angelatc
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- Joined
- May 15, 2007
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http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showth...-fixit-ticket-to-violent-takedown-and-cuffing
These are the type of scenarios that can change perceptions about cops. I know this first hand, because something similar happened to my Dad. Although it was a little more complicated, the short version is they tackled, tazed and arrested my 70+ year old Dad because he refused to sit down when they were questioning him.
The longer version is actually pretty awesome, but it takes a little explaining. So get some coffee...
My parents still live in the first house they bought. The neighborhood is not the cute lower working class neighborhood it once was, but there are not bars on the windows yet either. The streets in that neighborhood allow parking on both sides, which means that sometimes there's spots where there is only room for one car to drive. It's no big deal. People take turns. Also, their street is one of the few streets in the subdivision that's straight. Most of the other streets curve and wind, for no apparent reason.
Some new people bought a house a block west of my parents' house, on the same street. The guys in the house liked to build hotrods. The problem was that they liked to test their work by repeatedly driving ridiculously fast (and loud) up and down the street. A few of the old guys, including Bob, a retired cop, went over and tried to politely ask them to tone it down, kids playing, oncoming traffic, blah blah blah. Handshakes, smiles and beers, everybody thought the problem was solved. It wasn't - they continued to race up and down the street.
Bob called the police numerous times, but it was always over by the time they arrived. It was becoming a battle of the wills. The more the neighbors complained, the more these guys would taunt them.
My Dad was standing out on his front porch one afternoon. Just to paint the picture, he's 6'4" and that's down a bit from his youth. He doesn't walk like a doddering old man. He and my Mom both own motorcycles, and they do things like ride to Bike Week and Sturgis. (OK, they towed the bikes to Sturgis, but I saw a lot of bikers younger than them doing that too, so don't judge them!) You see where I am going here? There's nothing frail about him, with one exception: he had a heart attack about 25 years ago, and is on medication for that. We'll get back to that.
Hot rod guys raced by, and when they saw my Dad they flipped him off. On the way back, they stopped and burned rubber right in front of his house.
Here's another thing about my Dad. He's a dick. He can't stand it when someone else is in control of a situation. It's nuanced, because he's not ever worried about what other people are doing, so I can't call him a control freak. But if he's in a situation, everything has to be on his terms at all times. Needless to say, this race car stuff on "his" street was not something he could just walk away from.
Now, if my Mom had been home, this would have not happened. but she was grocery shopping. So Dad went back to his bedroom, and pulled out his shotgun. The next time the neighbors raced by, he pointed it at them.
They decided to go around the block to get home rather than drive by him again, and this time they were the neighbors calling the police.
Meanwhile, my Dad put the gun back in the bedroom closet and went to the garage and got a baseball bat, which he propped behind the living room door.
Of course, the cops show up. 3 cars, 6 officers. My dad meets them at the door. Bob the ex-cop wanders over, because cops. The cops ask Dad to step outside, he does. They tell him there was a report of him pointing a gun at cars driving down the road. Dad tells them nope, it was a baseball bat. Bob the cop fills them in the history of the drama. The cops ask if he has a gun, he replies he has an old gun in his closet but he hasn't hunted in years. They ask to see it, he declines. They ask him where the bat is. He tells them it's behind the door. They ask why it's there. He says he plays baseball with the grandkids. They ask if they can go in, he says no. They agree to let Bob retrieve the bat. 4 of the cops leave.
At this point, my Dad is standing on the porch blocking the stairs and the cops are standing on the ground in front of him, giving my tall-ass Dad a pretty intimidating posture as he towers over them. Cops don't like that. One of them asked him to sit down, and he replied he had back problems and preferred to stand. That escalated quickly, with the two cops dragging him down from the porch and wrestling him to the ground. He started to get up again, and they tazed him. At that point, they placed him under arrest. Bob called my Mom's cell phone.
That's the part of the story that reminded me of the link at the beginning of the post. If you want to know how it all worked out, then keep reading.
A couple things come into play here. Remember that heart attack I mentioned? At this particular time, the city was in the midst of a public scandal because several inmates died in a a short span of a few months from what was perceived as a lack of adequate medical care.
As the shock of being tazed wore off, my Dad complained that his chest was hurting. (It wasn't. He's just playing the "I can be a bigger dick than you" game.) The officers basically said fuck off, and booked him into the jail. My Dad complained about his chest again. The booking officer was a female, and he told her he had a history of heart problems, and he was afraid that tazer had affected it. She ignored him. Finally, the cop who took him into the room where they search inmates before putting them in the cell managed to get a synapse to make some connections, and she called the nurse. My Dad asked the nurse if his wife would be allowed to bring his medicine, which he was now overdue for. The nurse went out and bluntly told the desk sergeant that unless they wanted another dead inmate problem, perhaps they should consider either releasing him or at least taking him to the hospital.
I guess nobody felt like hanging out at the hospital that night, because they released him.
While my Dad was being processed, my Mom started calling lawyers. Rather, she called one lawyer. Every city has a lawyer like this guy. You see his face on TV and bus benches. His commercials are all over drive-time radio. He promises to work hard for the little guy, punish the bad guys, and there's an easy to remember 800 number. That guy.
He called her back immediately. He asked her a lot of questions, probably more about their finances than anything, but the final question being did my Dad actually do it? She replied that she did not know, as she was not home. He agreed to defend my Dad.
He met with my parents the next week: he did not ask my Dad if my Dad had done it. I had to talk my Dad out of calling him and telling him that fact. It was fairly clear to me that the lawyer did not want to know the answer to that question.
Flash forward to the big day in court. A jury trial. The prosecution has repeatedly offered a couple of deals, but my Dad has refused them. The prosecution calls their first witness - the driver of the car. He testifies as to his version of events. On cross-examination, the defense lawyer rises and asks three questions. The first was about speed, which the driver claims was between 25 and 30 mph. The lawyer then asked if he was watching the road while he was driving, and the driver states of course, because he is a safe and cautious driver. The lawyer then points out that since the car was moving at about 30 mph, and the driver was watching the road, it might be easy to mistake one object for another. He then asks the witness if he was possible the object that my Dad had been holding was a baseball bat. The driver says, "Well, I guess it might have been."
The prosecution asks to approach the bench, so the attorneys both go up. The judge calls my father back into his chambers with the lawyers. The prosecution offers him deals. At this point, my Dad got to see how the game was played, although he didn't recognize it, because at the end of the day, these guys are all on the same team. The lawyer only wants to get paid, and the prosecution does not want to lose at trial. The odds are that the lawyer and the prosecutor will work on deals again in the future.
The prosecution offered 1 year of probation. My Dad's lawyer advised him to take it. My Dad declined. The prosecution then offered probation with no fees or costs. My Dad's lawyer advised him to take it. My Dad declined. The prosecution then offered 25 hours of unsupervised community service. My Dad's lawyer asked what that meant. The prosecution said that my Dad would be expected to perform some community service, but there would be no fees or reporting requirements. My Dad's lawyer said he had never seen that deal before, it was very generous, and my Dad should strongly consider it, because juries can be unpredictable. My Dad mentioned he cuts his friend's grass all summer because his friend is physically unable to do so, and wondered if that would count. The Judge and the prosecutor both immediately agreed that would be sufficient. My Dad declined.
The prosecutor dropped the charges, with jeopardy attached, in order to avoid having a loss show up on his track record.
And my Dad, the guy who can't stand it when someone else is in control of a situation, walked out looking like the cat that ate the canary.
These are the type of scenarios that can change perceptions about cops. I know this first hand, because something similar happened to my Dad. Although it was a little more complicated, the short version is they tackled, tazed and arrested my 70+ year old Dad because he refused to sit down when they were questioning him.
The longer version is actually pretty awesome, but it takes a little explaining. So get some coffee...
My parents still live in the first house they bought. The neighborhood is not the cute lower working class neighborhood it once was, but there are not bars on the windows yet either. The streets in that neighborhood allow parking on both sides, which means that sometimes there's spots where there is only room for one car to drive. It's no big deal. People take turns. Also, their street is one of the few streets in the subdivision that's straight. Most of the other streets curve and wind, for no apparent reason.
Some new people bought a house a block west of my parents' house, on the same street. The guys in the house liked to build hotrods. The problem was that they liked to test their work by repeatedly driving ridiculously fast (and loud) up and down the street. A few of the old guys, including Bob, a retired cop, went over and tried to politely ask them to tone it down, kids playing, oncoming traffic, blah blah blah. Handshakes, smiles and beers, everybody thought the problem was solved. It wasn't - they continued to race up and down the street.
Bob called the police numerous times, but it was always over by the time they arrived. It was becoming a battle of the wills. The more the neighbors complained, the more these guys would taunt them.
My Dad was standing out on his front porch one afternoon. Just to paint the picture, he's 6'4" and that's down a bit from his youth. He doesn't walk like a doddering old man. He and my Mom both own motorcycles, and they do things like ride to Bike Week and Sturgis. (OK, they towed the bikes to Sturgis, but I saw a lot of bikers younger than them doing that too, so don't judge them!) You see where I am going here? There's nothing frail about him, with one exception: he had a heart attack about 25 years ago, and is on medication for that. We'll get back to that.
Hot rod guys raced by, and when they saw my Dad they flipped him off. On the way back, they stopped and burned rubber right in front of his house.
Here's another thing about my Dad. He's a dick. He can't stand it when someone else is in control of a situation. It's nuanced, because he's not ever worried about what other people are doing, so I can't call him a control freak. But if he's in a situation, everything has to be on his terms at all times. Needless to say, this race car stuff on "his" street was not something he could just walk away from.
Now, if my Mom had been home, this would have not happened. but she was grocery shopping. So Dad went back to his bedroom, and pulled out his shotgun. The next time the neighbors raced by, he pointed it at them.
They decided to go around the block to get home rather than drive by him again, and this time they were the neighbors calling the police.
Meanwhile, my Dad put the gun back in the bedroom closet and went to the garage and got a baseball bat, which he propped behind the living room door.
Of course, the cops show up. 3 cars, 6 officers. My dad meets them at the door. Bob the ex-cop wanders over, because cops. The cops ask Dad to step outside, he does. They tell him there was a report of him pointing a gun at cars driving down the road. Dad tells them nope, it was a baseball bat. Bob the cop fills them in the history of the drama. The cops ask if he has a gun, he replies he has an old gun in his closet but he hasn't hunted in years. They ask to see it, he declines. They ask him where the bat is. He tells them it's behind the door. They ask why it's there. He says he plays baseball with the grandkids. They ask if they can go in, he says no. They agree to let Bob retrieve the bat. 4 of the cops leave.
At this point, my Dad is standing on the porch blocking the stairs and the cops are standing on the ground in front of him, giving my tall-ass Dad a pretty intimidating posture as he towers over them. Cops don't like that. One of them asked him to sit down, and he replied he had back problems and preferred to stand. That escalated quickly, with the two cops dragging him down from the porch and wrestling him to the ground. He started to get up again, and they tazed him. At that point, they placed him under arrest. Bob called my Mom's cell phone.
That's the part of the story that reminded me of the link at the beginning of the post. If you want to know how it all worked out, then keep reading.
A couple things come into play here. Remember that heart attack I mentioned? At this particular time, the city was in the midst of a public scandal because several inmates died in a a short span of a few months from what was perceived as a lack of adequate medical care.
As the shock of being tazed wore off, my Dad complained that his chest was hurting. (It wasn't. He's just playing the "I can be a bigger dick than you" game.) The officers basically said fuck off, and booked him into the jail. My Dad complained about his chest again. The booking officer was a female, and he told her he had a history of heart problems, and he was afraid that tazer had affected it. She ignored him. Finally, the cop who took him into the room where they search inmates before putting them in the cell managed to get a synapse to make some connections, and she called the nurse. My Dad asked the nurse if his wife would be allowed to bring his medicine, which he was now overdue for. The nurse went out and bluntly told the desk sergeant that unless they wanted another dead inmate problem, perhaps they should consider either releasing him or at least taking him to the hospital.
I guess nobody felt like hanging out at the hospital that night, because they released him.
While my Dad was being processed, my Mom started calling lawyers. Rather, she called one lawyer. Every city has a lawyer like this guy. You see his face on TV and bus benches. His commercials are all over drive-time radio. He promises to work hard for the little guy, punish the bad guys, and there's an easy to remember 800 number. That guy.
He called her back immediately. He asked her a lot of questions, probably more about their finances than anything, but the final question being did my Dad actually do it? She replied that she did not know, as she was not home. He agreed to defend my Dad.
He met with my parents the next week: he did not ask my Dad if my Dad had done it. I had to talk my Dad out of calling him and telling him that fact. It was fairly clear to me that the lawyer did not want to know the answer to that question.
Flash forward to the big day in court. A jury trial. The prosecution has repeatedly offered a couple of deals, but my Dad has refused them. The prosecution calls their first witness - the driver of the car. He testifies as to his version of events. On cross-examination, the defense lawyer rises and asks three questions. The first was about speed, which the driver claims was between 25 and 30 mph. The lawyer then asked if he was watching the road while he was driving, and the driver states of course, because he is a safe and cautious driver. The lawyer then points out that since the car was moving at about 30 mph, and the driver was watching the road, it might be easy to mistake one object for another. He then asks the witness if he was possible the object that my Dad had been holding was a baseball bat. The driver says, "Well, I guess it might have been."
The prosecution asks to approach the bench, so the attorneys both go up. The judge calls my father back into his chambers with the lawyers. The prosecution offers him deals. At this point, my Dad got to see how the game was played, although he didn't recognize it, because at the end of the day, these guys are all on the same team. The lawyer only wants to get paid, and the prosecution does not want to lose at trial. The odds are that the lawyer and the prosecutor will work on deals again in the future.
The prosecution offered 1 year of probation. My Dad's lawyer advised him to take it. My Dad declined. The prosecution then offered probation with no fees or costs. My Dad's lawyer advised him to take it. My Dad declined. The prosecution then offered 25 hours of unsupervised community service. My Dad's lawyer asked what that meant. The prosecution said that my Dad would be expected to perform some community service, but there would be no fees or reporting requirements. My Dad's lawyer said he had never seen that deal before, it was very generous, and my Dad should strongly consider it, because juries can be unpredictable. My Dad mentioned he cuts his friend's grass all summer because his friend is physically unable to do so, and wondered if that would count. The Judge and the prosecutor both immediately agreed that would be sufficient. My Dad declined.
The prosecutor dropped the charges, with jeopardy attached, in order to avoid having a loss show up on his track record.
And my Dad, the guy who can't stand it when someone else is in control of a situation, walked out looking like the cat that ate the canary.
