Patterico's Pontifications

4/18/2011

Contempt of Cop

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 10:56 pm




EMBED-NYPD Arrests Guy For Cracking A Joke – Watch more free videos

55 Responses to “Contempt of Cop”

  1. The commentary makes it.

    That, and the drunk/stoned guy in the street who is roundly ignored.

    Patterico (c218bd)

  2. Police are probably pretty pleased the video is out on the intertubes.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  3. I need that guy from Airplane who speaks Jive, to explain to me what the hell is happening. As best as I can tell, some idiots have absolutely no street smarts in their interactions with cops.

    Frankly, I have a pretty defiant streak when it comes to government intrusion. If I were in this guy’s shoes, and the police were demanding my ID, there’s a real chance I would decline to provide it. I’m pretty sure I am not obligated to unless they suspect I committed a crime. And I think the cop decided to ask for ID because this guy was being a tremendous douchebag, which is a waste of time. Maybe there’s more to the story (maybe he fit a description of a criminal?).

    My gut says this part of town sees folks like the bicyclist harassed (because he’s white?), and cops are trying to cut down on that with a presence, in hopes their town isn’t a total hellhole, and that doesn’t work if people don’t respect police very much.

    Barring more to the story than we see here, are the cops justified in requiring ID from the smartass douche?

    Dustin (c16eca)

  4. Some backstory on the video…

    The dude on the bike had been visiting the dudes shooting the video. Riding bikes on the sidewalk in NYC is illegal, so the cops were hassling him. The guy who made the smart-assed remarks to the guy on the bike is the neighbor of the guys shooting the video and so at least sort of knew him.

    Scott Jacobs (d027b8)

  5. My gut says this part of town sees folks like the bicyclist harassed (because he’s white?), and cops are trying to cut down on that with a presence, in hopes their town isn’t a total hellhole, and that doesn’t work if people don’t respect police very much.

    This is completely wrong, isn’t it? I’m just trying to figure out why the police cared about the smartass at all.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  6. Why is it so hard to just keep a smile on your face and your mouth shut when walking past the cops? This idiot went looking for trouble and he found it. If he’d just walked by, no problem. If he’d just given the cops the info they wanted, AFTER HE INSERTED HIMSELF INTO THE SITUATION, no problem. If he’d been polite, no problem. Instead, he chose to open his mouth and create a situation that he couldn’t possibly control, and then inflamed it.

    The cops were very professional. Someone in the video makes a stupid remark about the number of cops that show up. What, nothing to say about the number of civilians? Look, overwhelming force is the only thing that kept the peace (there’s a lesson there for all you that would disarm America). If the cops hadn’t put a bunch of boots on the ground things could have gotten ugly quickly.

    And all because some moron didn’t mind his own business and keep his mouth shut. As usual, people want the freedom to say as they please but they won’t accept the responsibility for their words.

    Tom Usher (74622b)

  7. Gee, hell if I lived there, I’d have a life sentence, no parole. 🙂

    Meanwhile, the Long Island serial “mortician”, laughs his ass off..

    JP (c4988c)

  8. Umm, to be fair OR her “ass off”.

    JP (c4988c)

  9. Bike guy knows everybody there. This wasn’t a matter of a white guy “in danger” from the neighborhood. He banters good-naturedley with another guy on the street while being questioned by the cops.

    Cops don’t like the 2nd guy, who was giving bike-guy a little crap. Nothing threatening, nothing dangerous. I suspect the cops didn’t clearly hear what he said, and assumed he’d been abusive.

    Cops don’t like to be disrespected, and will throw your ass in jail if you don’t grovel enough.

    Pious Agnostic (291f9a)

  10. Smart-ass remarks, whether in the presence of uniformed officers or not, shouldn’t be a grounds for arrest. If anything, what the guy said – along the lines of “grown man shouldn’t be on a bike on the sidewalk” agreed with what the cops were probably saying.

    – Man makes remark and keeps walking – nothing happens.
    – Man makes remark and is arrested for no good reason – whole neighborhood’s negative impression of law enforcement is reinforced.

    The only blame I’d assign the guy is for not immediately handing over ID, but that said, once they have your ID, they basically have you. I might have thought twice myself before handing it over.

    Law enforcement types – is not providing ID upon request a crime in any jurisdiction?

    carlitos (28bbc0)

  11. cops are just union scum with guns anymore

    happyfeet (760ba3)

  12. not all of them.

    What if a cop beat the crap out of a fetus?

    DohBiden (15aa57)

  13. his union rep would probably say it was cause of job stress

    happyfeet (760ba3)

  14. Law enforcement types – is not providing ID upon request a crime in any jurisdiction?

    See:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_and_identify_statutes

    As a very rough generality, you have to give your name but you don’t have to hand over an ID. “Officer, my name is Heywood Jablome” works, but you had better be a member of the Jablome family.

    tomhynes (daebd2)

  15. Never tempt a cop to prove he has power over you. He will.

    Bigfoot (8096f2)

  16. All I see is a man inserting himself foolishly into a situation that has nothing to do with him, then acting a fool when confronted about it.

    BigTex (e23c42)

  17. cops are just union scum with guns anymore

    right on, I definitely saw 850,000 people in that video, so that proves you are right!

    /sarcasm

    It amazes me how many people have just enough braincells to type on a keyboard but not much more than that lol.

    BigTex (e23c42)

  18. tomhynes – thanks. On the downside, if this guy had given his name and address, it would be all over the internet…

    carlitos (28bbc0)

  19. How about the guy just doesn’t ride his bike on the sidewalk? Everybody’s an edgy rebel these days…

    TimesDisliker (bcc6d1)

  20. at best cops are just free-range child-molesting TSA agents I think what bank more overtime and are marginally better at sounding out the big words

    happyfeet (a55ba0)

  21. marginally

    happyfeet (a55ba0)

  22. Why is it so hard to just keep a smile on your face and your mouth shut when walking past the cops? This idiot went looking for trouble and he found it. If he’d just walked by, no problem. If he’d just given the cops the info they wanted, AFTER HE INSERTED HIMSELF INTO THE SITUATION, no problem. If he’d been polite, no problem. Instead, he chose to open his mouth and create a situation that he couldn’t possibly control, and then inflamed it.

    Chris Rock ‘splains it all for you.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOx6OM01M5M

    John P. Squibob (882a08)

  23. If these cops voted for Palin the usual suspects would be screeching in disgust but kturdman has nothing to say.

    DohBiden (15aa57)

  24. “How about the guy just doesn’t ride his bike on the sidewalk? Everybody’s an edgy rebel these days…”

    – TimesDisliker

    Yeah, that sidewalk was totally packed. He probably ran down ten little kids playing hopskotch right before the film started rolling.

    Here’s another idea: how ’bout cops exercise a little common sense in their enforcement of nit-picky BS laws? And, more fundamentally, how ’bout cops stop acting like assh*les just because they met the (severely underwhelming) standards necessary to obtain a shiny badge?

    Leviticus (b987b0)

  25. And, more fundamentally, how ’bout cops stop acting like assh*les

    I’m not sure they all were acting like assholes. I agree it was a bad call to arrest this guy (to put it mildly), but that’s just one of many things we see here. They had to have an overwhelming presence just to maintain order, with all these shrieking people challenging them too aggressively. That’s not a legal argument, but just a practical one. That area appears to be ungovernable without cops acting like assholes. They should be able to interact on a basic level with people without that level of aggression and hostility coming at them.

    Sure, I’d love to have a police force that can handle that problem with diplomatic jujitsu, but it’s not going to happen. If these citizens want better cops, they need to be more reasonable.

    We always hold the cops to a much higher standard than the citizens they work for, and for good reason, but they are merely a reflection of the society they work in.

    So yes, the cop was an ass. He shouldn’t have made that arrest. He had no good reason to demand ID (as far as the video shows). But what kinds of cops are going to exist in a place where people act like that? Frankly, if they are not big enough pricks, that neighborhood probably will soon become far worse than it is with smartasses cooling off for challenging Cartman’s authority.

    Also, is it really a nit picky BS law to keep bikes off sidewalks? I don’t think so. I think that’s a great law worth enforcement all the time, to prevent idiots getting hurt.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  26. In NYC, it’s probably safer for the bicyclist to be on the sidewalk. The issue is pedestrian safety.

    aphrael (9802d6)

  27. And not only that how about cops stop acting like losers.

    DohBiden (15aa57)

  28. Aphrael, he would probably move from street to sidewalk, back and forth, as suits him.

    I don’t say that out of annoyance at bike etiquette, but I think laws requiring bicycles to abide by a few rules make them more predictable, and that leads to more safety.

    Though I’ve only driven in NYC a single time… I’m not well informed on what it’s like up there. It seemed like a pretty stupid place, and it also seems pretty ungrateful for the wall street bailout, what with the space shuttle pettiness regarding Houston, a town full of people who devoted their lives to the space shuttle.

    It just seems like a low class town to me. The cops are one aspect of that, but they are the way they for a reason.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  29. Maybe the guy denied gorebull warming and that is what p’d off the cop.

    DohBiden (15aa57)

  30. I dunno.
    If I took my bike out of my friends house… and they live there on the corner upstairs… I might just hop on to ride the ten feet to the street. Checking for the big NYPD van full of officers BEFORE mounting the bike right in front of them would be a bonus.

    I thought the heckler was trying to be helpful (to the guy on the bike), but things seemed to get away from him there at the end.
    That loud voice was distracting the cop who was trying to get to the bottom of the bike crime spree; after all, the neighborhood drunk has enough trouble getting around without a damn bike on the sidewalk

    SteveG (cc5dc9)

  31. might just hop on to ride the ten feet to the street.

    OK, that is pretty damn reasonable.

    And great point about the drunk.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  32. Dustin, I know next to nothing about NYC, but I can look at google maps pictures of the roads and think they’d be terrifying to bicycle on. 🙂

    Due to circumstances outside my control, I’ll be moving there in a few months. Meaning I’ll have to learn. 🙂

    aphrael (fe2ce4)

  33. So since ahmanutjob opposes communism he is far-right?

    DohBiden (15aa57)

  34. Aphrael, best wishes in NYC. My comments were a little silly. NYC isn’t my ideal place to live, but there is so much great stuff there, so I’m sure you’ll make the best of it.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  35. Aphrael – living there is not my style, but we love visiting there.

    JD (318f81)

  36. JD – I’m not sure I want to live there, either, but my husband will be going to school there. I’m mostly worried about the job situation; everything else I’m sure can work itself out. 🙂

    aphrael (fe2ce4)

  37. Same here, aphrael. If you have the dough, it’s a great place to visit. Moving to trendy Brooklyn?

    carlitos (28bbc0)

  38. Carlitos, with any luck, we’ll be living on campus at Columbia. If not, I don’t know where we’ll be.

    aphrael (fe2ce4)

  39. And I oppose liberalism because they do not espouse actual liberal views.

    DohBiden (15aa57)

  40. Queens is where Spiderman lived when he was first starting out and he did pretty well for himself.

    happyfeet (a55ba0)

  41. Queens is where it’s at, yo.

    http://youtu.be/kOobdhEE1_o

    carlitos (28bbc0)

  42. #24 – Leviticus, when a police officer is to the point of making contact with you, he has a reason. He wants to know what he is dealing with, so the questions are intended to judge tone and attitude. “You from around here?” “Can I see some ID?”

    The right way to deal with these officers is to say “you are right, I shouldn’t have been riding the bike on the sidewalk.” 9 out of 10 times, they will let you slide. They just want acknowledgement that you know what the situation is, and you know you are in violation. But if you start in with the “why do you want to know?” “I think the law it nitpicky.” “I don’t have to…” you are going to have a problem.

    Police exercise judgment all the time; maybe this was bad judgment. But when you are in contact with a LEO, you are responsible for how the contact goes, too, and you have to allow for making the contact go smoothly. Otherwise, you wind up like this idiot or Nic Cage.

    You may feel the law is nitpicky, but Chief William Bratton’s ‘broken window’ policy did some real good cleaning up NYC and the dirtbags that incrementally made life crummy for so long.

    When a police officer asks for your ID, it is not the same as a stranger walking up to you and asking you to identify yourself.

    TimesDisliker (bcc6d1)

  43. TimesDisliker,

    You understand that the guy they arrested was not the guy who rode his bike on the sidewalk, right?

    Patterico (c218bd)

  44. Patterico, thank you for clarifying; I am just speaking in general. The police would not have stopped at all if the guy on the bike wasn’t on the sidewalk. I guess I get a little touchy when it comes to disrespecting police officers. People who lip off or involve themselves only have downside, but I don’t have to tell you that.

    TimesDisliker (bcc6d1)

  45. The guy who got arrested is following a loud tradition of hollering deeply sarcastic reverse psychology at the police.
    This essentially shames them… “oh my god, look at all the children on the streets, old folks falling down… Jesus send us an angel… Jesus? the police are arresting some white boy on a bicycle…? wtf?”

    The male black cop bit at it. He bit at the old “show me your ID” bit. So the kid “showed ” him ID but wouldn’t give it to him until told of his “crime”. Geez. You learn that in your first shift.
    The female black officer might have gotten the ID and calmed it all down if the male would have just let the whole thing wind down into a ” get the hell off this corner… and you, white kid, get your bike on the road and heading home before I feel obligated to write a ticket”

    SteveG (cc5dc9)

  46. UPDATE: NYC the Blog reported over the weekend that the YouTube user who videotaped the whole thing above came through with an update on Twitter about the man arrested in the clip. @JoshuaBamboo writes “just met with the family. He was finally released; charges weren’t dropped.” Apparently online outrage was not enough to right this ridiculousness (yet). He also added, “Meanwhile, if there are any lawyers interested in helping, please contact me. Thanks, everyone!”*

    but what I think is mostest notable if unsurprising is that I can’t see where anyone has done the reporting legwork to name and shame the union thug pansy cop

    happyfeet (760ba3)

  47. I guess I’m not getting the point. People acting badly videotaping police in a no -win situation acting unwisely.
    I’m not sure we know why the police were talking to the guy on the bike. Was it to tell him not to ride on the sidewalk? Was it to ask him if he had seen some other activity that had been reported to police? Was it simply to make contact with someone in the neighborhood as they were driving through for the sake of “community relations”? I imagine the officer said something to the mouthy bystander to be quiet-but he didn’t. Then the police have a choice, do they let blatant disrespect pass because it is just too much of a hassle and too prevalent any way?
    The same people who act as if they don’t want police in the neighborhood may also be the first to whine if they don’t respond quickly enough to a call.
    So people put this on the web because they think it shows how ridiculous the police are? Well, I think the rest of the participants were pretty ridiculous too, especially the people taking the video. “I’ve got it on video!” as if it was a case of murder.
    Everybody loses on this one, t think. Police are not perfect, but the more crap they have to take on the job the harder it is to recruit good people who have options to go elsewhere. How many good reasons are there to take a job where 95% of the time people are giving you crap and you might be shot at, BTW?
    I’m sure if we could clone 10,000 feets to be the police force for NYC everything world be like the Garden of Eden.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  48. Riding the bike on the sidewalk. Drunk in public. Yelling at the police (the “joke”), and bringing the subject of race into it. The “long tradition” can be called reverse-psychology, but it is just sarcasm; this is the same technique Nicolas Cage used this weekend in New Orleans: “why don’t you just arrest me?” Does that “long tradition” ever work anyplace but the basketball court? The videotaping, which essentially paints the police in a corner (the video would have gone up as “police get punked, and drive off”). Listen at 3:08, and the videotaper uses the “N-word.”

    This is really sticking with me. I know NYC culture is one of @$$holes and aggression, but I am making a judgment on that culture. Everybody has to act like they are President of Their Own World. “Jokes are disguised aggression” – Jerry Seinfeld

    TimesDisliker (4a8440)

  49. Police don’t have the authority to enforce silence on a random passerby, particularly if that passerby isn’t interfering with their exercise of their (real) duties (which this guy absolutely wasn’t), so it’s not a challenge to their “authority” to not be quiet when they tell you to because they don’t have that authority in the first place. Disrespect is a personal prerogative; I don’t see anyone arguing that we should all respect IRS auditors just because they enforce the law.

    Leviticus (b987b0)

  50. Many arrests are made by checking ID on people doing minor stupid things that bring some attention. Often people who have jumped bail, have outstanding bench warrants, etc. continue to provoke attention by being generally ill behaved and standing out in the crowd.

    I’m not saying the police couldn’t have handled it better, I’m just saying that all that was necessary was a minimum of a-holishness on the part of bystanders and there wouldn’t have been anything to record.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  51. Actually the police could make a case that their investigation was being inhibited by the other guys loud behavior.

    Of course the investigation was about a bike rider on a vacant sidewalk.

    Lets ask the DA:
    How far down the food chain in the DA’s office does one need to be to get assigned this case?

    Maybe combine bike dude and loud dudes cases together so as to save $$

    Any truth to the rumor the loud guy just wanted a free baloney sandwich and some koolaid?

    SteveG (cc5dc9)

  52. Any truth to the rumor the loud black guy just wanted a free baloney sandwich and some koolaid?

    FIFY

    Surprised nobody has yet accused the police of being RACIST!!!!!©JD

    My own theory has evolved to: anyone who pronounces the word ‘police’ as “po-LEESE” is guilty of something.

    TimesDisliker (4a8440)

  53. OK

    What race do you think the videographers are?

    Anyway, which syllable of “BULL- shit” in reference to the charges got the most emphasis in the green room?

    SteveG (cc5dc9)

  54. re: 54 SteveG – Come on, man, “koolaid”?!?!!:-)

    You may note in #49, I stated that at 3:08 in the tape the videographer used the “N word.” I’m not sure if it matters what race they are, but use of that word on tape tilts the odds.

    j/k about the ‘po-leece’ being accused as racists, that would only happen if they were white.

    TimesDisliker (4a8440)


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