It gets easier if you understand respect as having to do with fear.
A lot of us were raised that way, and for a lot of us, any other definition of “respect” doesn’t cut it, and is helping push us down that slippery slope.
The thing about dealing with teens is you have to have a plan and apparently this officer doesn’t have one. If you don’t have a plan you risk being frustrated down to their level. There are three major ways that adults act around kids:
Wishy Washy - doesn’t work, you get walked all over.
Screaming Hot Head - doesn’t work, it’s too amusing to watch an adult act like your three year old sister when she’s mad so you go out of your way to make the Hot Head blow.
Stern but Understanding - works almost every time, project an air of not taking any crap but also caring about the teen.
We see it all the time with coaches, teachers and parents. The adults who get the most respect don’t threaten, scream or let everyone do whatever they want. Maybe it’s a gift but I think to a certain extent it can be taught.
Like one member would say. he deserved it. They all deserve it. You did not show the part of the video where they attacked his profession, station and insulted his power.
And another teenager has come forward claiming Riveri was the officer that pointed a taser in his face and kicked him.
Are you for real? Like the word “dude” hurts more than a shove to the ground?
I hope you’re fucking with us. Do you really think insulting a police officer is some sort of crime? It’s not.
Just words, dipshit.
How minor a crime might I commit, if I am a juvenile, and not expect physical violence to be administered by police? Under what circumstances are police justified in administering punishment for law breaking?
The officer committed at least one misdemeanor under color of authority. Whether the kid is a serial criminal with an extensive history of crimes is irrelevant to that. Assault is criminal. He should be removed from all authority, under censure, and be permitted to plead guilty to simple assault.
Tris
And why do you think someone from Southern California would hate cops?
And BTW, I’m not attacking you specifically here, but I find it troubling that an objection has been raised with the use of a video camera. Recording the actions of police on video is a crucial part of modern democracy. This asshole would still be throwing kids around if it weren’t for that kid with the camera. There could’ve been a million more Rodney Kings in the last 15 years if someone hadn’t been in the right place at the right time with a camera. It’s especially telling that when the Burmese dictatorship wanted to shut its people off from the interference of the democratic process, one of the first things they did was to confiscate all the video cameras.
If you read the other posts you would see I am on the kids side. I was just answering for Levdrakon in case he missed posting. He can’t see the physical assault and the cop going way overboard . I was trying to show how ridiculous his position sounds.
I don’t think having a video camera to record your friends skateboarding is unusual.
The kids almost certainly knew that they where not supposed to be skating there. “I wasn’t doing anything”. Laws and restrictions are put in place for the possibility that they may hurt someone, and skaters probably have in the past.
With that said, I think the officer has probably had his buttons pushed two many times. BUT, he doesn’t know how to handle it other than to escalate the situation. He certainly does not look to be made of the proper cloth to be in a position of power and intimidation. That’s about as nice as I can be about it.
If anything, I think that LEO’s should be able to draw deeper from a well of calm to keep things from getting out of hand.
Warn them, cite them, talk to the parents. Confiscate the skate board and make the parents come to the station to get it (I wonder if that’s even legal).
Going into a rage because a teen used a common and not derogatory vernacular to address him just doesn’t cut it. Yes, “Sir” or “Officer” would be the recommended salutation, but “Dude” shouldn’t be an offense that makes you believe your about to get your ass kicked.
I wonder just what kind of lesson the kids will take away from this. It’s not going to be a good one.
Hell, it seems to be the norm.
How else do all those TV shows get footage of skaters coming down on railings with their crotch, or smacking their head into the sidewalk? If skaters didn’t record each other getting hurt, life would lose a bit of its fun. 
Well, I agree in general with everything you’ve posted, may I ask: while I’m grasping the usefulness of “position[s] of power,” what would be useful about having “position[s] of intimidation”? 
Clearly someone hasn’t been playing enough Metal Gear Solid!
The rest of us know NOT to move with the cardboard box equipped when the bad guy is looking!
or
!
CMC +fnord!
This kid is a freshman at my high school. The funny thing is, for being indirectly related to this little scandal, the school is surprisingly uninterested. How is the media handling this in other states? Because right here nobody is paying much attention besides mocking that pathetic cop.
Perhaps this is a whooss. And I did see your wink smilly.
Could you rephrase the question?
I haven’t heard of it outside this thread.
According to this article Bush knew what he and his friends were doing was “100% wrong” he called the officer “dude” because it he didn’t know what else to call him, run-ins with the cops are commonplace (because they know what they’re doing is 100% wrong?) and they like to videotape them because they think getting yelled at by cops is funny.
What lesson will the kids take away from this?
No one is saying Officer Short-Temper isn’t a jerk, but what have these kids learned? Pretty obvious to me. Break the law, piss off cops and get it on tape 'cause it’ll get you on the news.
IMHO, I don’t think that a LEO should be able to threaten a kid because he was skateboarding against the rules.
Again, IMHO, great force is necessary and called for in situations where the officer or the public is under threat of harm.
That was not the case here. Not at all.
In stead of a chuckle and another “stupid kids” story to take to the station. This officer will probably lose his job. And he probably should.
Dude. :snerk: Really, like, I’m 47 years old myself. That’s cool.
That this man considers himself an adult is a bit of a problem. That he is on the police force is a bigger one.
And if Officer Short-Temper would have treated this incident as 99.9 percent of the ADULTS that I know would have treated it, It would have never made the news.
I don’t understand why one would think the kid’s admission that his skateboarding was illegal mitigates the outrageousness of the officer’s reaction. (Do people defend Rodney King’s beating by noting that he was, in fact, speeding?) An officer can deal with the crime in a professional, tension-reducing manner or he can escalate things to unnecessary violence. But only one of those choices is ethically acceptable.
And, what the fuck is people’s problem with the word “dude”? It’s just what the kid is used to calling people; he didn’t give it any more conscious thought than he did to placing "the"s throughout his sentences. Maybe it stings your ears, maybe you’re just such a defender of the language that you hate to see it applied to anyone not working on a ranch, but violence is way, way over the top as a reaction to being addressed in the same friendly manner as this kid probably addresses his school buddies.
Probably. In this thread I’m coming across as rabidly pro-cop abuse or something, I dunno. But I know when I was 14 I got away with 99.9% of the shit I knew I wasn’t supposed to be doing and .1% of the time I got caught by a pissed off adult who knew exactly what I’d been up to all along and my 14-year-old body was not easily broken by being tossed about a bit. Catholic school.
What if this were a female officer and Eric “didn’t know” what to call her other than “bitch?” Feel the same way? How about if it had been a black officer and Eric said “niggah, I wasn’t doing anything?”
Yeah, I know dude and bitch and niggah aren’t exactly the same but Eric doesn’t know what to call adult authority figures and likes to revert to what he does know is apparently cool.
So why are you even partially equating them? “Dude” is an informal term that I’ve never, ever heard in a derogatory context, and one which is used by people of all ages and social strata. Comparing it to a racial slur is really not making your case.