I disagree. In my opinion, a whole class of band students have learned to defy authority when it is wielded in an arbitrary and capricious fashion by someone who lets his ego get in the way of common sense and decency. And this (again, in my opinion) is a good lesson.
Obeying authority is not ALWAYS the correct choice.
Obeying authority is exactly what 15 to 18 yos need to learn. Starts at home. Cooks through schooling and then, with luck we get law abiding, contributing adults. Who may choose to be in law enforcement or the teaching profession.
My memory of the body-cam footage is that the band director was asked repeatedly to stop and repeatedly answered “Get out of my face.” Possibly the officers had no good reason to stop the music, but the band leader couldn’t possibly know that.
“Get out of my face” is an asshole way to address police unless you are 99% certain there was no emergency going on. No stabbing across the field, no drug overdose in the drum section, no report of a missing child.
After that, the band director lost any sympathy from me, and I’m not concerned that he got tased for not cooperating with the handcuffs.
I wasn’t thrilled the policeman saying he was being disrespected, and I’m not sure why the cops were shutting down the music right then. But the band director was the one who went over the line, and stayed there.
And exactly what have the police in America done in the last 20 years to deserve the benefit of the doubt? And in actuality, the police were quoted as saying it was about an overtime issue.
Generally speaking, if you don’t want to be addressed like an asshole you shouldn’t address someone like an asshole. Telling a grown ass man to just comply, is not a way to garner respect. Get out of my face is a perfectly valid response to someone being in your face with no justification, no matter what costume they wear.
He was rude, so throw all police rules of conduct right out the window?
The police, the professionals in this situation, had every chance to deescalate. They did nothing of the sort.
Let’s check back in a month when the charges are dropped.
Civil disobedience is all well and good til some kid gets hurt.
This band director made a choice to put his students in direct harms way.
It’s not a civil rights battle, it’s not over voter rights or inequities or inequality. It’s over a stupid band tune he could have stopped.
Just a bad choice.
True or false: the police also could have stopped it by simply saying, “oh, you have one minute left? ok wrap it up right after that”? They didn’t. An equally bad choice. As between a citizen, and a professional law enforcement officer, who should be better trained not to let their ego get in the way?
A band director shouldn’t let his ego stand in the way of safety first.
Objection. Facts not in evidence. There were no safety issues. The cops wanted to go home. If there was a tornado headed for the stadium, I would be in your camp. There wasn’t. It was cops that were tired of being there and demanded something they had no authority to demand.
And how do you know that bit of info?
You had a phone call from one of them?
It could of been as simple as there was an event the next morning and the maintenance crew needed to clean the stands. Trust me there are barrels of trash left in them after a game.
Maybe the maintenance crew wanted to go home before 1am. Since we’re guessing.
ETA jr high games are often the next morning.
No, he did not say “just one more minute.”
He twice told them “get out of my face” before saying “this is our last song” (of course, why believe him, and how long is this song?)
He got multiple verbal warnings before that, and multiple verbals after that, and still decided he needed to be the main character. He got his wish and caught a charge for 2 more minutes of “Word Up” or whatever. No sympathy.
See this video at the 1:30 mark. “I’m going to have them send you all a bill tomorrow for the overtime.”
And that justifies force?
The actions of the band director was refusal to comply to the police requests to stop. He set the tone.
So if they had demanded that he play “We will rock you” multiple times, and he decided not to, would that be setting the tone too?
Oh come on. That’s just silly.
Its not silly. If they didn’t have a legal justification, telling him to stop playing had more legal requirement to it then telling him what song to play. A cop’s wish is not a lawful order.
Once the game is over the only music coming from a high school band is some kind of simple marching ditty as the band leaves the stadium. That band leader got exactly what he had coming to him. If I were a cop I’d have had my fill of this idiot, then him flailing all around, making my job that much more difficult - and dangerous! I’d say “Basta!” and zap him out of commission so I can finish the work I still have to do, all on account of this self-entitled turd. What an embarrassing display that band leader made of himself. Hopefully the message that’s left resonating with those teens is that when law enforcement officers place you under arrest you WILL be brought in. How you’re brought in is entirely up to you. Resisting arrest in a violent manner NEVER sits well with the judge, and it’s judges that people should fear because judges have incredible power which goes completely unchecked for the most part. Sure you have your appellate courts and such to turn to after the judge renders a verdict not in your favor or liking, but unfortunately judges stick together and most often won’t change other judges rulings.
Until people can control themselves they’ll need to be policed - controlled - in their ‘freedom.’ I think that’s Virginia Woolf I’m paraphrasing.
Ok. They wanted this game over. What ever reason. That seems justified. They wanted to go home. Good. Who doesn’t after working a ballgame. They wanted traffic thinned out on the street around the school. Seems legit.
They wanted kids home and safe. I prefer 50 or 60 teens be at home at night too.
Again, the director choose this route. He caused a big kerfuffle over Nothing but a band song. He should have considered his actions more carefully.
There’s nothing more scary than being in a large group of people that then turns into an angry mob.
Just to say: I’ve never endorsed tazing this individual. Ever.
As I have been saying repeatedly in this thread, it’s very telling the way that people want to engage every possible scenario except for the one that actually happened.
High school football games can get dangerous when people loiter after closing. It’s not theoretical or imaginary, this happened a few weeks ago at a game where my kids were present, a fight broke out and someone got stabbed (thankfully not fatally). That’s not an outlier, it’s the luckier end of what actually can happen. There’s a legitimate public safety concern with letting people loiter in the venue after the event has concluded, and it’s obtuse to pretend otherwise.
Why are we insisting this request was unreasonable or impossible when the other school’s band was already packed up and moving out? It’s absurd.