http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/26717
Naturally, I think there's a pretty good case for racial profiling, or at least desperant treatment here, but I'm more interested in the response of the officer here. Under no circumstances should an officer EVER refuse to give a badge number. In fact, any officer on the scene who supported the officer who refused to get her badge number should lose their badge too.
We always talk about accountability for public servants. Nowhere is this more important than in law enforcement. There is no reason that a non-undercover officer should ever have to conceal their identity from a citizen who simply is asking to indentify the officer.
you think those cops vote republican or democrat? :-)
just kidding
Cops should be held to a higher standard than the general public - and if the reported incident is true the cops involved might want to consider a different line of work.
or maybe there are two sides to this story and this is only one of them...
Not trying to excuse any potential misbehavior, but why always the rush to judgment?
The "rush to judgment" is with the wisdom that without publicizing the situation, it will go uninvestigated. I will gladly reassess when there is more information to be had. But if any of the attributed quotes prove true, it says something serious about the law enforcement officials, and it behooves us to see if they are real or fabricated.
But as someone who probably receives less harassment than most folks of color, I certainly can appreciate how often that that type of slurring occurs, and it's much more serious when it's a public official whose responsibility is enforcing the law in an equitable way.
I think there is a typo in this thread. NYPD is clearly supposed to be CPD.
The "rush to judgment" is with the wisdom that without publicizing the situation, it will go uninvestigated.
I would agree that there is potential for this situation not being investigated and that bringing it to light will help get it investigated, but I would disagree with the assupmtion that it would not get investigated without this article.
it behooves us to see if they are real or fabricated.
In this we are in complete agreement.
Under no circumstances should an officer EVER refuse to give a badge number.
I don't agree with this statement. Under normal circumstances an officer should not hesitate to give their badge number, however this does not sound like a normal situation. There was clearly a large group of people and the police felt that there was a possibility for the crowd to get out of control (hence the call for backup). We can reasonably assume that not all the people in the crowd were calm and polite toward the officers creating a threatening situation. I hate to speculate any further about this particular instance, but perhaps the officers did not want to engage in a conversation with a rational person because they were busy trying to defuse a dangerous situation with the irrational people. How about a different set of circumstances. If officers are serving a dangerous warrant early in the morning, and while knocking drug dealers on the ground to keep them from reaching the ak-47's propped up in a corner of the room one asks for a badge number, do you feel that officer should stop clearing the room and backing up fellow officers to provide it?
While those are very different things. In a situation like this one, the officer chose to not provide their badge number to after using racial slurs. The motivation seems pretty clear to me.
In another situation, I would stand by what I said, since not having time at the very moment of the request and refusing to provide a badge number whatsoever are completely different things.
Furthermore, such a rule is vital because no law enforcement officer is likely to completely dismiss common sense and stop a gunfight to provide badge information no matter what the rules are. However, there is a sizeable minority of police officers who seem likely try to avoid accountability by refusing to provide badge information.
Gotta agree with Xian here.
Regular citizens get into trouble if they refuse to identify themselves to officers. Hell, do you think bartenders wear numbers so the customers will call them,"Hey #003"?
NO, it's so that they can be identified by police if they serve a minor or misbehave in some fashion. Cops have to be just as responsible as the rest of us, and a bit more so.
This is not meant to be an indictment of police in general, just that one, in that instance.
I agree with Property Rights.
Well said.
According to witnesses, Garam Sohn, SEAS ’10, was holding an open beer can when he was stopped by police on W. 114th Street near Broadway. When asked for identification, Sohn said he did not have any. Ian Crone, CC ’10, who witnessed the incident, said that the police handcuffed Sohn, threw him to the ground, and put him into the back of a police car.
You're asking for opinions? Here's mine. No one gets handcuffed and thrown to the ground for not providing ID. That's BS. I generally agree that police should provide their badge numbers when requested, but this article is clearly biased. If you want to be fair, give the police account of the version as well. It's stated as though it's fact.
It's ridiculous to think that someone is thrown to the ground and handcuffed because they wouldn't or couldn't produce ID. I thought the whole idea behind publishing supposedly factual articles is to provide both side of an issue, then letting the readers decide. You know, the whole "we report, you decide" thing. No where in this silly little diatribe is there any other viewpoint. It goes from talking to the friend of the guy arrested to quoting from a group alluding to the fact that this was a racially biased stop. The whole thing is silly.
Remember high school? Remember the maladjusted kids who struggled to fit in, the kids who people didn't "get", the kids who were beaten and abused by their parents. Well, now they're cops. Deal with it.
Remember high school? Remember the maladjusted kids who struggled to fit in, the kids who people didn't "get", the kids who were beaten and abused by their parents. Well, now they're Anonymous blog posters. Deal with it.
See! Anybody can do it! Still doesn't mean anything.
--
Glock21 Op/Ed
Well played Glock.
I agree with Xian and Property Rights.
The badge number is for confirmation of who was at a site when. The badge number doesn't need to be related to the officer's name or true identity - if a force is paranoid, I suppose they could assign numbers randomly as officers leave the station if they wanted, or they could change an officer's number after he gets in some incident where he feels people might be looking to revenge on that number.
But the CHIEF needs to know, and have on record, who was #003 on Saturday night at 9:34 PM, or whatever it is. And #003 needs to give that number when asked, or not cover it up, so that people can make complaints (or hell, send in compliments if they want).
It's all about having a consistent (per incident) traceable alias. Think of it as the number on the back of a football uniform.
just as a sidebar, I read this about the Jena 6 case. It doesn't paint quite the same picture we are hearing from Jackson and Sharpton. There is always way more "grey" in these stories than it seems like there should be.
A couple excerpts:
And:
Those quotes came from a pastor in the area, Eddie Thompson. Hard for me to say if he is credible either, but it is quite a different perspective.
Why would you conclude I'm a cop? That doesn't make any sense.
Red,
Good post. That's what peeves me off most of the time as well. The media, and just about everyone else for that matter, always want to to make everything black and white. It's rarely that way in real life.