Leaving race out doesn’t make it a whole lot better. If they weren’t suspicious because of race, what was it based on, his age or his sex?
This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. Males alone in the company of children are often automatically looked at with suspicion. There are parks in San Francisco where I can’t sit on the benches unless I bring a child with me since the only places to sit in the park are near the playground. When I used to volunteer at an inner city elementary school the only teachers that would have me help in there class is the sixth grade and the special ed. Other teachers did not want any male who would be willing to work with young children.
This seems to be changing, which is good. But how many on this board would feel a little weirded out to see there child’s day care provider or kindergarten teacher was a man?
On the OP, what the officers did was reprehensible, and, unfortunately, not atypical. Grandpa is the example of the individual asserting his rights so that the ignorant masses have theirs respected as well. We need more people like him, and less officers like the ones described.
Now, back to this whole sexist issue. I couldn’t agree more that males are automatically treated with suspicion when children are involved, and it is a very sad thing.
Not long ago I was visiting family. There was a young 5 yeard old female cousin who was very sweet. She played a bit with the older girls in her room with the door closed. No one thought anything of it.
Later she tired of them and came to play with me. She wanted to show me each and every one of her little toys, and talk to me about all she knew of our solar system (I’m the science geek of the family). At one point the noise outside the room was annoying her as it was interrupting her in depth descriptions of her favorite my little ponies, so she gets up to close the door. She doesn’t close the door all the way, but leaves it open by a sliver.
You wouldn’t believe how fast I got up, sweating, my heart pumping, to burst that door open. In my mind, I immediately thought how people would think I’m sodomizing the girl or something. As I opened the door, I started to think that maybe I was being silly and overreacting… That illusion only lasted a second, for as I opened the door, no less than 4 people IN MY OWN FAMILY were reaching out to open that door like I was on the local sex offender list. Their expressions pretty much confirmed what I was thinking.
Can you imagine how I felt? I don’t ever do more than nod my head at little girls, no matter how friendly they are trying to be, even in my family. and I actively try to avoid them now. It’s really sad how widespread this ignorant and reactionary type of attitude is.
I agree. And part of the problem is that being the grandfather does not exclude you as a potential child molester. So we do need to deal with real cases of older male relatives molesting younger children, without over-reacting to completely innocent situations.
Oh for mercy’s sake, people, the child is TWO YEARS OLD.
She is not going to understand what was going on. If the kid had been even five or six or thereabouts, I’d say you had a point there, but when we’re talking about a two-year-old, it’s ridiculous.
I might even agree. But it’s a silly thing he had every right to do, and that the police had no right to hassle him over. The police’s job is to enforce the law-and they lose credibility when they’re willing to play fast and loose with people’s rights to do so.
This is especially true after the cops had looked at the situation, and surely saw that the kid/adult seemed to know one another, no obvious signs of distress, etc, etc.
Here. This story is told in the Thursday 6 November post.
Now that wmfellows has let the cat out of the bag, I have to agree with Alan Smithee that there seems no real point to the OP’s elaborate effort to conceal the racial identities here. He could just have given us the actual, uncensored story, and then asked “Do you think the result would or should have been different if the grandfather had been black and the grandchild white?”
You should always set a good example for your kids. However, if you’re going to deliberately prolong a situation that scares and upsets your kid (or grandkid) with the excuse that you’re doing it to set a good example, you should probably wait until the kid is old enough to understand what’s going on.
The “good example” theme is horseshit, in this particular situation at least. It’s clear from the linked blog that the blogger in question is a self-appointed civil liberties crusader who thoroughly relished the opportunity to stand up to oppressive authority. As a civil libertarian myself, I think that’s terrific, and we need more such crusaders making pains in the ass of themselves to guard against encroachment on our liberties. However, I think that in this particular case, the crusader attitude was a bit inconsiderate towards the child.
First off, I think that Bricker made the right decision to leave the races unclear. If he hadn’t, there would likely be accusations made of “You wouldn’t have felt that same way if the grandfather was Race B and the kid was Race A”.
Second, while I personally would probably have just told the cops “I’m her grandfather”, I can’t see that this fellow did anything wrong. Yes, the child getting upset was bad, but I put the blame for that 100% on the cops in this situation, and 0% on the grandfather. Saying that “I’m her grandfather” is the proper response is to imply that “I’m her babysitter” or “I’m a family friend” is not a proper response, and just encourages the police in the next situation like this that arises.
I can somewhat personally relate to this story: My mother has often gone places in the company of children of another race, with no official relationship whatsoever between them (she was an elementary school teacher, and ended up bonding with a few of her students who had a less-than-ideal home life. My sister and I joked that she had gone and gotten herself a couple of grandkids without consulting either of us on the matter). She’s never gotten anything more than a few puzzled looks or polite questions from it, but what if the police had questioned her? What should she say?
Sure, but having had my fair share of annoying experiences with cops I find it’s easier just to be straight forward than to stand on sentiment. Avoiding their questions just makes it seem like you have something to hide. I mean he could have easily sneared when he said, “It’s my granddaughter.”, and achieved the same effect while at the same time effectively communicating the truth. I don’t see that they violated anyone’s rights here. They came up and asked him a simple question and he chose to dodge it.
If it had happened to me I might be annoyed but I’d be thankful that people actually care enough to make sure my daughter isn’t being taken home to be raped to death and buried in the back yard.
Right, but little kids are known to be trusting with nice people. I have experience with lost little kids who will bond to the first person who seems to know what’s going on. My daughter is 19 months old. She says No to questions where the appropriate answer would be yes. That’s not that much terribly younger than a two year old.
The correct answer is the correct response in 100% of cases. White kids have black, indian, carribean, hispanic, or east asian nannies here in Manhattan all the time. Just telling the cops what your relationship to the kid is, is better. He wasted the cops time by being belligerent.
From my standpoint the cops wasted his time, the 2 year old’s time, and the cop’s own time. They had no evidence, no reasonable suspicion a crime was being committed or had been committed. They used their power beyond what was justified by the situation. It’s not unreasonable to refuse to answer unreasonable questions. If a cop has shown themselves to be willing to launch an investigation where none is warranted, and to use their police powers to detain someone without cause, the best thing that person can do is retain and vigorously defend every right they’re entitled to. The cops are already off track, don’t give them ammunition to turn it into full on harassment if they so choose. They have more power in the situation than the average citizen does already. Giving them info, freely, creates an even larger imbalance.
I wish it weren’t so, but I live in the county with the most overturned murder convictions of any in the state(which leads the country). I’m NOT backing down ONE INCH from ANY of my rights in an encounter with police. They’ve got at least nineteen people railroaded into a murder sentence over the past twenty years or so when they didn’t commit the crime. No way Hosea.
Well, actually, everyone but the original cop wasted their own time by needlessly stopping. The original cop wasted her own time (and his!) with a borderline illegal custodial interrogation.
Anyway, I agree with you 100%. I think Mswas and the people who think like him are part of the problem. They will happily piss away their rights, and expect us to do the same and be the cowards they are.
No way Jose. Countless individuals have given up their lives for me to enjoy these rights. I will honor them by treasuring, enforcing and protecting those same rights with my own life if need be. And beware anyone who presumes to rob me of them.
This is ridiculous. You’re the coward. You’re arguing that you should respond out of fear rather than simply having a conversation with the cop. He has to respond to the 911 call, so just cooperating long enough to find out that there is nothing to see there is the appropriate response. Being an asshole to a cop for no reason isn’t an example of being, ‘brave’. The cops aren’t your enemies, so it’s not being cowardly to cooperate with them.
I have friends who are retired cops, friends who are currently cops, and friends who are soon to be cops. I’ve also been harassed by cops and then had a cordial relationship with those same cops when they realized that their harassment of me was silly.
Cops are citizens just like you and I. It’s not some grand ideological stand to give them the information they need to decide that this was an erroneous 911 call.
Those who are irrationally terrified of cops are the cowards. Not those of us who recognize them as fellow humans just trying to do their job.
Mtgman I fail to see a corrolation between trumped up murder charges and saying, “This is my Granddaughter.”
The original 911 caller wasted everyone’s time, but the Grandfather could have minimized it by not being belligerent. The cops were there ensuring that his Granddaughter wasn’t being kidnapped.