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.
LOL. Well, I am one of those that has really knocked the police on this one (because they deserve knocking), but your behavior does demonstrate one salient point
Virtue is its own reward.
Those kids (sorry, I think of adults aged 18-23 as kids, much as that would have offended me back when I was that age) shoulda been partying the last weekend of summer vacation at a righteously conservative parking lot -- Wal Mart, or maybe near a Dominos Pizza. Maybe that was the secret hidden agenda of the HPD -- putting it to Rosie and Martha. At least that would make a little sense.
I'd been watching these threads since they started,screaming,crying and pounding my head against the wall every 15 minutes.Then as I finally broke through the outer brick into the open air I felt something go "snap" in my head.
For the first time in my life I thought I understood bad cops,liberals and all other things that I never could before.Now I realize it just can't be.
What do you use to get blood off a mousepad?
ROTFL!
I agree that the police deserve criticism and in some cases punishment. In case my original comments weren't clear, I'm not defending the behavior of these "kids" in the parking lot, and I wouldn't have been among them even when I was that age. However, it would have been very easy for me to be arrested if the police swept the parking lot and took even average citizens who were just shopping. I did much of my shopping in stores along this section of Westheimer. The kids should have been arrested if they were causing a problem. What shouldn't have happened is the police arresting average citizens just trying to do their regular shopping.
WFTR
Bill
Well, I am not a fan of rowdy kids that make nuisances of themselves, but I think you have to arrest people for breaking laws, not for being frustrated at the nonappearance of the perps you were originally seeking.
I don't think the fact that a diner, or someone going into a 24-hour store for goods should be considered a rowdy, just because they are between the ages of 18-22. My oldest (age 21) would likely have been in a Sonic or a KMart at that time of night because he was going home from church. (Heading home after a midnight service that ends a 40-day abstension from meat merits a stop at Sonic for a burger break before you go to bed.)
My best friends' son (20) might stop off at KMart to pick up something for his mom on the way home from work. (He gets off at midnight.)
My middle son (16) might be stopping off at Sonic for Midnight munchies with the rest of the cadets in his Civil Air Patrol search-and-rescue after an exercise in San Antonio. (A "senior" member -- over 18 would be driving.)
All of them would have been arrested had they chosen that Sonic or KMart that night. My middle son -- in his Civil Air Patrol uniform -- would probably have been busted for curfew violation, despite the presence of an adult serving in the role of guardian.
Even if they were out entertaining themselves, there were many reasons for 18-22 year-olds to be out after midnight on a Sunday morning. Stopping off for a snack after seeing a movie that started at 9:30 pm. Getting that piece of computer equipment you need for that latest-greatest piece of software you bought. Picking up groceries on the way home.
Saying hello to friends in the parking lot? Got news for you. Stop off at a Wal-Mart in any East Texas town at any hour they are open. There are large crowds of middle-aged and blue-haired adults that do that every day, as well as the kids.
Yeah, kids get out of hand now and then. (My oldest two are pretty much straight arrows, but it must have skipped a generation. The stories my brothers and I could tell -- or that my father and his brothers could tell about our misdemeanors would be classics, but my kids aren't gonna hear about them until they are married and have kids of their own. No sense in tempting fate by giving them ideas. . . ) But you treat the problem by going after the kids that get out of hand, not by having the police behave like a band of juvenile deliquents wilding Central Park.
There have been a plethora of valid suggestions as to how to handle out of control kids posited by those criticizing the cops. But "kill 'em all -- God will know his Own" is a lousy approach.
Fifty cops were tied up on this raid. That is 25 patrol cars not on the streets looking for problems. Or five sets of five-car teams that could have been breaking up groups of kids making nuisances of themselves at Wal-Mart and Malls. Or . . . well you get the idea.
Thousand-plane raids burning cities with firestorms are spectacular and get headlines, but individual aircraft patroling the Bay of Biscay are a more effective way of eliminating U-boats. Similarly, most good police work consists of breaking up problems before they become problems. Rudy G's broken windows approach succeeded because he put lots of police on patrol issuing citations whenever they saw a crime being committed, not by isolating two or three block sections of NYC and combing through the isolated sections with massive saturations of cops.
The more I read about this raid, and the thinking that went into it, the more convinced I am that the command staff of the HPD really needs some remedial education on law enforcement 101. They seem more intent on getting headlines than getting results. As a result they have gotten headlines -- just not the ones they wanted.
I'm late on this thread, so please forgive me.
I don't know whether you've ever been to Texas, but it is what I would describe as a rather "complex" place. It definitely has its own, unique character. Depending on your values, some things are good, some things are bad.
What is noticeable is how extreme the two opposites are.
In my personal opinion, all things considered, it is...
Well, the moderators would delete what I would say there.
Let's just say that I am a conservative, small-l libertarian, who favors gun ownership rights, pick-up trucks, individual rights to privacy, and so forth. Yet, I don't think the entire world should get completely trashed my pollution, garbage, big corporations, oil companies, privileged northeasterner brats, and over-zealous FBI agents and other law enforcement types.
Given that context, Texas is the last place on the face of this earth that I will likely ever set foot in again. I'd be more likely to visit Zimbobwe before I'd ever go to Texas again. In my opinion, it is probably the single worst place on the face of the earth. It certainly ranks right up there. We should pay Mexico to take it back.
There are some very nice things about it, there aren't very many.
The best thing about it, is that it is next to Louisiana, which is a very nice state in most regards. You can actually feel your blood pressure descend as soon as you cross the border.
Wow, Texas is worse than Zimbabwe.
Yes, they are. And if they are unable or unwilling to, they need to step aside and let professionals do the job correctly.
I can't beleive you actually support purposely arresting the innocent.
Well, they certainly got their wish. Hopefully it will turn out to be a lot more than they bargained for and some of the more tenacious talk show hosts will air this story.
Thanks for the follow up.
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