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izybx
Posts: 22366
Alba Posts: 2
Joined: 10/16/2006
Member: #1178
USA
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Posted by TMS:
Posted by izybx:
Posted by TMS:
Posted by martin:
OK, thoughts?
Disorderly Conduct: Conversation About Gates Arrest Precedes Arrest
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/29/disorderly-conduct-conver_n_246794.html
A lawyer who moments earlier had been complaining to friends about police overreaction in the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., got a taste of the Gates treatment himself after loudly chanting "I hate the police" near a traffic stop in Northwest Washington, D.C.
Pepin Tuma, 33, was walking with two friends along Washington's hip U Street corridor around midnight Saturday, complaining about how Gates had been rousted from his home for not showing a proper amount of deference to a cop. "We'd been talking about it all day," said Tuma. "It seems like police have a tendency to act overly aggressively when they're being pushed around," Tuma recalled saying.
Then the group noticed five or six police cruisers surrounding two cars in an apparent traffic stop on the other side of the street. It seemed to Tuma that was more cops than necessary.
"That's why I hate the police," Tuma said. He told the Huffington Post that in a loud sing-song voice, he then chanted, "I hate the police, I hate the police."
One officer reacted strongly to Tuma's song. "Hey! Hey! Who do you think you're talking to?" Tuma recalled the officer shouting as he strode across an intersection to where Tuma was standing. "Who do you think you are to think you can talk to a police officer like that?" the police officer said, according to Luke Platzer, 30, one of Tuma's companions.
Tuma said he responded, "It is not illegal to say I hate the police. It's not illegal to express my opinion walking down the street."
According to Tuma and Platzer, the officer pushed Tuma against an electric utility box, continuing to ask who he thought he was and to say he couldn't talk to police like that.
"I didn't curse," Tuma said. "I asked, am I being arrested? Why am I a being arrested?"
Within minutes, the officer had cuffed Tuma. The charge: disorderly conduct -- just like Gates, who was arrested after police responded to a report of a possible break-in at his home and Gates protested their ensuing behavior.
D.C.'s disorderly conduct statute bars citizens from breaching the peace by doing anything "in such a manner as to annoy, disturb, interfere with, obstruct, or be offensive to others" or by shouting or making noise "either outside or inside a building during the nighttime to the annoyance or disturbance of any considerable number of persons."
The local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has said that the city's disorderly conduct law is "confusing, overbroad, frequently used by police to harass disfavored individuals" and that it "violates constitutional rights of free speech, assembly and petition."
Tuma spent a few hours in a holding cell and was released early Sunday morning after forfeiting $35 in collateral to the police, he said. A "post and forfeit" is not an admission of guilt, and Tuma doesn't have a court date -- but the arrest will pop up if an employer does a background check.
Tuma filed a complaint with the D.C. Office of Police Complaints, alleging a lack of probable cause, a false arrest, and that the officer used harassing and demeaning language -- Tuma alleges the officer called him a "faggot." Tuma has retained a lawyer. He might sue if he's not satisfied after a meeting with the complaint office on Thursday.
"I have an actionable claim," he said.
The Huffington Post obtained a copy of the collateral/bond receipt that lists the charge, but the D.C. Police Department declined to comment and the arresting officer did not answer or return calls to the station.
While the Gates incident has largely been treated as a story about race, many have noted, from the Los Angeles Times to Christopher Hitchens to Maureen Dowd, that the incident said as much about police use of disorderly conduct laws. Tuma agrees.
"People talk about the Gates thing in terms of race, but it's an ongoing problem of police using disorderly conduct to shut people up," Tuma said.
i related a story about something that happened in a DC Chinese restaurant after hours on another thread, but i feel it applies here too... basically what happened was a group of off duty cops were sitting inside eating late at night, this is a spot that people always come to after drinking around Chinatown... it was clear the cops were buzzing themselves but they all had their badges strapped around their necks... 1 of them was dressed up like Baseball Fury gang member from the Warriors & dude was like 6'7" or something... a really scary lookin dude.
anyways, the table next to them was 2 young kids & their gf's, 1 of the girls blurted out something like "God, I hate cops" & that set off the table of cops in back of them... 4 of them got up, they looked like roid poppin' wrestlers w/their veins poppin' outta their heads, the dude in the Halloween outfit got into the girl's bf's face & was screaming at him to get TFO of the restaurant before he kicked the crap outta him... the other 3 cops were yelling at the kids too, basically threatening to do them bodily harm if they didn't leave immediately... the kids got up & walked out w/no further incident, but the cops in that case were acting like a buncha drunken hooligans instead of peace officers.
now u tell me, why are cops free to use a disorderly conduct charge to put citizens in jail but aren't subject to the same type of prosecution when they display behavior like this? everyone inside the restaurant that night were made to feel uncomfortable & stressed over having to witness that whole incident... did it really need to go there? so what if the girl said she hates cops... is that a crime? yeah she was stupid to say it in a room full of cops, but what's a little girl like that & her skinny bf gonna do against those beefneck douchebags? not a damn thing... is threatening to kick their asses if they didn't leave really serving the public? yeah, they were off duty, but if there had been on duty cops in the restaurant that night does anyone here think for a second those off duty cops woulda been arrested on DOC charges that night? come on wake up people.
A bunch of off duty cops sitting in a bar with their shields hanging around their necks?
I know when im off duty I always hand my shield around my neck, especially if im at a bar, that why if someone needs help, like a report prepared for a lost wallet, or if i witness a fender bender, I am able to fill out three hours of paperwork on my own time. I know I may seem a tool to sit in the bar with my shield around my neck, but us cops are all tools.
TMS, off duty cops dont sit in bars with shields around their necks. Maybe you should stick to trolling the internet for pictures of dead bodies and posting them in UK rather than making up things to make the police look bad. You were a lot better at that.
what the fug is the difference if they were off duty or not... so that's your best comeback to defend those jackoffs' behavior is to pick on that part of the story, that they were on duty? i didn't say they were in a bar, i said it was a Chinese restaurant... reading is fundamental... seems like you'd have fit in real well w/those meathead cops at that restaurant that night dude... maybe you should stick to harassing citizens on the street & flashing your badge around whereever you go in life to give yourself a sense of entitlement & power that you normally would never experience & leave the race discussions to people who actually have a clue as to what they're talking about? how the hell does someone make up a story like i just told u? if i wanted to go to that much trouble to make cops look bad i woulda made it a lot worse, believe me son... stop trying to make me out as some kinda cop hater here, i've said plenty of times i have the utmost respect for cops who go out & do their job the right way & treat the citizens they're charged to protect & serve with respect & courtesy, & i return it to them the same... i have no problem w/good cops... it's the a-holes that abuse their power like the ones i'm talking about in my story that i hate... & if you're one of those types of cops i'm talking about you too.
[Edited by - TMS on 07-31-2009 2:29 PM] No TMS, i wasnt trying to say that the cops were on duty, im trying to say that your story is make believe. I wont defend made up cops doing made up things Beat the Evil Empire. BEAT MIAMI
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7/31/2009 4:55 PM