I watched this video over at Bobbi's yesterday just before I went to the This Isn't The Blogmeet You're Looking For.
And yeah, the detective didn't do himself any favors by first showing off, then pulling out and waving around his weapon.
But the video is somewhat misleading, in that it begins at the point where the detective is already out of his car and apparently trying to do something about the unruly children of privilege who've decided that it's the bee's knees to throw snowballs at passing cars. One assumes (without video evidence) that he decided to show his weapon as proof that he was indeed an officer of the law, probably after he stopped, exited the vehicle, and asked the assembled assholes to stop throwing snowballs at passing cars. One extrapolates further that they probably laughed at him and threw snowballs at him (and of course he was in an unmarked vehicle, and in plain clothes), so he used the weapon as a token of his authority. (One wonders why he did not simply show his badge instead.)
Showing the weapon immediately caused the unruly children of privilege to become profane and insulting. As I said at the Blogmeet, it was a bit reminiscent of Chicago 1968, except that it was snowing and the cops weren't actually killing anyone.
Sure, there's plenty of blame to go around to everyone -- except to the uniforms, who are amazingly calm for guys who are being called "fucking pigs" by functionally-illiterate college-"educated" white kids who wouldn't last five minutes in any kind of disciplined environment, like, say, a police academy. Or in the military, which is where all of them should have been forced to spend two years after high school. Sorry, I digress.
But this is the state of our society today. Young empty-headed white-bread assholes all full of themselves decide to act in an anti-social manner, and when called on it, claim it's just all in good fun. "We're just having a snowball fight." Yeah. You're throwing snowballs at people who are trying to concentrate on driving through the worst snow Washington DC has had in several years. That's real bright. Did you go to Georgetown to get that liberal arts non-education?
And as has been stated elsewhere, the correct formulation of "Don't bring a gun to a snowball fight" is really the other way around. Mush-for-brains young'ins don't seem to understand that it really isn't a good idea to provoke a man with a gun, whether or not he's a sworn officer of the law. Darwin Award runners-up, indeed.
And these are the people who think they'll be running the country someday.
Scares me.
"And yeah, the detective didn't do himself any favors by first showing off, then pulling out and waving around his weapon."
Ah-ha!
The footage I saw, from ABC, was different from the footage at Reason.com, and didn't start 'til after the detective had re-holstered.
Now that I know he drew, his ass should be fired.
Yeah, I think of how many ways that situation could have been handled differently, and I figure it's time for that guy to be off the streets and in a different line of work.
Indeed. Not only fired but he should be set as an example of the old "Cops should be allowed to carry guns because they are trained and experienced" chestnut
That's all well and good, I agree about the cop, etc. My post is primarily about the mob (best word I can come up with for them) whose behavior started the ruckus in the first place. There should have been a number of disorderly conduct arrests at minimum, because what they were allegedly doing before the detective arrived qualifies as disorderly conduct.
As free independent liberty-loving types, we stand on our rights an awful lot. We need to remember that those rights come with a certain amount of responsibility. I remember the first time I threw a snowball at a car. It was also the last time I threw a snowball at a car; and I'll leave it to the reader to figure out why. What I took from that experience, lo those 40 years or so ago, is that I'm certainly free to throw snowballs, but I'm not free to throw them at other people's property. That shit has consequences.
Likewise, it wouldn't ever occur to me to call an officer of the law a pig, much less a fucking pig. That's dirty hippie behavior and the Chicago '68 prescription for it was police batons on tender dirty hippie heads and an order to "shoot to kill". I'm still marvelling at the cool demeanor of the uniformed cops -- those guys deserve citations for keeping their heads under fire and defusing the situation without violence.
Yes, by all means, get that detective off the street, permanently. But let's not pretend that the blame is all his.