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If you read the articles what you take away from this is that a bunch of black kids from another neighborhood descended on this community pool and were making trouble. Yeh I know shocking! :-) Apparently when people asked them to leave they were threatening them with violence. Again I know hard to believe. :-) I guess then the fighting started so by the time the cops got there who knows? It looked pretty out of control to me. At some point if you ignore the cops you will get a response. Teens today are not like when we were teens. The cops are aware of it.

I read the article, and also read a lot of comments. Apparently a lot of the kids were there on a guest pass, at a birthday party. Also -- and I totally believe it -- some idiot white woman who lives in that community (probably a homeowner's association planned community) had apparently insulted the black kids telling them to "go back to the projects." The video makes it crystal clear, however, that this was a mixed-race bunch of average teen-age kids, that the kids there mostly were oblivious to race. It is also clear that the cop was way, way, way out of line in practically every move he made and every word he said.

Teens today are not like when we were teens in material ways, but spiritually? Ecclesiastes reminds us that "there is nothing new under the sun." Teens at all times, anywhere, like all human beings anywhere and any age, respond well when treated with a modicum of respect and dignity, the way the good cop in the video is treating the kids he's talking to when one of them returns a flashlight.

Even the moron cop, the kids addressed as "sir," and he responded with contempt for them. The kids treat the cops the same way the cops treat them. You reap what you sow. The good cop in this, God bless him, is I think one of those wonderful cops who can do huge good in the community and for youth. The bad cop is the kind that puts good cops everywhere in danger, and damages the right work that good cops do.