Posted on 07/03/2012 8:28:08 AM PDT by EBH
Telly Hudgins has been stopped and frisked by the police too many times to count in the Brownsville, New York, public housing project where he lives. One occasion sticks in his memory. "I had my pajamas on and my slippers on and I'm emptying my garbage" at the trash chute. "They asked me for ID to prove I lived there. Who walks around in their pajamas with ID?" asked the black, 35-year-old counselor for the mentally handicapped. He says he complained about the search and was issued a summons for disorderly conduct.
Deborah Richardson, 60, a black postal worker, has delivered mail in east Brooklyn's Brownsville for 14 years. She takes a different view of the New York Police Department's contentious Stop, Question and Frisk policy. "I'd like to see more stops and frisks," she said, leaning out of her postal truck. "This is a dangerous neighborhood. I won't even go up in those monstrosities anymore," she said, gesturing toward one of the towering housing complexes where she once pushed a mail cart. After four years of what she says was harassment from residents, many waiting for welfare checks, she got a transfer to a parcel truck delivery route.
For nearly two months the NYPD's stop-and-frisk policy has drawn New York City into an emotional debate about race, policing and Fourth Amendment rights. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly have fiercely defended the program against an onslaught of criticism from judges, civil rights leaders and a vocal block of Democratic politicians. It has become a defining issue for next year's mayoral election.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
You only have to give a cop the cooperation he compels you to give, as in stay seated, keep your hands out of your pocket.
But I don’t have to answer a single question if he wants to be a jerk.
Cop, “what are you doing out at this time of night?” After he makes sure I know he is king of the world and his crap don’t stink.
Me. Silence or smart ass answer, like, “walking, can’t you tell” as I open the glovebox for registration.
I don’t have to explain my purposes to intentions to him.
"Me and my big mouth."
Today.
For now.
Just wait.
1. It is considered good etiquette to ping a FReeper to a post in which you name him.
2. He and his colleagues ought not be surprised that when they treat an entire population as suspects, as potential enemies if you will, that population and other observers will begin to reciprocate.
3. All LEOs should remember— or be taught— that the powers of law, including the police power, are powers of government; that “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”; that it is impossible for the People to “take the law into their own hands”, as it never left their hands in the first place; that just as we have by common consent delegated these powers to various police agencies, so we may at any time rescind that delegation; that should the prevailing trends continue, this becomes more likely; and should they at that time resist, it will not go well for them; and finally, as they keep lists of “persons of interest” whose liberty they wish to curtail, so are lists being made of those at all levels of government who are suspected of violating their Constitutional obligations and overstepping the authority we have granted them. Persons on these lists would do well, when the day comes, to depart peaceably and without protest, and take up gardening or other useful work. At such a time, offering violence to the people will be met with a great deal of unpleasantness.
I normally do, but today I opted not to. He wasn't polite to me or anybody else, so I made a conscious decision. But thanks for the reminder.
I didn't respond because, quite frankly, it's not worth it. It's not worth responding on any of the cop-bashing threads that pop up around here daily. Some are warranted, most are not. And I'm always the first one to say when a bad cop should be fired/jailed/etc...
But the fact is that you guys don't know what it's like to patrol a bad area. You don't deal with victims of violent crime. These criminals are animals. I wonder how often you deal with people like that. But you read a biased article and you're suddenly experts.
The guy who complains about being stopped under suspicion of committing a recent crime is the SAME guy who will be on camera asking where the police were when drug dealers were shooting up his neighborhood. This is a war that is literally un-win-able. We can only try to contain it.
The fact is that these stops, however inconvenient, are lawful. The Commissioner knows it. The Mayor knows it. The lawyers and judges know it. They also know the mayhem that will occur if stop and frisk is halted. Is the line between lawful and unlawful blurred sometimes? Probably. But cops who are fervently searching for an active shooter or armed robber are just doing what they are taught to do.
As for disorderly conduct summonses, read the law. It is so broad, and it was written that way for a reason. Blame the lawyers and judges, not the cops who utilize it as a tool to control volatile situations. Situations where you would probably pray for a cop if you were faced with.
You can call me whatever you want. I've heard it before, many times. It doesn't faze me because I know the real story. I serve my city and my country. And I sleep well at night.
Yep, I knew that, unfortunately he is not the only one who has done that. Reagan made it easy for a lot of Libs to change their part affiliation, sadly they didnt change their core belief. Remember Trent Lott?
Yup...yet another in a long line of dull-witted, simpering Pubbies that proved worthless.
Ed
"He and his colleagues ought not be surprised that when they treat an entire population as animals, that population and other observers will begin to reciprocate."
You don’t care because you can go out and kick some civilians to the curb to blow off steam.
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