyone here really think the kid wasn’t being a dick?

[/QUOTE]

I don’t think he was being a dick. What the hell is dickish about saying “dude”?

And even if he was being dickish, that doesn’t give this shitstain the right to assault him. Oh wait, he wears a badge, I guess in your eyes it does give him the right…

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[QUOTE=Kinthalis]
I don’t think he was being a dick. What the hell is dickish about saying “dude”?

And even if he was being dickish, that doesn’t give this shitstain the right to assault him. Oh wait, he wears a badge, I guess in your eyes it does give him the right…
[/QUOTE]
He wasn’t assaulting him, he was confiscating a skateboard the brat wouldn’t give up.

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[QUOTE=Kinthalis]
I don’t think he was being a dick. What the hell is dickish about saying “dude”?<snip>
[/QUOTE]

Next time you get pulled over, roll down the window and say, “What’s up, dude.” Let me know how that works out for you.

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[QUOTE=levdrakon]
He wasn’t assaulting him, he was confiscating a skateboard the brat wouldn’t give up.
[/QUOTE]
As far as I could tell from the video, the kid never refused to give it up. The officer asked for the board at exactly the same moment as he started grabbing it - he never even gave the kid time to refuse.

The officer simply lunged at him in and wrestled the skateboard away (the kid kind of clutched at the board, but not very strongly and gave it up), and then took the kid down to the ground. The kid didn’t visibly struggle very much - he tried to stand up again right away and the office pushed him (pretty hard) in the chest back to the ground. The kid then just lay on the ground until the officer got a little further away.

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[QUOTE=Santo Rugger]
Next time you get pulled over, roll down the window and say, “What’s up, dude.” Let me know how that works out for you.
[/QUOTE]

So let me get this straight, I’m fair game to cops if I DARE to call them dude (certainly rude, for someone MY AGE to say, though probably SOP for a teenage kid)?

So tell, me, how severe a beating should I expect?

Would it be more appropriate for me to address him as mas’er? Should I Be sure to bow two inches lower than him at all times? What if he is rude to me? What recourse do I have? Oh? None, just lick his boots and take it?

how about this: Fuck you you pissant cowardly son of a bitch. It’s because of people like you that we have ass-hole cops in the first place, because you look the other way or refuse to do something about it.

35

I am so thoroughly convinced that the kid wasn’t being a dick that I’m going to use my 500th post to say:

I do not think the kid was being a dick. I used to be a High school teacher. I know when a kid’s being a dick. This kid was not being a dick.

Also, point of order, you’re wrong that the kid refused to give up the skateboard. He was never given a chance to refuse to give up the skateboard. The fat fuck bully just decided to throw him to the ground and snatch it instead.

36

No, you don’t have it straight at all. Read my replies, I’ve stated numerous times that I’m not defending the cop or saying that what he did was right or professional. I’m saying that the kid didn’t handle the situation in a manner most beneficial to himself.

The cop didn’t beat the kid.

No, “mas’er” would probably get the same response, because it’s just as disrespectful as calling a cop “dude”. Call him “sir”, or “officer”, and don’t be a smart ass. If he’s rude to you? Yeah, suck it up. Remember, he’s got the handcuffs and the nightstick. It’s already been pointed out that the cop wasn’t a dick to the friends who weren’t being smart asses. I’ve been woken up at 10 AM on a hungover Saturday, had cops bust into my house while I was smoking pot, and had to sit in the back of a cop car while drunk enough times (once, once, and twice, respectively) to know that when a cop is ranting, you keep your mouth shut. I’ve always looked at cops the same way I looked at my parents. Talking back, in any way, including “looking at me in that tone of voice”, is not at all acceptable.

I’ve been called a lot of things, but never a pissant coward. I’ll have to add that to the list. But, for the record, you’ll notice I didn’t post in the quadriplegic thread because I thought that situation was much more fucked up, and would only have been adding to the chorus of “OMG that’s so messed up!” In other words, I don’t think this situation has nearly the merit of the other.

Even if I were the type of person that looked the other way when I saw what I thought was abuse, it wouldn’t be because of me that said abuse occurred. Think about that one for a moment. Or you can just keep up your tirade against authority.

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[QUOTE=George Kaplin]
[sub]Edit: Although I do agree that the buggy probably had something to do with it :slight_smile: [/sub]
[/QUOTE]
Was I the only one who expected 15 or 20 more cops to come tumbling out the buggy, some with nightsticks, some with toy guns and some throwing confetti from buckets and spritzing people with seltzer?

One phrase used to describe cops is “peace officer.” This guy sure wasn’t doing his duty in that respect if he loses control like that, even if the kid wasn’t being deferential and mouthing off. Peace officers are expected to go after bad guys and do what needs to be done in those situations, sure, but for the most part, they should be doing what the can to keep the peace, not creating a confrontation, as this guy appears to do.

38

I just can’t get behind this. The cop showed up, all Eric’s friends stopped skateboarding but our little Eric had his earphones in and “didn’t hear him,” the cop asked if he could hear him now and repeated what he said and got lip. I’d bet $100 there’re signs all over this area saying NO SKATEBOARDING. The other kids knew they were wrong. This kid wanted to be a smartass. “Dude, I didn’t hear you.” What, did you think the cop was asking where you got your rad shoes? “Dude, you don’t have to take my skateboard, I wasn’t doing anything.” Uh, yeah you were shit-for-brains, and your friends obviously got the point. He even said “your friends got brains in their head, they know when to shut their mouth.”

“Man, dude” would piss me off. He told him to sit down and had to say “did you not hear me?” The kid was being a punk.

39

Not a fan of the Fourth Amendment, I see. Not to worry; it shan’t be around much longer if the last eight years are any indication.

40

Everybody send him an e-mail consisting of:

HEY OFFICER DUDE!!!