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"I understand that on some level putting Peretz in jail was a reasonable response to him not leaving the scene, ..." It sounds completely unreasonable to me, b
by morsch 13y ago
"I understand that on some level putting Peretz in jail was a reasonable response to him not leaving the scene, ..."
It sounds completely unreasonable to me, by the way. Of course he doesn't want to leave, he just found someone bleeding in the street, it's natural to care about what happens to them. Why should he leave?
And why would he go to jail after not obeying immediately? Isn't there something else that you guys get in a case like that -- a citation or what have you?
I was told to leave a scene not so long ago, when they frisked a group of immigrant kids (and in the end took away one of them who apparently had some drugs on him; so actual police work as opposed to a traffic accident). We didn't. We stood back a meter and observed. After that, they didn't take down my name, I certainly wasn't manhandled. That seemed reasonable to me.
The hostility -- the sentiment, not the actions following from it -- displayed by the officers would be understandable (if pathetically unprofessional) if he had been drunk and belligerent. But that's not what he says happened. And I'm inclined to believe him, since he wasn't charged with anything.
Edit: Added that anectode, sorry for stealth editing after upvotes, hope nobody minds.
- josh2600 13y agoIt's rational for a police officer to respond to civil disobedience in some circumstances with detention. That is not unreasonable in some situations, particularly one where lives are at stake or where there is clear and present danger. My point is that while the arrest may have been bad, what happened after is egregious and clearly definable as awful. There's lots of blame to go around here but blame does little good. We should all want justice because it makes our society a better place. It's all we can ask for and it's all we deserve. Edit for clarity: I'm not saying what happened here was right or good, I'm saying that there are other situations where the police response might've been appropriate. While it's possible to have a debate about the initial arrest, it's impossible to justify what happened after. Rather than muddy the waters of this discussion with anecdotes about the arrest, I was attempting to place the focus onto the portion we could all agree on in an effort to move forward faster. To be explicit, I do not agree with how SFPD handled this situation in any way, shape or form.
- yscale 13y agoYour comment reads like this: "It's rational for officers to arrest law-abiding citizens who are slightly annoying officers." And I get that a lot of people believe that. But you're wrong. You're so, so wrong. It saddens me that a lot of cops (like the one in this story) feel as you do, that it's fine for police to grossly abuse their powers. In a rational world, the cop would no longer be a cop. In this world, he probably could've raped the kid with a toilet plunger and still remained on the force.
- aeturnum 13y agoI'm not the person you're replaying to and I don't think that someone should be arrested in the described situation, but I think the logic follows like this. Police are the people we've put in charge with keeping public order. In the course of that job, they're going to arrest and / or detain people. We want them to always detain the right people, but even a very good police department will detain the wrong people sometimes. So, we give the authority to individual officers to detain people, and we don't second guess their decisions at the time. Of course, this system only works when there is a functioning review system. Where the policed populace feels like their concerns are listened to by the authority figures. Where officers who misbehave, even by the loose standards of american police, are publicly disciplined. None of these things are common in modern america - but you can still believe in the right for police to detain people and push for better accountability. I think you should consider how much you are reading into statements before you ascribe particular views to people. You both agree the author was treated deplorably, and you both agree (I assume) that police can do better.