"Are you going to kneel there and argue with me all goddamn day? … How about nodding your head and saying 'OK, yeah I won’t do it again'." [More]Listen to the audio of the encounter, linked at the bottom of the article, and prepare to have your blood boil. These brownshirts exemplify the odious and unmerited elitism that is "The Only Ones."
Here's the email address for this thug's chief:
mlazor@cityofwillowick.com
[Via KABA Newslinks]
I wrote yesterday. The mayor is at rbonde@cityofwillowick.
ReplyDeleteYou NEVER, EVER talk to someone like that. We aren't retarded children making the same mischievous mistake over and over. We are people and we are citizens.
I suggest any governments and any cops with the attitude turn it around before there's no turning back.
I couldn't listen to the audio because I'd have to break something, maybe something big and sturdy. I read the transcript, though. There is no excuse.
I wonder what else they do that we DON'T hear about.
A public relations disaster for law enforcement everywhere. We're not supposed to have to fear the police; that's for actual criminals.
I e-mailed the mayor and chief both. I work in Willoughby, next town over, and suggested that the sergeant forfeit his LEO commission--also that it would affect whether I spent money in Willowick (which ought to get the mayor's attention, anyhow).
ReplyDeleteI also suspect they ain't seen nothin' yet, with respect to open carry. ;-)
I sent the following. Perhaps I am not as sensitive to rough talk and swearing, since it is my normal verbal mode. Mostly, I was surprised at how calm and angerless the confrontation was. Of course, I could only go by tone of voice, but I thought I detected more ignorance laced with arrogance than I did animosity. Ergo, the tone of my letter.:::
ReplyDelete**I have just read an account of the stop in the subject line and listened to the audio of the stop.
Your seargeant who was in command at the stop needs some serious remedial training. I must applaud your officers for their mostly polite treatment of the subject. However, it must be said that when arrogance is coupled with ignorance in one individual, that individual becomes a danger to everybody around him and the community he serves, especially if he is a law enforcement officer.
The lack of knowledge of the law as demonstrated by your police sergeant is appalling. But much worse is his absolute refusal to entertain any thought that he could be wrong. He could have clarified the right of it with one call to the prosecutor's office or perhaps even to the police department and received the proper information.
As it turns out, your officer was the one violating the law, since Ohio state law forbids a stop predicated solely on the open carrying of a firearm. I believe it is a first degree misdemeanor under Ohio statute, without even considering Federal Civil Rights law.
Then, of course there was the threat of charges of inducing panic. Another law the elements of which seem to escape him. (The only panic appears to be his, by the way)
Arrogance is unbecoming on anyone, and your man displayed plenty of it. He made it quite clear that his badge and uniform conferred upon him, in his mind and others', a cloak of morality that an ordinary citizen should not enjoy.
Which brings up this: why if he was convinced the young man had committed a crime, as he stated several times, did he not arrest him? Because another officer vouched for him? Has that become an excuse to let a lawbreaker go?
We know that the young man didn't commit any crime, but your sergeant didn't, so why no arrest? Let me state, I am glad there was no arrest, the subject didn't need it, and you didn't need the subsequent lawsuit.
Let me close by saying again, I applaud the fact that this interview was conducted mostly politely and that the subject's property wasn't seized. I urge you to correct this misperception of the law before real harm occurs either in the physical world or the courtroom. Nobody needs it, nor should they want it.
Sincerely,
Charles H. Sawders**