He sure does!
Posted on 08/19/2002 4:58:54 AM PDT by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
Still surprised though, that you a ten-year-old could be arrested for not actually doing anything wrong.
Were you born an a**hole or did your wonderful, virtuous parents (who would NEVER dare to do something so irresponsible as see a movie after 8:00 PM on a Saturday) raise you to be one from an early age?
There may not even be a ten year old who got arrested. The reporter never saw her or talked to her. Emily Demmler, one of those arrested, claims that even a ten year old was arrested.
Well, I'd be very surprised, if that's what happened. Because you would not normally expect enough cops to be available at immediate notice to go and bust 425 people. It sounds to me to be a planned affair.
I think you answer your own questions. With over 400 people, why would a cop say, "Oh, I'll believe this one, but not that one"? Answer, a cop would not. If the kid "was in the middle" of it all, I doubt the story is true. I bet more than one kid tried the "but I'm with my parents....and they are right over there..." story.
BUMP!!
I just re-read it.
This could all be a lie.
That said, I think it was handled poorly. I think seeing a few of your friends riding off in the back of a police car, for a few weekends in a row, would encourage most of them to go elsewhere. This mass "equal treatment" arrest was a bad idea.
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This was probably not a new problem or the first time they were there.
Our town is much smaller but businesses have the same problem. These kids come in cars which take up parking spaces, then the customers come and have no place to park, so they leave. They hang around and leave a mess from drinks and food in the lot, turn their car radios on full blast.
Most business owners do ask them the leave, post No Loitering signs and when all else fails, they call the police.
425 is NOT a small group of kids and was probably an on going problem and calling the police was the owners or managers last resort. Of course the police and the manager are the bad guys. These kids wouldn't do anything wrong now would they?
How does a 10 year-old get separated from her dad at midnight?
For starters, I don't accept that a parking lot accessible to anyone with a car is 'people's private property.' Secondly, I'll bet there was plenty of genuine crime being committed in Houston, while these teenagers were being rousted for doing nothing. But most of all, what hot dog ordered such a pointless bust, which will needlessly result in hundreds of kids, their friends and their parents viewing the local police with contempt?
I'd wager that not all 450 kids were straight A students.
There seems to be a bias in this story. The only examples of people arrested are either "straight A students" or little children. I'm surpised they didn't also throw in that Mother Teresa was arrested.
Those 450 teens probably run the spectrum, from teens hanging out eating ice-cream, to those hanging out and drinking beer, to those hanging out and doing drugs. The problem is they are all "hanging out" and killing the K-Mart's business. If you've ever seen teenagers hanging out or cruising a shopping center parking lot (a common sight in rural America) you know the last thing you want to do is pull in and get in the middle of that.
Don't forget about the lawyers also. If K-Mart failed to complain to the police and have the teens run off, then the first time somebody got hurt, some lawyer would argue that K-Mart approved of the teens gathering on K-Mart property because they didn't do anything to stop it. The lawyer would promptly sue saying they were responsible for any trouble that the teens cause.
The police apparently screwed up. All they really needed to do was put a patrol car in there and run everyone off for a few weekends, and eventually they would find somewhere else to hang out at.
I think the "my Dad only to took me to the 7:00 p.m. movies" line was the one that gave you away.
Yeah, those ten year old girls are a real threat, aren't they?
Of course it was planned. Nobody can tell me that 425 people, including paying patrons at the adjacent Sonic restaurant, defied a police order to leave, and so the police had no choice but to begin arresting them. And the suggestion that the media is covering up that act of defiance is absurd.
I am really surprised at the number of people here who see nothing wrong with what happened here. Surprised and disappointed.
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