If the terrorists hate us for our freedoms….
The simple solution is to take our freedoms away
Posted on 08/25/2002 7:21:18 AM PDT by Dog Gone
Edited on 08/25/2002 7:46:31 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
A contingent of op-ed and letter writers to the Chronicle has taken the position that arresting 278 young people during a raid on a shopping center and restaurant parking lot last weekend was entirely justified because of the annoying late-night loitering and drag racing that had become typical at that spot. But the problem with the raid is not that police officers tried to arrest lawbreakers in and around the 24- hour Kmart Super Center parking in the 8400 block of Westheimer. It is with the contemptuous attitude police showed toward the citizenry by not bothering to sort out the good from the bad.
The people who so enthusiastically applaud law enforcement for shoddy police work more than likely would be singing a different tune if they or one of their children had been unjustly swept up in the botched raid and they found themselves spending all of a weekend day working through the city's criminal justice bureaucracy and coughing up large sums to retrieve their car from the pound.
More nettlesome than the irritation of being arrested for no cause, possible long-term consequences of a needlessly acquired criminal record and the potential for significant lawsuits that will have to be defended and settled with public funds, is the fact that the officer who led the Kmart debacle, Houston police Capt. Mark Aguirre, apparently has operated unchecked for years in this free-style arrest mode.
Police Chief C.O. Bradford says he has ordered an inquiry into the parking lot arrests. And Mayor Lee Brown has referred the matter to his Office of Inspector General. But Brown otherwise has been strangely quiet for a mayor who so heavily touted his extensive law enforcement experience during his three election campaigns.
The Chronicle does not condone behavior that is unlawful, or even just annoying, including drag racing, underage drinking, drug use, disturbingly loud music playing or anything else a bunch of kids hanging out late at night in a parking lot might be up to. But neither does the paper support police- state tactics that show an alarming disregard for the right of law-abiding citizens to to go about free from fear of sudden arrest.
Nothing new here. Alot of cops specialize in contemptuous attitude toward the citizenry.
The people who so enthusiastically applaud law enforcement for shoddy police work more than likely would be singing a different tune if they or one of their children had been unjustly swept up in the botched raid and they found themselves spending all of a weekend day working through the city's criminal justice bureaucracy and coughing up large sums to retrieve their car from the pound.
Sounds like an experience like this is just the type of medicine a few people around here need to cure them of their bootlicking problem.
Huh?
I've been saying that about my area for 15 years, and I have some major league experiences to back it up. It's not all the police. The city guys I have met are exemplary. Being ticketed by one a few years ago was a pleasure compared to the raw antagonism the sheriff's department shows. They are simply begging for trouble.
Except it's editorial page...
I heard one of the police involved call a local Houston radio talk show and say that officers at the scene knew the way the arrests were being done was pushing things. And that it would come back to haunt the loon in charge. Someone they had been wanting to get rid of for years. And that's why they went along with him.
If that is the case it's pretty sad that the only way they can get rid of a loose canon is to let him be a loose cannon.
But don't worry, Lee Brown, who has an extensive law enforcement background, will fix this. He just needs to pencil some time in between raiding the city for every penny he and his cronies can get their hands on.
Thirty or so years ago this 'mass arrest' would have led to about two hundred parents yanking driver's licenses and or priveledges from half the kids arrested.
The over eighteen crowd would have a very minor hit on their records and a lesson to remember.
Any who had records already (like drug sales...) would have few to defend them.
What's really changed is that even conservatives have ceased looking at law enforcement as applying to everyone and very, very, few parents believe that their kids deserve being tought a lesson of any kind; until it is too late.
That's the kind of stuff we think is more typical in totalitarian third world countries.
Yes.
There was no drag-racing going on. That's apparently why the officer-in-command decided to arrest everyone.
Further, a large percentage of the people were customers at an adjacent drive-in restaurant. Some of them were actually departing, and were caught in the dragnet only because they were waiting for a traffic light to change.
Finally, to my knowledge there were no arrests for "loitering". Almost all were arrested for criminal trespass, including people that could document they were customers of the business that had posted "customers only".
So in order to be a "good" parent you must side with LEOs against your own flesh and blood even when your own flesh and blood is in the right? Pretty twisted POV.
The over eighteen crowd would have a very minor hit on their records and a lesson to remember.
What lesson? There is no right to peaceably assemble?
Any who had records already (like drug sales...) would have few to defend them.
Irrelevant. This was an indiscriminate mass arrest.
What's really changed is that even conservatives have ceased looking at law enforcement as applying to everyone and very, very, few parents believe that their kids deserve being tought a lesson of any kind.
Learning to properly bow and scrape to a badge and uniform is now a "lesson" worthy of real Americans???
Alot. This "raid" occoured on private property, and the private property owners did NOT call the police.
The K-Mart had posted "customers only" signs in the lot (actually, some have said that the police conned K-mart into it). But, they did so under the expectation that the policy would only be enforced against non-customers, and only if they did indeed refuse to leave.
The police did neither: they simply rounded everyone up and arrested them, including people who could document themselves as customers. They didn't give anyone the opportunity to leave -- even people that were already departing when the raid started.
And on top of all that, a significant percentage of those arrested were actually on the premises of an adjacent drive-in restaurant -- including a 10-year-old girl that was separated from her father amidst the confusion.
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