Patterico's Pontifications

6/3/2015

Report: Men Arrested for “Manspreading”

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:49 am



You remember “manspreading,” right? Joel Snape at The Telegraph says it’s now an arrestable offense:

Bad news, tall men with a poor sense of boundaries: the NYPD have had enough of your nonsense. Yes, after op–eds in the New York Times (£), a popular crowdshaming Tumblr campaign and a series of public service ads from the Metropolitan Transport Authority, ‘manspreading’, or ‘sitting with your legs slightly too far apart’, as it used to be known, has apparently become a criminal offence.

According to a recent report from the Police Reform Organising Project, at least two men have been arrested and charged on grounds of the M–word, “presumably because they were taking up more than one seat and therefore inconveniencing other riders”.

This is so Onion-like that I feel compelled to inject the mandatory note of caution. Can this really be true? The evidence for this is buried in a long report from something called the “Police Reform Organizing Project” which cites the arrests, not as an example of enforcement of a silly law, but as an example of racial profiling. In a long list of arrests of minorities the report says:

On a recent visit to the arraignment part in Brooklyn’s criminal court, PROP volunteers observed that police officers had arrested two Latino men on the charge of ‘man spreading’ on the subway, presumably because they were taking up more than one seat and therefore inconveniencing other riders. Before issuing a DAT for both men, the judge expressed her skepticism about the charge because of the time of the arrests: “12:11AM, I can’t believe there were many people on the subway.”

How about: “I can’t believe people were actually arrested for ‘manspreading’?”

Anyway, the term “manspreading” is transphobic, as are the words “man” and “woman.” So we already have a problem right there.

Wait, I was just handed this piece of paper that says it is all right to use the term “man” if you are denigrating men. So all is right with the world again.

35 Responses to “Report: Men Arrested for “Manspreading””

  1. Ding.

    Patterico (3cc0c1)

  2. I have to sit like that, on account of my huge balls.

    carlitos (c24ed5)

  3. dang it, carlitos! you were that guy on the TLC show that had to walk around using a wheelbarrow to carry his balls?

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  4. I’m beginning to notice excessive amounts of nonsense “news” and “polls” appearing lately. Could this e a new paradigm of the left to draw attention away from it’s current abject White House failure or from it’s proposed future White House failure. Or is this a strategy for all future political bids from the failed leftists. Kind of a Mega “Look, Squirrel”? Keep us rubes busy with mnsprearding and Catlyn’s new sex(?) and not the lies, corruption and mismanagement.

    Hoagie (b482c1)

  5. I seriously question Patterico’s wisdom in posting this and then trotting off to work and leaving the thread uh, unchaperoned for the rest of the day. That’s all I have to say on this topic.

    elissa (12fbe1)

  6. manspreddar!

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  7. The NYPD using “manspreading” as a pretext to evade the “stop and frisk” rules which they are already under investigation from the DOJ for violating? No way! Never! There were probably any number of people on the subway at midnight who wanted to sit down next to these two Puerto Ricans and couldn’t because the selfish pachucos were taking up more than half the seat.

    nk (dbc370)

  8. Yes, Hoagie. Remember when we had to endure all manner (karate, bowling, arm-wrestling, etc.) of sports during prime time because there were no actual sports happening because of all the strikes? Well the MSM is now on a kind of strike. They refuse to report the news.

    felipe (56556d)

  9. Q: How do you handle a far-flung man?
    A: teh Manspreddar

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  10. There is a wrestling move (“real” wrestling TYVM) called the “banana split.” LE should use that as the preferred take-down used on manspreaders.

    felipe (56556d)

  11. good one, happy feet

    mg (31009b)

  12. What about trannyspreaders?

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  13. hey far-flung man you!
    spreading out so far and wide
    taking Manhattan

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  14. I think it is more a demand that men be demure and inoffensive. A man who spreads his legs apart is microaggressing!

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  15. Big-Ball Manspreaddars
    they are taking Manhattan
    one ball at a time

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  16. I rarely rode the light rail, but my recollection people would stow their gear under the seat thus taking up the space forcing the wide knees.

    Manspread for your manwich.

    The case could be made that due to government social engineers forbidding the addition of freeway lanes, reasonably priced parking structures, and the wedged in downtown office spaces, manspreading is a result of their actions.

    Spongebob big balls – guess that’s why he wears squarepants.

    papertiger (c2d6da)

  17. Another argument against mass transit.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  18. Is manspreading something you do with smegma?

    JD (82bdb7)

  19. I used to work with a guy who had big balls but a small willy. He used to say, “I’m all ammo and no gun…”

    Gazzer (4aa2e2)

  20. The NYPD using “manspreading” as a pretext to evade the “stop and frisk” rules which they are already under investigation from the DOJ for violating? No way! Never! There were probably any number of people on the subway at midnight who wanted to sit down next to these two Puerto Ricans and couldn’t because the selfish pachucos were taking up more than half the seat.

    Nailed it, nk. My experience on the NYC subway is that it isn’t middle-aged men or Wall Street guys who are sprawled out over into the other street, it’s young guys (largely minority) who are aggressively claiming territory and daring people to challenge them. I was on the 1/9 subway several years back and a young black kid (probably late teens) had spread his legs out over two seats. An old lady boarded the train and had hoped to sit in one of those seats, but the kid was acting oblivious to her. A middle-aged black guy asked him to move over into one seat, but when the kid ignored him the guy kicked at the kid’s leg to get his attention and a fight almost broke out. The kid was clearly being a punk, and I’m sure NYPD would love to have a reason to give him a quick pat-down.

    JVW (8278a3)

  21. I have had a similar experience to JVW here in San Francisco on our BART train.
    The cad wasn’t splaying his legs, but deliberately laying across 2 seats in a crowded train. When a Chinese adult woman asked him to move so she could sit, he began verbally haranguing her, and anyone who came to her defense.

    I started filming him with my cellphone, so he started haranguing me. I said little, just confirming that I was filming him, until he jumped up to threaten me. (I’m six foot two, he was five foot eight or nine.) I then sat down in the now-free seat and kept filming him.

    He harangued me some, and I told him he was free to leave whenever he liked. He was clearly trying to get me to throw the first punch so I would be at fault, but I was not that kind of fool. The Chinese woman reported him and he was removed from the train a couple of stations down.

    luagha (e5bf64)

  22. I have had a similar experience to JVW here in San Francisco on our BART train.

    Yeah, I see that behavior on BART all the time too. I’m grumpy enough in my old age that when I young guy is encroaching into a second seat where I want to sit I will usually tell him (largely politely) to move over. People mostly comply, though I do get some dirty looks from time to time.

    JVW (8278a3)

  23. Um, no, It hasn’t “become a criminal offence”. I don’t know how it works elsewhere, but in NYC if you earn a ticket and you can’t or won’t show the policeman ID, you are arrested and held until they can identify you. Thus any offense is potentially “arrestable”, including violating the MTA regulations, but it’s not routine for people to be arrested for such minor offenses.

    Violating transport regulations has always, in principle, been something you can get arrested for, just like that case that was brought up during John Roberts’ confirmation hearings, of the girl who was arrested for eating on the DC Metro.

    In any case, this has nothing to do with the recent feminist campaign against “manspreading”. It’s the long-standing regulation against taking up more than one seat, whether by spreading yourself out or putting your bags on the seat next to you. It applies equally to men and women. Everyone knows, or ought to, that when a cop comes on to the train, you move your bag off the seat, even if the car is almost empty, or you risk a ticket. They have quotas.

    Milhouse (a0cc5c)

  24. yes, what could possibli have gone wrong, with a thread like this:

    http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/03/cair-had-would-be-child-molester-rep-the-org-at-important-press-conference/

    narciso (ee1f88)

  25. Eww. JD said smegma.

    carlitos (c24ed5)

  26. It is not a joke, it’s a problem on NYC subways. (Don’t know about BART, have not seen it on the DC Metro.) Bigger guys can tell the punk to move his legs so they can sit down, but slighter men and most women take a risk confronting him. I support the anti-“manspreading” crusade.

    GKH (16dd67)

  27. #27’s a geech-whipped, mass transit rider… blasphemer!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  28. in the grand scheme of things, it’s near beer as they descend back to Deathwish territory,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  29. Colonel, in NYC almost everyone rides the subway. Even Bloomberg, when he was mayor, would often take the number 6 train from his home to City Hall (he didn’t live at Gracie Mansion because his place is better).

    Speaking of whom, he’s now being touted as the Ds’ replacement for Clinton, if they have to dump her.

    Milhouse (a0cc5c)

  30. Speaking of whom, he’s now being touted as the Ds’ replacement for Clinton, if they have to dump her.

    Ha! That would rip their coalition asunder. A billionaire heterosexual white guy in his mid-70s at the head of a party that is obsessed with race, sex, youth and irrational hatred of the 1%? I would love to see that happen.

    I think the more likely scenario is that the Dems go off the deep end once Hillary! flames out and nominate someone like Sanders or Warren, so Bloomberg and his fortune decide that he can win a three-way race by running as an independent. But again, I would love to see the Democrats implode that badly for this scenario to be set in motion.

    JVW (8278a3)

  31. Well, the various cops in NYC have a lot of time on their hands after the cessation of Stop-&-Frisk, and hassling guys over Loosies.
    Plus, accosting real bad guys can be dangerous to their health.

    askeptic (efcf22)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.1160 secs.