The players tried to leave the field, the marching band refused to yield, what details have been concealed, the way they tased this guy?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
101

Not stated or implied. See above “engaging with everything but documented facts.”

Not stated or implied. Again, see above “engaging with everything but documented facts.”

No, I was responding to this:

The police had no way of knowing if he was in the middle of a short song, or a long song, or spooling up for a 5-song set. Not without talking to the director, who (again) acknowledged and ignored multiple attempts to engage with him.

I have no patience for this line of apologia because:

  1. I’ve been in the position of band leader for a sports event. Controlling the band’s performance is well within my power, indeed it’s is my sole purpose for being there. This director didn’t even make an attempt. (The away team’s director apparently had no issue controlling their ensemble).
  2. Within the past 2 weeks my kids were at a football game where a stabbing took place amid the post-game loitering. It’s a safety issue, people who attend games know this can be a concern. When the game’s over, the game’s over, it’s time to exit, not continue to perform.

The field needs to be cleared, the director has no right to obstruct, he was given generous opportunities to comply with a lawful and very reasonable order that was easily within his abilities. Again, the away team’s director didn’t seem to have any problem wrapping the performance, this was just one guy who decided it was his day to be the main character. He got the attention he was seeking.

Find another civil rights cause, this ain’t the one you’re looking for.

102

Um, he could at any point before being tazed put his hands behind his back and let them handcuff him. That was absolutely within his power, and not doing so is absolutely “resisting arrest” by any definition.

103

Do all levels of “resisting arrest”, including failure to immediately place hands in cuff position, warrant use of a Taser?

My understanding was that Taser use is considered warranted based on the perceived threat of the subject to police or others with consideration of likelihood of access to weapons, size, number of police in proximity, and with regard to seriousness of alleged offense and risk of escape.

In a circumstance that the subject is clearly not a threat to a multiple of present officers or others and is of no escape risk, especially for the offense being exclusively even “flagrant” failure to comply with “a lawful order” use of a Taser is hard to justify. Impossible to.

104

I find myself wondering who won the game and if the police officers had any affiliation (were they former students, do they have kids at school ) with one of the teams.

I’m thinking if the band belonged to the winning team, and if the cops were affiliated with the team that lost - that might have made them eager to cut the winner’s celebration short and escalated their response.

Pure speculation, of course - but it could explain the intensity of their response.

105

I don’t know that it was a factor, but the visiting team won 27-0. The cops were Birmingham PD, but that doesn’t mean they were associated with the other school, beyond being assigned to the game; Birmingham has seven high schools.

106

My understanding is the band and director were from the visiting team.

He was the bus driver and kids had to scramble and bum rides to get home.

107

…“not putting your hands behind your back” should not be all that it takes to escalate to the use of a taser.

More context is here on this video.

https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/09/20/body-cam-video-shows-us-school-band-director-tasered-multiple-times/

I see nothing here that makes using a taser make any sense at all.

The problem is that, as far as the police are concerned, everything fits the definition of “resisting arrest.” But what I see in that bodycam is somebody arguing with the police.

De-escalation is always something that should be on the table. And Mims wasn’t a threat to anyone else. They were not a threat to the officers in the bodycam.

Here, for example, are the New Zealand rules on police taser use. I would imagine (but can’t find) the rules for the Birmingham police would be similar. (And if they are not, then that says a lot about policing in America)

108

That body cam video. Yep, he was belligerent and resisting.

It’s so obvious.

109

…that bodycam video shows that there was absolutely no reason to tase him.

It’s so obvious.

110

Well, 2 different opinions. That’s fine.

111

…what do you think he was doing in that video that justified the police using potentially lethal force?

112

He was fighting them. He should have stopped and left. Everything would’ve been cool. Look at his face when he’s directing the band. He was amped up. IMO

ETA. The other side of the stadium is completely empty. He was there too long.

113

…he was not fighting them. Not by any reasonable definition of “fighting”, and not by what would typically be in police guidelines that would require escalation to the use of force.

Not relevant to the question I asked.

So you think he should have been tased because of his face?

So what’s the problem then? Almost everyone had already gone home.

114

It is your thought that being “belligerent” is an obvious indication for Taser use?

The USDOJ would disagreed. Page 20 here FWIW.

The subject was not actively fighting. He was not behaving in any manner that was likely to result in injuries to anyone. He was standing still.

It indeed is obvious.

115

Ok. You win.

116

According to the transcript, he told them it was the last song and just one more minute.

Also, according to the transcript, he was disrespectful towards the police, and was arguing about being arrested.

Should be have been charged with disorderly conduct? Maybe, although if the police hadn’t been assholes there wouldn’t have been an order for him to disobey. Should he have been tased? Asbsofuckinglutely not. That was a dangerous abuse of power on the part of the police.

117

I think in this case the police did over react in the moment but the band director was acting very irresponsible in regards to the safety of the kids. I think they could have have made their point more effectively by taking him aside afterwards and explaining why not taking instruction from the police could potentially put the kids in danger.
For example if while clearing the stadium a fight broke out and it was discovered somebody had a firearm. The police telling the band director to “stop now and evacuate” should not be met with a “not right now” or “tell me why first”.
If the band director still wants to challenge the point I would go to that schools principal or the school board to report this individual.
I think that would have driven the point home better or even gotten the guy fired.
Much more effective than starting a physical altercation with him.

118

…I’m sorry, but we are talking about a sports event right?

And the “crime” we are talking about is a marching band playing a bit too long?

All this talk about “irresponsibility” and “the safety of the kids” and “potentially putting the kids in danger” and “what if a fight broke out” and “what if it was discovered somebody had a firearm” and even arguing that anything here would rise to the level of “getting the guy fired” means one of two things:

Either you are taking your sports much too seriously, or your society is irreparably broken.

How on earth have you gotten to this point? What the heck has gone wrong? Why are we even thinking about any of these things in a thread about the end of a sports game?

119

No, we don’t. We have a band director who reasonably thought that he could let his band finish, as is the case 99.9% of the time in how bands work. Never in my life have I known a band that had to quit in the middle of a piece they were playing. I’ve been in a situation where the band was told they needed to leave, and we still finished out the piece, with everyone being amicable about it.

We literally have the guy saying that they just want to finish the song, as is reasonable. A cop demanding they stop right away is the one being unreasonable, and hard to understand. Hence why everyone is trying to figure out why in the world he would do so. “Respect my authoritay” seems like the most likely–he just didn’t like that the band director expected the norm of being able to finish the song.

The idea that there was some horrible threat at this point doesn’t make sense given what we know. No one has alleged some violent people who were attacking anyone or anything like that. There’s no indication of anyone being under threat, other than the band director.

120

Dammit.

The body cam footage destroys and possible ambiguity.

Some notes about the footage.

First, when the bodycam starts, the police department stamps on the video that it’s 18 minutes after the end of the game.

Looking back at your earlier post:

It’s well within the time frame that comes from those posts.

That leads credibility to that account, although the timing was off. It looks like the final song rather than the middle set, but the songs would have all ended within 22ish minutes.

The footage clearly shows that the stadiums were pretty much empty except for the band and immediate area. There were the cheerleaders in front of the band but very other people around.

The initial reports relied on the police statements that they were “trying to clear the stands” when the reality was that they only wanted the band to leave.

Without this footage, I had assumed that this was a much larger stadium, like the $80 million, 11,000 person high school stadium in Texas.

The news reports also state that the home team band had agreed to stop playing but Minor’s band would not. Duh, Jackson-Olin was already finished at that point.

The police bodycam shows the time as 21:55.

The key question to understanding this situation is the apparent urgency of the police in contrast to the band’s lack of a sense of being hurried.

Were the police told that they must have the stadiums cleared by 22:00 while the band director was told they were allowed to play three songs alternating with the home team band? Or, was the police acting unilaterally and arbitrarily?

The field lights are cut at a 21:57:47 followed one second later with the lights over the bleachers. There seems to be a 22:00 time limit but who set that is not known.

In my earlier post, I wrote about smart ways and bad ways of policing and this is a perfect example of bad policing. The police come in combatively and barking orders, telling them “I’ve got my troops (my emphasis) They gonna sweep their asses out, okay.:

This is simply a piss-poor way of handing the situation. Given the comments from the police, it seems that the police came up and told the director in the middle of the song that they had one minute to end the song.

It seems that the reason for the arrest was given by one of the officers, as quoted by @Balance above.

I question if a white band leader of a mostly white school would be treated the same. If you can’t let a black man disrespect you, you know.