By now, you have probably seen or heard about the video of the Texas police officer harassing and assaulting a crowd of young black kids who appear to have been attending a pool party in a suburban neighborhood in Dallas. The entire video is disturbing, but there are a couple of events contained therein that are particularly so. The first is the manner in which one young black girl was manhandled by this supposed peace officer. The video clearly shows the young lady walking away after being told in the most crude, filthy and, disrespectful language possible to do so by the cop. At that point, the cop, seemingly affronted by the fact that his uniform and his vulgar utterances weren't commanding any respect, grabbed the young girl from behind and pulled her back into the fray. He then wrestled her to the ground, using some of the most severe hand to hand police tactics at his disposal
The scene is disturbing not only because this girl looks to be barely a hundred pounds (by all accounts she's fifteen years old) but also because she never appeared to be a threat to the officer and, once in his custody, never appeared to be fighting him,
That lead to the second disturbing incident in which two young black men, reacting on what appeared to be moral instinct rather than the common sense that should always be their guide in dealing with an authority figure who has a weapon, tried to come to the aid of the young girl who was clearly being assaulted by the cop. With the girl sitting on the ground in the cop's grasp, the two young men approached and indicated their displeasure with the treatment the girl was receiving. At that point, the cop jumped up and drew his weapon on the two boys and then proceeded to chase them with his weapon still drawn. Then two other cops, who appeared to have been acting appropriately, rushed in and caused the first cop to lower his weapon.
All of this happened in broad daylight with young kids and some adults watching.
Another noteworthy thing on the periphery of this scene was the spectacle of two very polite young black men who were being forced to sit on the ground by a belligerent-for-no-apparent-reason cop. Their mannerisms were text book. 'But sir this' and 'but sir that' was all that could be heard coming from their mouths. Still they were treated as if they had done something wrong. The rogue cop even told them they were part of the problem when clearly it was the other way around.
As to what was the cause of the scene, apparently there was a pool party in a gated neighborhood. Someone who lived in the neighborhood got some passes for some of her non-resident friends. Then word spread about the party and kids without passes began jumping the fence to get to the pool. At some point a resident (reportedly a white woman) took exception to the presence of the uninvited attendees and supposedly addressed one or more of them a niggers. Apparently a physical altercation ensued and the police were called. The aftermath is the subject of the scene below.
This incident occurred on June 5th. The cop was put on administrative leave on June 8th.
What took so long and why was the punishment so inconsequential you ask? Good question.
The answer is not that all police and police departments are racists. And it's not that all cops are bad. It's that the system in which cops operate is designed to protect the good ones and the bad ones, even after the bad ones have shown themselves to be unworthy of protection.
Sadly, this cop works in the public sector and is protected by a public sector union, so his interests are being put ahead of those he has harmed.
The moral of the story? When we organize agains ourselves, we always lose. Public sector unions, in this case police unions, are a clear demonstration of this assertion. If this cop couldn't have hidden behind his local union representative, he would have been tossed out on his butt three days ago. Instead, the good citizens of Dallas are paying his salary while he sits at home and we all watch police/community relations deteriorate further.
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I'm guessing he'll still lose his job, but it will take far too long to get there and that's a shame.
The system needs some fixin'.
Deming has been proven right again.
KM
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