Couple handcuffed, jailed for dancing on subway platform: lawsuit (New York City)

NY Post ^ | july 8, 2012 | KATHIANNE BONIELLO

[lowbridge]

First smoking, then soda — now there’s no dancing in New York City.

Caroline Stern, 55, and her boyfriend George Hess, 54, claim they were handcuffed for having happy feet on the platform of the Columbus Circle subway station — and spent 23 hours in custody as a result.

“I’m a dentist, and I’m 55, and I got arrested for dancing,” Stern told The Post. “It was absolutely ridiculous that this happened.”

[par4]

1) The man's a dentist.

2) Even NYC police have teeth and need to see dentists.

"Let's just check if you're numb yet, there officer". Whoops, guess not.....Sorry let's try again.

[miss marmelstein]

My problems with NYC cops are: too fat, too short, too many girl cops, too much into Dunkin’ Donuts and generally not there when you need them!!!

[Kirkwood]

I’ve always felt sorry for New Yorkers. They miss out so much on life.

[miss marmelstein]

Well, since you’re too scared to put up where you live, I can’t really take a shot at your neighborhood.

[firebrand]

After reading 38 replies on this thread, I’m going to venture the opposite opinion: These people should not have been dancing on the subway platform.

The subways were built when the population of the city was lower and the number of people using the subways was smaller. The platforms are narrow, and at the worst of times dangerously crowded.

There is probably an ordinance against dancing on the platform—I’m not sure. If there weren’t, there would be dancers everywhere there is a musician playing music that you can dance to.

My guess is that these two people were typical liberal “we hate the cops” people. Taking out the camera was the biggest tipoff. I have had it up to here with these people (hand held over eyebrows).

There is nothing wrong with the NYPD outside of aberrant behavior of individual cops. They do a great job and are truly amazing. I can’t imagine living here if they didn’t do the job that they do. If we had cops who sided with the liberals, I think I would move somewhere else.

[Kirkwood]

It is sympathy, not an insult.

[nathanbedford]

Many of those presentations, many but not all, can be more advantageously enjoyed, like the Super Bowl when watched on TV, better through the Internet.

Legitimate theater and ballet strike me as presentations organized by homosexuals for the amusement of other homosexuals and women. Great restaurants are another matter, but then I live in Europe where one expects first-class food in every restaurant.

Munich offers world-class restaurants, theater, ballet, opera and other examples of "high culture" without the brutal negativity of New York City-but it's population density is about 1/6 that of New York City.

I lived within commuting distance of New York City for decades and I would offer that it was not John Lindsay who perverted the city but it was under his administration that the city was lost to the forces of the left, the unions and racial identity politics. I would not necessarily confuse coincidence with causation.

[Irenic]

That’s nothing... story on FOX says a fella was arrested for resisting arrest. How does that work?

PO—Sir, you’re under arrest
Cit— What for?! I’ve done nothing!
PO— writes up charges—he resisted arrest.
http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2012/07/07/vikings-rb-peterson-arrested-in-houston/

[the invisib1e hand]

Now that rocks.

[miss marmelstein]

Yeah, all those arty types are homos. Tell that to Peter Martins and Barysnikov!

High culture in Germany is quite disgusting, by the way. Ballet and opera and theatre feature on-stage urination, sex acts (real and faked) and a general loathing of life. I once heard the actress Martha Keller condemn the arts in Europe - all the while praising the more straight forward arts world of Manhattan. And while there is plenty of bad art in NYC, you can still walk into the Met and see some wonderful choreography and music.

[the invisib1e hand]

By all means, stay away!

[Roccus]

From my original post;

...the ingrained “us against them” mentality of the NYPD toward the citizenry dates to the Lindsay (R) administration.

No coincidence at all, the PBA pushed it at the Academy!

[Road Glide]

“By the way, if you want to generate a nice argument on these threads take up my position that overpopulation, or density of population, is itself a threat to a civil society, to a society protected by the Bill of Rights, a society that we conservatives treasure and whose agonizing death by 1000 cuts we are witnessing.”

I’ve often thought of this myself.

“Frontier freedom” may have been possible in an America of 90 million, or even 150 million, when most folks looked the same and came from a common “base culture”.

Change those numbers to 350 million, increasingly urbanized, balkanized by ethnicity, culture and race, and the former “freedom” changes into “friction”, and requires “pressure from above” by which to maintain a facade of civility.

It’s why “traditional values” still prevail in the less-densely populated states, and why the liberal states seem to have acquired their taint, due to the crush of people into urban/suburban areas.

[the invisib1e hand]

Leftist abuse all power, regadless of who codified it. It's axiomatic. I wish I could say I was surprised by the need to have to point that out.

We could follow the premise implied by your comment to its extreme and conclude that, since any amount of power can be abused, all power is therefore bad. Now there's a doctrine that results in it's opposite (communism) as most thoughtless ones do.

[the invisib1e hand]

Bosh, FRiend. People aren’t rats.

[nathanbedford]

Bosh, FRiend. People aren’t rats.

No, they are more aggressive and more lethal.

It is strange that much of our educational doctrine which shapes our public schools today has been so profoundly influenced by BF Skinner.

[nathanbedford]

And while there is plenty of bad art in NYC, you can still walk into the Met and see some wonderful choreography and music.

Do you mean Christ in a beaker of urine?

I suppose one can always pirouette into the Brooklyn Museum and see that at our expense.

[miss marmelstein]

No - it was destroyed. And our former mayor objected strongly to that as did many NYers. Most of our museums feature the greatest of Western (and Eastern) art. A few dally in junk.

[Verginius Rufus]

The cop was profiling. He thought Adrian Peterson was a terrorist because he’s from Palestine.

[BlazingArizona]

“Taking out the camera was the biggest tipoff.”

No, the thug reaction to the victim’s taking out his camera was the biggest tipoff. Cops who insist on the right to surveil everything we do have no business objecting to being photographed themselves. What might they be trying to hide?