We have in the past had young people on these boards wonder why they can’t say “niggah” because TV & pop culture have taught them it’s perfectly acceptable between hip young people. I’m not sure about young kids and “bitch” but I know Im 43 and call some of my friends “bitch” but young Eric apparently doesn’t know when to drop the vernacular and address an adult. Actually, I’d bet he does know.
When uses of “nigga” or “bitch” are found objectionable, it’s not because they’re, you know, inappropriately casual. Surely you realize this? Those words are found objectionable because they are or can be used to convey insult or hatred. In contrast, as Una Persson points out, “dude” is, to the best of my knowledge, pretty much never used this way. (Compare “Sarah is such a bitch” with “Mike is such a dude”; the sort of situations where you’d use the former involve anger at Sarah’s unreasonably poor temper, while, to such extent as I can see the latter being used, it would be in the sort of situations involving amusement at Mike’s preference for action movies over chick flicks).
Fine. I’m 47 BTW.
Perhaps Eric Bush gave him some lip. Didnt’ hear it though. He Had an IPOD on.
DUDE, what’s up?
Is that a good reason for a PEACE officer to treat you like you are about to get your ass kicked? And then RAGE at the kid for 2 minutes?
Would you hire this man to watch your kids, wash your windows or mow your yard?
Would you like him to be a cop in your town?
Dude could definitely be used as an insult, but Eric didn’t use it as an insult. Hey, I’m from California; I call lots of people dude, even women. My point is dude bitch and niggah are all pretty much equally familiar in some situations yet you’d never dream of addressing an officer of the law as bitch or niggah yet people here don’t think there’s anything wrong with dude, like it’s on the same level as Mr. Ms. Sir or Ma’am. Do you call your boss “dude?” Do you call your teacher “dude?” Have we really become that familiar?
I’m not sure what you mean. He’s 14, knew he was breaking the law and it’s fun to piss off cops so they will yell at you and you can get it on tape and laugh later. All his friends stopped what they were doing. “I had my headphones in” doesn’t cut it. Show me a 14 year old fucking around with his friends who doesn’t know exactly what his friends are doing. Oh, I was in a zen-state and didn’t know my friends had just been told by a cop to knock it off and had knocked it off because I was totally zoning out in my zen-state oblivious to what my friends were doing." Uh-huh.
PEACE? what, cops are Buddist Shao-lin priests in Baltimore now?
He was a cop in my town, and he was a couple of my teachers, and I’m still alive and not emotionally or physically damaged. Of course I never got manhandled, but then I called him “sir” when he caught me and my friends smoking pot in the woods behind school and took our pot away. I guess I should have have said “dude, I wasn’t doing anything and didn’t hear you, I’m calling my mom!” and got it on tape and become a hero of my school.
I can’t think of any situations where “bitch” and “dude” are equivalent, but ok. I don’t call my bosses or teachers “dude”, but if I did, I’d expect a reaction of bemusement, maybe offense-taking, but not explosion; nothing near what was witnessed in the video.
I
Did the cop have anything to gain by punishing the kid in a recklessly tension-escalating way instead of punishing him in a tension-reducing way?
Well, if you did get manhandled simply for not using “sir”, then the cop would be out of line.
I just want to point out that Eric Bush is in no way “the hero” of our school. Like I said, other than a few jokes about the cop, nobody really cares about Eric’s 15 minutes of fame.
Basically from what I’ve heard the guy’s just another immature skate punk who just wants some attention, so he’s probably not taking it seriously either (when he’s not in front of a camera.)
All I can say is if it turns out this cop is a psychopathic maniac then he’s a psychopathic maniac and I will humbly quit this thread but until then what I saw was a game: kids break the law and skateboard. Cop shows up and makes them stop and go away. They play this game ALL THE FRICKING TIME, while the cops should be out stopping real crime but they can’t because it’s their job to keep the fucking brats from tripping people and crashing into baby carriages on the fucking boardwalk.
On this day, Eric decided to break the pattern, and got a smackdown. Really, I see no harm done except Eric is now a civil rights hero or something.
Who said that he was? Why would he have to be?
It wasn’t entirely serious, no.
But, you wrote:
I was playfully pointing out your implication (and my agreement) was that there are people who are qualified to be in “positions of power.”
I was also wondering if anyone should be allowed to be in “positions of intimidation.”
Besides a dominatrix?
That is so far from the fucking point, that by the time you were done typing the sentence, the period had begun its’ own colony on Mars.
With cops like that who needs gangs?
Uh, that was an adult using a radio-controlled “toy” to bother people and film their reactions because it’s “art.”
I’d have kicked the damn thing too. Seriously, I would. I hate those things. People think it’s funny to send them zipping around in front of you. Someday someone’s going to let one of those things get too close to my feet and yes I am going to kick a field goal with it.
It looks like Rivieri’s job is to ensure people can walk around the boardwalk without getting bothered too much and he’s kind of an asshole about it but he is essentially doing his job.
The hell he’s doing his job, he’s a bee-suited bully. No kicking cars. No taking skateboards. No tackling 14 year olds who call you “dude.” I don’t think you’ll see any of that in police department policy.
It looks to me like he is out of control and routinely disrespected. If you’ve ever had a run-in with a cop who actually knew how to do his job, you’d know what a sick joke this guy is. He has no authority, just the ability to lose his shit on passersby.
Just wondering, are you a cop?
I’m former military and attended the CHP academy but got outed as gay and at the time, I was an active reservist in the military with a high-level security clearance I couldn’t risk losing, so dropped out.
I’ve had cops friends. I also know why people will sometimes say the only difference between a cop and a criminal is because, well… one’s a cop.
I feel like I’ve got a fairly good handle on the differences among good cops, bad cops, and asshole cops and ineffectual, lazy pussy cops.
I won’t say Riviera is a “good” cop. He’s kind of an asshole, but I’m not ready to say he’s a “bad cop.” He’s a 17-year veteran who’s in charge of a public boardwalk where 100’s if not 1,000’s of people walk every day and they expect to be able to stroll along the board walk without have to dodge skateboarders careening at them or people with radio-controlled “toys” trying to trip them and it’s become a game of law-breakers vs. cops and after 17 years he’s become an asshole and I can kinda understand that. It might be time for him to get a desk job, though. Working with the public can wear you down after awhile.
But this thread started like this was some Rodney King civil rights case and I just don’t see it.
If after seventeen years he hasn’t been promoted beyond the point where he is forced to drive around in a little golf cart wearing his ridiculous little bee suit uniform, there is probably a reason for his lack of upward movement.
I’d guess that Odie has a history of doing things that make him unsuitable for promotion but aren’t quite serious enough for the blue wall to collapse and have him actually fired.
Why else would he basically be a mall security guard after seventeen years?
Yeah, except when the little skateboard beatoff does an ollie into a mother pushing a stroller and injures or kills a kid by accident. He got the wrath because he’s skateboarding where his dumb little ass shouldn’t be and THEN has the balls to be a wiseass about it. Rivieri is right about one thing, that kid needs a foot in his ass.
That said…
I agree, he roughed up the kid, perhaps a little too much, but you know what? The kid walked away, minus skateboard, but altogether unharmed, now everyone’s ready to pile on this cop, forgetting that he’s human too, prone to mistakes. He blew his stack? OK, give him some time off and send him to anger management, punish him, fine. But what we don’t know is how the rest of his day/week/life has been, hell, maybe his dog died, maybe his wife is sick, who knows? Could be he’s just sick and fucking tired of trying to be nice to people who want to treat him like he’s a monkey on a chain to do their bidding in this, the golden age of entitlement.
The fact is, to survive in this world, you have to respect the people with the authority to tell you to do things, and, barring the illegal, immoral or just plain wrong, do the things you’re asked without being a smartass. OK you’ll say, being a smartass isn’t against the law and you’d be right, but the fact of the matter is that without that respect essentially built in, you’re going to smart off to the wrong sonofabitch, and he, living the high-context life of a biker, banger, or general badass, is going to pound you into goo whether you’re right or wrong.
Sure, it was a hard life lesson for little whats-his-name to learn, and the cop overstepped his bounds teaching him that lesson, but I’m pretty sure it will keep him alive longer than he would have been otherwise.
Also, kids not having respect for adults gets under my skin like mad. I suspect my conversation with him would have gone something like this:
You, little 14 year old skateboarding beatoff, are NOT my contemporary, you will address me as sir, officer or you will say nothing at all, you will not call me dude, I am not your friend, I am not your buddy, and I am not your ‘dude’. You will do what you are told when you are told to do it, or I will haul your ass in and have your parents come and pick you up. You, are a measly little pissant with no current redeeming social value, now sit your dumb ass down and shut your fucking mouth. I would have followed that up with a ticket.
Another thing to consider, and this is a little left field but just occurred to me, perhaps he thought the board could be used as a weapon, and wanted to get it away from him asap. Improbable, but possible.
There are several reasons for this, I will start with the top 3;
- There are only so many positions to fill, and he never found an interest in them.
- He doesn’t want to be anything more than a cop.
- He’s a giant dipshit who can’t get out of his own way to advance.