God I’m so depressed this turned out to be a racism thing. It does that far too often.
That just about sums it up, doesn’t it?
I wanna know who cut the lights? That’s usually a school official. I’m sure it’s in a locked area.
The whole thing was fixin’to be a free for all.
The Daytona Beach News-Journal has an article with some body-cam footage.
For those who don’t want to watch it, I’ve made a partial transcription from the captions and some description. I did my best to be even-handed, but if you feel I’ve left something important out, feel free to offer it as a correction.
I will note that from the time Mims responded to the Sergeant, saying that this was the last song and they were “fixing to go” to the point the song ended and he climbed off his ladder was 1 minute and 8 seconds. (I also suspect from his body language when he listened and replied to her that he did not hear or understand much of what they were saying outside of that.)
As to the racism angle: Both the sergeant and the cop who tased Mims were also black.
Yes, I think white cops and Black cops both treat minorities worse than white people.
I don’t dispute that, but I think this is (as I said in an earlier post) more about “respect mah authoritah” than anything else. Anything other than instantaneous compliance with what an officer wants–even if the other party may not understand what the officer wants–is an arrest-worthy offense. Officer 2 even says it out loud: “He’s going to jail because I asked him to respect [unintelligible]. That was not respectful to me.”
Would they have escalated this way with a white band director? Probably not. I’m sure they would expect more official pushback if they did, and that is wrong. But they shouldn’t have escalated it with anyone.
I think every single person in the video is black.
Also note that he was not “tazed for continuing to play”. As is almost always the case in these stories, he was tazed because he fought the 3-4 officers who were attempting to arrest him, after 30-60 seconds of them attempting to get him to put his hands behind his back. One officer claims in the video that the director attempted to hit an officer, and the director denies it.
The actual start of the physical contact was not caught on the released video. It’s not at all clear what happened between when he stopped the music and walked away and when the officer with the body camera walked up to the arrest in progress.
If officers were behind me hollering I believe I’d realize something was amiss and do more than cock my head in their direction.
It might behoove me to listen to their suggestions very carefully.
You mean, like reply that you were aware of the situation and were going to comply? Like Mims did?
Like, turn around. Step down and say “yes sir, officer were leaving instantly”
I don’t wanna be tazed, hand cuffed, arrested, taken to jail. Lose my ride home, spend lots of money bailing out and hiring a lawyer. Talked about incessantly on news and social media.
Not much idea of a good day. At. All
(Not to mention being a bad example to young people)
Turning around and getting closer to the police officer seems awfully aggressive…
Yeah, that could have gotten him killed with these bozos.
The video i was saw had a clear view of the moment before he was tased, and he was standing still. There’s simply no justification for tasing a man who is standing in place, arms at his sides. Even if he is objecting to being arrested.
The officers were way over the line, IMHO.
This basically amounts to saying “He deserved to be arrested because he got arrested”.
Do you have any evidence that they were attempting to arrest him? Because near as I can tell, what they were attempting was just assault.
I still wanna know why the stadium lights were turned off.
Maybe the school board wanted to save the expensive electric costs. Those things ain’t cheap to run.
Maybe the fracas in the stands caused the police to decide this had to end before shooting started.
Maybe the visiting bus was blocking an outlet.
Causing jams to people leaving.
The band director/bus driver should have stood his band down as soon as he was asked. He knew exactly how long the song he was directing would last.
He was showboating. IMO
We’ll never know the truth of the situation. Too much garbage is already being shown. Edited? Who knows.
The fracas was caused by the police.
He did know. And he told the police he would wrap up as soon as they finished that song, which took about a minute. They needed him to STOP THIS VERY MOMENT. Because they were assholes, as best as i can tell.
I never want to always blame police for mitigating every little public misbehavior, people getting stirred up or rivalry at a football game.
We’ve seen it. These things can get out of control quickly.
Maybe this area is known to be a high crime area. We don’t have that information.
The band director should have known the lay of the land.
I don’t either so I withheld having an opinion until we got more facts. It’s pretty clear now that the force was uncalled for and excessive.
Okay, okay. I will hush.
Apparently people know more than I do.
In this case, it got out of control quickly because the police took it out of control.
And he did not RESPECT MAH AUTHORITAH!!!
That’s all he’s guilty of. Not being subservient to a power figure. I’m not sure if there is an actual law on the books that says this explicitly, but many police sure act like there is.