The Reality Check:The Police and You

 Lately as I've been writing more and more I've noticed an explosion on youtube of for lack of a better term"idiots." I've been seeing alot of arrests for disorderly conduct and pretty much every time I've seen it I have witnessed the same broken record. Some moron screaming police brutality and yelling about rights they don't actually possess. It blows my mind that the people that scream the most seem to be the most uneducated people who apparently slept during civics class. You know the type that knows everything but never read a book. Now this may seem like I'm being a jerk talking about people like this but I'm going to post some videos for your enjoyment to illustrate what I'm talking about here. Let's check out this one from here in my home state. This is in Foley,AL. Now I'm going to give you a little backstory on this clip. A police officer was on duty but had a little down time so he stopped into Wal-Mart to pick something up while nothing was going on. This couple verbally assaulted him and accused him of treason for shopping at Wal-Mart while on duty. Yes you heard me right they accused him of treason for shopping at Wal-Mart while on duty. Let's see what happened next.

   Now I enjoyed this video and watching these people get what they deserved. I however want to address some of the dialogue. First, this woman yells, "I can say whatever I want I'm an American!" Now I'm a big supporter of the first amendment but I do not support the abuse of it. The fact is no you cannot say whatever you want and you definitely cannot say it as loud as you want. Though it is usually not enforced it is technically still illegal to publicly use foul language in public in most states. It's part of that whole pesky disturbing the peace thing. Even when enforced it is usually overturned in court but the law is still on the books. Two good examples of it would be in 1999 a man was tried and convicted of cursing in front of a woman and children when he fell out of a boat. In 2004 a New Mexico teen was arrested for cursing at his teacher. Both overturned eventually but the point is the law is there so technically no you can't say whatever you want because others have rights too not just you. They have a right to not have to listen to your potty mouth. Anyone remember disturbing the peace is a crime? Apparently not these idiots. Then this guy yelling at the officer saying he's breaking the law when he obviously doesn't know it. I wonder what these people thought would happen when they resisted arrest. Did they think the officer was just going to give up? He ain't going to give up moron your going to jail. If he can't get you in cuffs more officers will come until your in cuffs. Then next thing idiots like this yell is police brutality. Does police brutality exist? Hell yes! So what is police brutality? Well I'll give you a good example. Let's say you get arrested and go peaceably and the officer cuffs you. Somewhere between the cuffing and the jail you nose ended up where one of your ears used to be. That is police brutality. If a cop gets in a fight with a guy and the guy is beaten and prone unable to defend himself and the cop keeps beating him. That's police brutality. Pretty much anything that happened in Birmingham,AL in the 1960's. That's police brutality. You assaulting an officer while resisting arrested and getting tazed or punched? This is not police brutality. Basically we have freedom of speech. We don't have freedom to be a jerk and ruin everyone's right to a peaceful life. A police officer is not a judge. Their job is to enforce laws...duh.. that's why they are called law enforcement. You will never win an argument with an officer in the street. That is why we have a court system.

Now in the second part of this video there is an attack on a 15 year old girl in a jail cell. To me this is police brutality. I posted this video for the act in the first part of the video. The infamous video of the girl getting punched. Basically here is what happened. The girl in black was getting arrested for jaywalking. She didn't like that so she resisted arrest. Apparently the seattle police department has no unarmed defensive tactics that are worth anything so the officer had problems. The girl's friend decides to jump in and make it a two on one. She shoved the officer and slapped at him and got punched. My question is what did she think was going to happen? Did she think they were going to beat up this cop and he'd know better than to mess with them because they were so badass? That's just dumb. I can guarantee you something similar to that was the thought. If an officer is going to arrest you then you will be arrested no matter what. If he has to call back up then he will do so and you'll be arrested anyway but now the charges will pile up. The fact is you are only going to make it hard on yourself. Hell the fine for jaywalking isn't even that much. If you resist arrest the officer is going to do his job.
   I'm refusing to post the video of the dancing people at the Jefferson Memorial again however I will tell you about it. There was this guy named Adam Kokesh. He got kicked out of the marines for buying weapons from Iraqis and hiding them. He got a job at the english language affiliate of Russia Today. He hooked up with a friend named Medea Benjamin who raised money for Hugo Chavez. This was a little bit after Russia invaded Georgia unlawfully and the United States talked bad about them for it. Shortly after this in America there was a court ruling that it was unlawful to dance at the Jefferson Memorial. Kokesh and Benjamin used this as an excuse to slam America. They sent out press releases letting the media know what they were going to do at the Jefferson Memorial. Then went there and got really loud. When the cops came over to warn them they cut the cameras on for Russia Today. They then taunted the cops talking about the first amendment etc. They attempted to arrest Kokesh and he resisted so they did a takedown to get him into cuffs because they couldn't arrest him standing. Benjamin and her boyfriend were also arrested for dancing and kissing. The idea was that Russia Today could use the footage to characterize America as a police state and call us hypocrites for talking bad about Russia invading Georgia and it worked like a charm. They still heavily feature it on youtube uploading as RTAmerica, RussiaToday, CodePink, etc. It worked because of the ignorance of the people viewing it. The good folks at facebook couldn't wait to bash the police for arresting these people even though the people planned this and showed up specifically to be arrested on film. I remember one guy made the comment in a thread that unlawful laws should not be obeyed. Seriously? Yeah I'm sure that will be a great argument in court. Just so you know even though these people broke like 10 laws they were let off with a fine for demonstrating without a permit. They didn't even charge Kokesh with resisting arrest. Everyone on the thread went straight to police brutality....big shocker huh? If you resist arrest an officer can do what they need to do to get you into cuffs for the most part. Then if they beat you yes it's police brutality. A cop doing a takedown against someone not compliant is not police brutality nor will it ever be. Please learn the laws before you spout your ignorance. An officer cannot change laws only a legislature can do that. Now if enough people protest then yes the legislature may change that law but that doesn't mean you won't sit in jail until it's changed. Once again in closing you will never win  arguing with an officer on the street if you think you've been wronged then exercise your civic duty and take it to court