Skateboarding into Victimhood Superstardom
Oh how comforting is the mantle of victimhood, how rosy and flattering is the light that so often shines on those who wear it. And how willing are some to shine that light no matter how tenuous the claim to victimhood may be.
On August 18, Ronald Weekley Jr., a 20-year-old student at Xavier University, was skateboarding outside his home in Venice, Calif., when he was arrested by officers from the Los Angeles Police Department. The term “Venice” may conjure up for you the image of a hip, seaside community, home to movie stars and other celebrities, and indeed there is substance in that image. But there is another side to Venice, one not often seen even by the hipsters who live nearby and patronize the chic restaurants near the beach and on Abbot Kinney Blvd. Mr. Weekley’s arrest took place in the other Venice, the grittier one, near the corner of 6th and Sunset Avenues, about a half-mile from the beach but, with its higher levels of poverty and crime, culturally more akin to South Central Los Angeles than to Venice’s more affluent areas.
Mr. Weekley’s version of events can be summed up thus: He was skateboarding in the street towards his home, and upon reaching his front door he was set upon, completely by surprise and without justification, by four LAPD officers who proceeded to tackle him and beat him to the point that he thought he was “going to die.” The later moments of the Saturday afternoon arrest were captured on a cell phone camera and posted to YouTube, and with the help of some dishonest news reporting, by Monday the victimhood cosmos had brought forth a new star.
I should mention here that Mr. Weekley is black, but perhaps the reader has already inferred that, for if he were not there would likely be no story here at all. Indeed the racial calculus of any incident like this one is often determinative in how the story is covered and for how long. For maximum effect, a black “victim” is the sine qua non.
What is also required is a compliant media. And if some media outlet can take the extra measure of twisting the facts ever so slightly, well, so much the better. Filling that role in the Weekley matter are the reporters and film editors at KTLA Channel 5 in Los Angeles who produced the video seen here, attached to a story on the Los Angeles Times website. Reporter Jim Nash does his stand-up near the scene of the arrest and unquestioningly repeats allegations of a “beating” and “racial profiling,” and as he does so a total of five protesters – all of them teenage girls, from what I can tell – can be seen over his shoulder. That number swells all the way to eight or so, apparently when others saw the opportunity to appear in the live television shot.
“Here you see the protesters behind us,” says Mr. Nash. “As many as twenty have gathered here to raise their voices against this.”
As many as twenty, you say? Perhaps the outrage in the community doesn’t run all that deeply after all.
Later in the report, Mr. Nash discusses Mr. Weekley’s claimed injuries. “Weekley and his father, Ron Weekley Sr.,” says Mr. Nash, “confirm that he was taken to UCLA Medical Center, where he was found to have a broken nose, broken cheekbone, and a concussion.” In this Mr. Nash accepted as fact Mr. Weekley’s description of his injuries. No documentary evidence or statement from an attending doctor was provided. Had Mr. Nash been more curious about Weekley’s injuries, had he done some minimal level of actual reporting, he would have learned that if Weekley had indeed suffered the injuries he claimed, he would have been admitted into the hospital rather than being cleared for booking into jail. And nowhere in Mr. Nash’s report was it questioned how anyone with injuries like those claimed by Weekley could be as unmarred as he appeared to be in his many post-arrest interviews.
But if that were the worst of KTLA’s disregard for honest journalism it would scarcely be worth mentioning. The real disgrace, the outright manipulation, came when the cell phone video was played. In the video, Weekley can be seen on the ground with four officers over him apparently still trying to restrain him. One officer can be seen punching Weekley in the face or on the head. Though it went unmentioned, KTLA played a version of the video that had been edited to make it appear the officer struck Weekley multiple times. But in the unedited version posted on YouTube, it seems clear that Weekley was punched only once.(Warning: the YouTube video contains abundant vulgar language. Note that none of it comes from the police officers.)
Mr. Weekley and his supporters also claim that he was beaten while handcuffed. Inconveniently for them, the unedited video does not support this. The officer’s punch comes at around the 0:22 mark in the tape, at a time when it appears Weekley is still struggling. Not until the 0:50 mark can an officer be seen reaching for his handcuffs. The action is momentarily blocked as the camera moves from one side of a police officer to the other, but by the 1:00 mark it appears Mr. Weekley is restrained, after which it’s all over but the shouting. And there was lots and lots of shouting, but again not by the police. None of this was mentioned in Mr. Nash’s report on KTLA.
A credulous Mr. Nash passed along without challenge some of the more inflammatory claims made by Weekley, and he spoke with a witness whose account Nash seemed to believe bolstered Weekley’s version of events. But did it?
Cutting to a shot of the witness, Mr. Nash characterizes her account in a voice-over. “This longtime neighbor, Ernestine Anderson, tells KTLA Five she witnessed the entire incident,” says Mr. Nash, “and never saw Weekley strike or fight the officers.” So the use of force on Weekley was unjustified, right?
But then Ms. Anderson tells us what she saw. “And I saw [the officers] trying to bring [Weekley] down, and they couldn’t bring him down because he stiffened his body up.”
In other words, Mr. Weekley resisted the officers’ attempt to detain him. And though Mr. Weekley had committed what some might see as a trivial traffic violation on his skateboard, the officers had every right to question him about it and issue him a citation if they had chosen to do so. Rather than accepting the ticket or the talking-to that was coming – and it probably wouldn’t have amounted to more than that – Mr. Weekley tried to make it to the doorway of his apartment, as though passing over the threshold conferred on him some kind of magic immunity from answering for the traffic violation.
Thus what should have been a brief and routine stop changed into an arrest, a use of force, and a call for outrage, all thanks to Mr. Weekley’s decision to run away. (This decision was perhaps influenced by Mr. Weekley’s three outstanding arrest warrants.) Add to this a dishonest news report and you have the antecedents for trouble in the neighborhood. Incredibly, Mr. Nash’s report on the matter the following day (available here, on the L.A. Times website) showed the same edited videotape, and again neither Mr. Nash nor the anchors mentioned how the editing distorted what actually occurred. It’s bad enough that it was done once, but when the station repeated the lapse the only conclusion to be drawn is that they wish to see the controversy continued and escalated. Why merely report the news when you can influence it?
Compare the KTLA report with this one from rival KTTV Channel 11. Note that KTTV’s reporter, Lauren Sivan, while appearing sympathetic to Mr. Weekley’s claims of police abuse, takes care to inform viewers that the version of the video being shown had been edited, with the single punch shown multiple times.
Mr. Weekley and his family are enjoying their new status as celebrities, staging press conferences and protests in front of their home and receiving support from members of the local grievance industry, some of whose members are of dubious character. Najee Ali, for example, a man never found far away from any racial controversy in Southern California (that is when he’s not locked up himself), has been perched on the Weekley doorstep since the case hit the news. Mr. Ali, formerly known as Todd Eskew, was once a member of the Crips street gang and has been convicted of multiple felonies, including robbery, hit-and-run, and, most recently, of attempting to bribe witnesses in a 2007 case involving his daughter. He promotes himself as the director of Project Islamic H.O.P.E., an organization which, as far as anyone can tell, claims Mr. Ali not only as director but as its only member.
Also turning out in support of Mr. Weekley is Tony Muhammad, western regional director for noted antisemite Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam, perhaps best known to LAPD officers for having escaped prosecution after scuffling with cops in South Central L.A. back in 2005. It’s interesting to note that Mr. Ali once accused Mr. Muhammad’s bodyguards of roughing him up at a news conference.
But petty rivalries can be put aside when there’s grievance-mongering to be done, and the mongering has been going full tilt all week, fueled at least in part by KTLA’s transparently manipulative and inflammatory reporting.
Recall that in the March 1991 arrest of Rodney King, it was an edited videotape that led to the widespread belief that the LAPD officers who arrested Mr. King had beaten him without cause and would be convicted of the criminal charges brought against them. When the jury in those officers’ trial, having viewed the unedited version of the tape, declined to convict the officers, it led to days of rioting that saw 53 people killed and wide swaths of Los Angeles put to the torch.
In reporting the Weekley story as it has, have the people at KTLA revealed a desire for an equally dramatic outcome? It would be good for people in the news business, but terrible for everyone else.
“In reporting the Weekley story as it has, have the people at KTLA revealed a desire for an equally dramatic outcome?”
I strongly suspect that you are right. At a minimum, such a disaster is something the KTLA staff would willingly accept.
I would love to ask them, face to face, how they feel about murder.
Nice try jack
“In other words, Mr. Weekley resisted the officers’ attempt to detain him. And though Mr. Weekley had committed what some might see as a trivial traffic violation on his skateboard”
Trivial? Ya think?
This is why we hate cops….They’ll gladly put you in the hospital (OR THE MORGUE) over skateboarding.
I’ve seen many times, a simple, and lets be honest folks, DESERVED, “dont you assholes have anything better to do” result in hospital visits followed by jail time, all because Officer Jerk-Wad is too immature and/or amped up to make “policing decisions” that are rational.
And spare me please, the bullshit that your lives are on the line to protect us.
9 people shot by police, 1 by the perp, in the recent “protection” of New Yorks citizens.
“dont you have anything better to do?”
On second thought, maybe thats not such a Good Idea…because you cant seem handle THAT very well either.
Should the officers have let Mr. Weekley run into his apartment without the citation, and just thrown up their hands and said, “Oh well, I guess we can’t do anything!”? Can I hit the gas and take off after being pulled over for speeding?
Mr. Weekley had the option to take the citation and challenge it in court later, but instead tried to run. He’s the one who decided to escalate the situation, not the police.
With people getting shot, stabbed, and raped, these guys decide skateboarding requires THAT level of police intervention?
Priceless. Your tax dollars at work.
A Good Cops might squak the PA and say “come-on buddy, off the board” or “slow down charlie”, and if the guy blows them off, they’ll remind him the NEXT TIME they see him….Its called POLICING.
Not every human event requires genuflecting, under penalty of death, to every minor whim of a man with a badge.
And the Media Storm that follows is THEIR FAULT because they were stupid, immature and thin-skinned with no perspective beyond “I’m the Law, you must submit”
These guys were douche bags, plain and simple.
Far, far too many these immature hot-head (who cant shoot-fer-shit when the time comes) in Law Enforcement, thats why I left.
You absolutely and unequivocally have no clue about community policing or police investigations. Simple traffic stops and pedestrian stops led to apprehension and arrest of dangerous criminals ( google timothy McVeigh)…anyway point proved by the ” poor skateboarder” himself…HE HAD THREE OUTSTANDING WARRANTS FOR HIS ARREST!… and people rallied behind this guy?!…unbelievable!
Three OUTSTANDING WARRANTS?? Oooh, Gee. Well at least they knew where he lived now. But no, they had to have an LAPD Blue smackdown with a half dozen squads and OVERTIME for a dozen filling out paperwork… Yeah!!!
Its not just weak traffic violation, would a normal person run away from the police? If I was in law enforcement and if anyone ran away from me.. I would form the opinion that the idiot running has a gun, drugs, warrants whatever. Some one running from the police is guilty of something because the normal person would not run. A “university student” running from the police and resisting is playing retarded especially in the LA ghettos. The guy who was arrested isn’t a victim. Plain and simple only criminals run away from the police because they’re the ones committing the murders, stabbings, rape. I wouldn’t speed away or run away from the police. That “university student” is an idiot.
“Can I hit the gas and take off after being pulled over for speeding?”
Nice try.
3000 pounds of steel in a high speed chase refusing to pull over is one thing.
A kid on a Skateboad is another.
The risks to the public are not quite the same.
A mature, calm professional ADULT would recognize that, and act accordingly.
For what we PAY these Union Bums with Guns, I expect better.
Their spectacular failure to control their emotions just cost their employers (the people of that city?) a whole ‘nother chunk of change.
Great Police work fellas.
We
See, this type of attitude on display is why people hate skateboarders and cheer the cops on when they administer an attitude adjustment to one.
You can say that again. Toss cyclists in there, too.
Root, tell the truth now, did you fail to make probation and got terminated? YES, I know you were a Marine and YES I know you had a bad FTO who was mean to people. Get over it.
If you read what Dunphy wrote, it seems that the guy on the skateboard took foot bail after being stopped. In your police experience is that something that you would allow? Shouldn’t that clue you in that there was something more going on than just avoiding a ticket?
In my experience, most, if not all, pursuits start from the susp not wanting to be arrested for something other than whatever the original stop was for.
… … “This is why we hate cops…”
I assume the “we” is meant to include you? That you, personally, hate cops?
Nice try, Root’83. You couldn’t have opened your kimono any wider than that.
You just told us that your primary motivation is hatred.
In other words, not rationality.
Have a nice day.
I “hate cops” because I used to BE one after the Corps.
And I found out the Blue cool-aide made me gag.
So did the (non-tactical) douche bags that thought a badge made them God.
What can I say, I got high standards….
And most of the badge lickers with chips on their shoulders I dealt with, couldnt meet them.
Semper Fi
Please go try to impress someone else with the “Semper Fi”. My father enlisted two years before Pearl Harbor. The first 50 E-8s were E-7s who were given meritorious promotions. He was one of them.
You may possibly (maybe) have been in the Corps for awhile, but the Corps is not in you.
The only original “jerk wad” in this scenario is you. I’m calling you out The Root 83 – you say that you were a cop, but from your posts you show a consistently intemperate and immature attitude that is incompatible with either military service or law enforcement. I think you’re a damn poser and a liar. But, if in fact true, which I highly doubt, then the only thing you were worse at than law enforcement was the Corps.
You are my leading candidate for the PJMedia Stolen Valor Award
No need to overcomplicate it; he is just a troll.
F.Y.I. Jerk-wads are the guys who throw people to the ground when they “point” in the direction their assailants went, after they were ASKED where the guy went…. because my “brother officer” didnt like a “raising hand” near him…no real threat, just an opportunity body-slam some scrawny street person (a.k.a. “dirtbag”) who wouldn’t have much “credibility” if he complained.
Kinda puts you on the spot when I.A. investigates the (valid) complaint, ya think?
Been there, done that too many times my friend, and I didn’t like it….no one likes being a Snitch or the Odd-man out, but I have scruples, so I left my “law enforcement career” in less than 2 years because of multiple Douche-bags like THAT, who always had guys like me “on the spot” between a rock and a hard place.
Oh, and that woman on the ground in the rain?
That was my 5 foot 2, 99 pound wife.
Her offence was to DRIVE slowly, with flashers on, to a safer location (parking lot) rather than pull over immediately and expose the officer to rush hour traffic on a busy roadway with no shoulder at dusk in the pouring rain, and try to EXPLAIN that to the 23 year old CHILD who became enraged that she didn’t immediately stop.
I’ll make a deal with you slick….How about YOU serve two hitches as a regular old grunt, make sergeant and become a PMI, THEN try to find the same sense of Pride and Professionalism with your with your local P.D. when you decide to settle down with a family.
You just MIGHT be, as bitterly disappointed as I was.
He said he was a police officer, never said how long. With those immature comments, want to bet he washed out before his probation was over?
Root ’83 from your attitude and tone I would say its just about nailed on that you too are of the Black persuasion and are just trying to protect and make excuses the ‘Brother’ here. Much like Blacks did for OJ and as they are doing now for the USURPERS “Son” the Black THUG and gold tooth wearing ,self confessed Gangsta Wannabe and ‘No Limits NIGGA” Trayvon Martin.
Very pragmatic of you to assign race based on text…
I’m actually red haired (whats left of it) and freckles….and SPF 45+ for me in the WINTER because I’m so disgustingly white (I don’t like taking my shirt off at the beach as its rather blinding) and I have no sense of rhythm AT ALL..if you ask me to dance, I’ll look like Forest Gump, but thanks for speculating…
As for cops, I’m more comfortable with my fellow Armed Citizens providing security….because I’ve never EVER seen two full magazines discharged in any “self defense” encounter by a civilian, and I’ve certainly never seen 9 bystanders gunned down by all their stray rounds.
Can anyone find a single incident of a private citizen display such poor marksmanship skills when THEY have a lethal encounter?
Anywhere?
EVER?
Bullsh*t, you were never a cop. You may have tried to be and were turned down, but you never were one.
Didn’t make probation, huh? Your bitterness runneth over.
Most of these cop haters have have been guests in the Sheriff’s crossbar motel at one time or another. It’s no wonder they dislike the police. Just looking at them brings back bad memories. I’ll bet this guy doesn’t have shoelaces either.
IOf you are REALLY that stupid, please turn in your driver’s license, never vote, and preferably don’t leave your home.
Anyone that stupid is a menace to society.
More likely, you are simply dishonest.
But, just in case it really IS terminal stupidity, I’ll try to sort this out for you:
He wasn’t subdued and whacked “over skateboarding”. He was subdued because he tried to run away, and then he resisted arrest.
I suppose it’s possible that somewhere in the U.S., sometime, some bad cop really HAS whacked somebody over skateboarding or speeding or running a stop light or some other minor offense.
It could happen.
What DOES happen, probably many times each day in the U.S., is that some stupid idiot (like you, perhaps), gets stopped for some minor offense, and instead of handling it like a reasonable person, instead refuses to cooperate, gets belligerent, thus escalates what SHOULD HAVE BEEN a minor offense and winds up resisting arrest. By his own stupid choice.
Now, try to follow this part:
Once the person is resisting arrest, it’s not about the original offense anymore.
Really, it’s not.
It’s about resisting arrest.
But I’m probably wasting my time. You are either too dishonest or too stupid to see that simple logic.
Or, more likely, your parents utterly failed to teach you basic personal responsibility.
You truly are an idiot! Take the test, come on the job, and show everyone the correct way to do it. Jackass!
Weekley is a fun guy with a really violent record, did you know that? As for the undeserved beat down, if find that if stopped by any police officer, following orders is the best way not to suffer a beat down. And I’ve been stopped by cops a lot. As for the injuries he claims. . .I’m not buying it. People with broken jaws can’t speak as lucidly as he does, and where are the blacked and swollen eyes that result from a broken nose.
Sorry, I have no sympathy for this guy. All he is looking for is a pay day.
it’s just monday.
There are three more days of the RNC to go.
They must be hoping desperately that some poor black or muslim yut will be killed in a way that they can exploit shamelessly.
The mindset of police “officers” who would bother someone about a skateboarding “violation” is the most frightening thing about the whole incident. A common sense response would have been to tell him to watch the stop signs over their PA system, and then move on to something a lot more important to public safety.
The outstanding warrants? Most likely they are citations for similarly pointless violations; a 20 year old skateboarder is hardly likely to be a criminal mastermind.
I’ve travelled a lot in Europe, and do not fear encounters with the police there. I do fear encounters with local cops here in California(the statewide CHP is uniformly professional and probably the least corrupt LE force in the country). Contrast the German police who fired LESS THAN 90 BULLETS at citizens in all of 2011 with our trigger-happy boys in blue. But then, German police are completely under control and not full of poorly trained, obese special forces fanboys living their fantasy in SWAT gear under incompetent supervision.
But until we end the pointless war on drugs and cease allowing unconstitutional asset forfeitures, we’ll just have to live with it. Why anyone thought that allowing police forces to just keep citizens property when they feel like it would not result in abuse is beyond insane.
I don’t think the Germans have conditioned their minority population to “act up” when challenged by a lawful order like we have here in the US.
But then again, I’ve never been to Germany. But I do know that when you are rewarded for misbehavior (e.g. becoming a hero for resisting arrest) and given non-conditional support by members of the press and race hustlers, the likelihood that an encounter escalates to violence certainly increases. That is common sense.
I don’t think you spend much time around minorities. They will go to great lengths to avoid contact with the police. As do I, and I am a white male, clean cut, nice car, often in military uniform.
I bet I spend a whole lot more time around minorities than you, or you wouldn’t have made such an unsubstantiated comment. My experience is a) the perpetrators run or hide when police show up, b) a crowd will gather around the scene of the crime including Blacks (depending on the neighborhood, the crowd might be mostly Black), and c) most people avoid direct contact with police (or do you ever spend time around White people?)
The difference is how they react when the contact is unavoidable. No argument that white trash are often antagonistic to police or resist arrest. Again, my point being that the media and race hustlers don’t come to their defense. Most other Whites think whatever beating they got was the result of their own stupidity.
I recently read an article about German culture. An American commented to his host that he was surprised at the conduct of pedestrians – they actually obeyed the traffic signs. ALL of them obeyed ALL the signs. You would never see that in any American city or town. Never.
The German’s explanation was, “We are a very obedient people.”
Any time we compare crime issues between countries, we must take into account these important cultural differences.
Americans are NOT an “obedient people”. We are a bunch of rebels.
This shows up in good ways and bad ways.
The fact that German cops fire only 90 rounds per year has less to do with German police training and more to do with German culture.
Yeah, but wouldn’t our ghetto residents become as obedient to the law as Germans if the U.S. adopted German gun control laws? After all, it has often been pointed out how much less gun-violence they have.
We could ask the Swiss. From what I’m told, just about all the Swiss own guns, and I don’t hear about police brutality there.
But I’ll repeat myself. The problem in America is encouragement to disrespect authority (especially promoted in the Black community) and an insane legal system that encourages criminals to sue when hurt in the course of felony resistance. As some else said, scuffling with an armed officer is just plain stupid. Liability should fall back on the idiot.
Germany doesn’t just control guns – laws and regulations control every aspect of life in ways that would drive Americans nuts. That said, there’s lots of guns in Germany. There are plenty of hunters and almost every town and village has a rifle club. At least until a few years ago, shooting was the second most popular organized sport after soccer.
Some of Germany’s more arcane shooting sports are lots of fun. Bollenshiessen is a Bavarian pasttime involving dressing in folk costume and shooting enormous guns with big loads of propellant but no projectile; its all about making noise and drinking beer.
Germany’s Lutheran heritage has resulted in a shared prosperity where it is difficult to get really rich, but relatively easy to do very well financially. So, most members of the underclass are there by choice, usually for political or philosophical reasons.
So you believe that quality of life crimes shouldn’t be enforced – laws that protect the safety of the public due to reckless individuals on skateboards shouldn’t be enforced as well? So you believe that the police should be selective in the crimes they “want’ to enforce? Interesting, why not run for a legislative position and change these laws instead of complaining that police officers are enforcing what the majority of the constituency has asked for.
Maybe if Weekly had done what the hell he was told there would have been no punching. When a man wearing a gun tells you to get on the ground, how frickin’ dumb do you have to be antagonize and irritate that man. Get on your stupid face and let him cuff you and you won’t get a scratch.
As for the Lamestream Media, they should be ashamed. They love them some riots and if they have to lie to stir one up, well them’s the breaks.
Jackasses.
“Resisting” is the biggest crock of shit there is.
Cops are simply offended by people who say “no” to their unreasonable, and often ILLEGAL demands of submission, and they react with anger and (eventually) violence because they are not mature enough to handle their job.
Funny how often the “cause” charge is relatively minor and eventually dropped, but the “resisting” part costs you the big bucks, or maybe even your life. That’s the game they play, to show you who’s in charge. Kids, Granny, Invalid, they don’t care.
I said Kneel Before Me Peon, and you will….or else.
There is no LEGITIMATE reason to have a woman in a dress lie face down on a rain soaked roadway when she has children in the car, and is OBVIOUSLY no threat, just a little annoyed at being stopped 8 miles over the speed limit on her way home…..but I’ve seen it done many times. Its often done SPECIFICALLY to outrage/humiliate the husband/boyfriend who is travelling with her. They can usually count on him objecting, and then “the fun” begins.
The crime is Contempt of Cop. Your failure to show appropriate fear and reverence makes them punish you. The demands/punishment WILL escalate in its inappropriateness (and pain, if need be) until they are SATISFIED with the humiliation you’ve received.
Demands that anyone would reasonably balk at (like leaving your children unattended in a car, not being allowed to contain/secure the family pet excited by the event, denied use of their Asthma inhaler, etc etc.) is delicious cause for them to ESCALATE their demands for submission. If you display an unrepentant or “un-subdued emotional attitude” by their show of force , they will continue to apply duress until you fully submit, or “resist”.
Balking at their unreasonable and intentionally provocative demands, or daring to question them(the verboten” is this really necessary?” or “are you serious?”) is what they’re actually HOPING for, because it gives them a green light for further “control measures” that result in Submission Holds that WILL make you squirm with pain (resisting!) and then “require” even further escalations like mace, taze, and baton.
Once you have encountered them, they can NEVER EVER just “let it go” without you being humiliated in some form or another.. You must express utter, total subservience and relief that they haven’t killed you, or arrested you for a felony, or they will continue to press the matter. Its about power, not the law. Its about their ego, not public safety.
And that’s the Holy Grail of “resisting arrest”…..all because some immature punk with a God Complex is having a bad day, and needs a dog to kick…
That dog is you. Or your wife. Or you kid.
I’ve seen this played out intentionally, with literal malice aforethought, so many times I quit my “law enforcement career” early in complete disgust.
I am a conservative who agrees with much of what you say. I wonder how many of these cop apologists have been arrested.
Unless you have been arrested, and likely wrongly, you have no idea what you are talking about when you defend the biggest group of whiners and crybabies in America,aka cops.
Unless you have seen or experienced the relish they take in bullying people who are supposed to be considered innocent until proven guilty, you really don’t know what you are talking about.
Until you have witnessed cops blatantly lie in reports and the witness stand, and cockily do it knowing all the time they will get away with it, you don’t know what you are talking about.
I have seen and known too many cops to be fooled by the likes of Mr. Dunphy. Cops are trained to see the world as “Us vs Them” and that they are the good guys and can do whatever they want and say whatever they want to justify it.
No one needs to feel sorry for the poor cop who puts himself in danger. No one has forced them to take that job and in fact I have had more than one cop tell me that the adrenaline rush is the reason they do it.
It has been said that the 90% of cops that are bad make it hard for the 10% that are good. I can’t say that I’ve seen any reason to disagree with that assessment. My experience is that the word of a cop is just about the last one a person should take at face value.
If cops want to be shown more respect by the public they could start by holding back the arrogance, and showing more respect to the public.
Blah, blah, blah — talk about a sense of entitlement.
“Blah, blah, blah — talk about a sense of entitlement” I don’t know what you mean by that, unless you mean the cops sense of entitlement to bully citizens.
Jack Dunphy begins his article with this:
“Oh how comforting is the mantle of victimhood, how rosy and flattering is the light that so often shines on those who wear it. And how willing are some to shine that light no matter how tenuous the claim to victimhood may be.”
He couldn’t have offered a better description of how many cops present themselves to the public.
We, including you, Mr Crawford, deserve better.
Winner of the Nonsensical Post Of The Week Award!
I wasn’t a choir boy growing up and I can’t think of a single time that someone got roughed up by the cops that wasn’t drunk, belligerent, or both.
Right or wrong, you are stupid if you don’t think you are going to go to jail once they ask you to turn around to put the cuffs on. Any argument after that point will just make the situation worse for you.
Exactly, Tom T. I had my share of the wrong kind of contact w the law as a teenager, and what you said is true. The vast majority of cops are just trying to do an almost impossible job in today’s political climate. If it has come to the point where they are going to cuff you in most jurisdictions you’ve either done something seriously wrong or acted like a complete jackass during the arrest. In 99.9% of traffic stops the driver is never asked to get out of the car. The other 0.1% either refused to keep their hands in site, popped off at the cop, or had their license number on some sort of list.
I have a lot of libertarian leanings. The idea that I can call a cop a m*****f****r during an arrest and refuse to do what I am told is far over the line between libertarianism and just plain dumbass anarchy.
Yes, and someone who would resist despite all that — well, who knows what such a person might do.
“… so many times I quit my ‘law enforcement career’ early in complete disgust …”
You were never in “law enforcement”, unless it was as a trainee going through academy — from which you probably washed out.
The more I’ve thought about it, I don’t think you were ever in the US Marine Corps. You may have washed out of boot camp. You may have been in for awhile, but gotten put out on a General, or a Dishonorable.
Your posts here are chock-full of the same basic victimhood which Dunphy is writing about.
To anyone who has gone around some blocks in life, getting to know people, you have been exposing yourself as a self-pitying loser.
Everything is someone else’s fault.
Sleep well tonight.
And this is a story worth writing about – why? We all know that minorities are set upon by “authorities” all the time and for no reason other than being brown. It is always surprising to me that so many of our “conservative” friends are so anti-government until it comes to policing brown people.
Since when are brown Indian computer programmers being all the time set upon by cops?
Obviously Mr.Weekley needs to watch this educational video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65zXlytv01c
I don’t care to listen to anything racist Chris (craka-a$$-craka) Rock has to say
Brutus,
Maybe if the brown and black people weren’t the ones committing such an outrageously disproportionate share of American crime, we’d care more about it. Check out the stats about who has shot/stabbed/injured police officers in any major metropolis and you’ll see the perps are upwards of 80% black/brown. Then ask yourself why the cops come loaded for bear when they’re dealing with a black or a brown. Maybe you’ll get a clue.
So true Mac OVER 50% of all the murders and OVER 60% of all the violent crimes in the USA are committed by BLACK “Youths” between the ages of 15 and 25 who comprise a MINISCULE less than 2% of the USA’s population. So should you be extremely wary of violent young Black men – your darn right you should.
The main cause of death for a Black youth is to be killed by another Black youth.
How Racist it is of all those victims to give Blacks such a bad name hey moonbats. I mean it MUST be the victims fault because Blacks are a protected species and above all criticism.
er, maybe because they are little racists at heart?
What the person who is uneducated as to the nature, law and procedures of actual police work fail to recognize is that the suspect tends to control the response and escalation of force, if necessary, by the police.
Skateboarding “laws” exist because a bunch of citizen voters put pressure on their elected officials to put them on the books. The cops do not make the laws. If you don’t like the law you should get involved and get it changed.
Had the officers ignored Mr. Weekly’s skateboarding in the street and then some motorist hits him because he (Weekly) didn’t belong in the middle of the street-then the outcry would have condemned the police for not doing their jobs.
It appears from this article, Weekly certainly warranted contact by the police. Once contacted, Weekly got loud and profane in his language; and resistive (by trying to leave, making a combative stance, acting furtively, etc…) to the officer’s lawful questions.
This certainly raises “red flags” to the police who may not know who Weekly is or what his intentions are. The officers are concerned about their safety and the safety of the surrounding public. They do not know if Weekly has committed a more serious crime-perhaps causing his aberrant behavior.
As far as the “Shallow Media” goes, I do not expect any informed and objective reporting. Weekly and biased reporting of the news turned a minor incident into a community cluster.
The officers did not give a damn about skateboarding. I have personally been involved in six homicide investigations within one hundred yards of that intersection. The suspect looked like a shoreline crip and the officers used the skateboarding violation to legally detain him. When he ran that escalated the situation. Like it or not, this type of aggressive police work has saved hundreds if not thousands of lives in Los Angeles.
If you dislike law enforcement, this won’t change your mind, but the last thing an officer in LAPD wants is a use of force. Any altercation results in hours of documentation, investigation and review. Recently, we have been seeing the opposite of the heavy handed cop. Officers are avoiding an altercation at the expense and safety of other citizens and officers.
Thanks…..that reads like common sense. As soon as that woman amateurish “reporter” on the TV screen started that arm motion business I clicked away.
You are correct that the “reason for the stop” was a pretense for the real reason-that of preventing gangsta activity. But most readers would think this is subjective and would be construed as racial profiling or some such excuse. The real reason is to fight crime and criminal activity within our legal framework and constraints by whatever legal means available.
That’s not racial profiling.
It’s “who he is, where he is, how he’s dressed, possible previous encounters, obvious demeanor” profiling.
I have no problem with that.
Doesn’t look like a Shoreline at all. He’s a college student. I could have told that from a mile away. Maybe the beat officers need some retraining what real gangsters look like.
Skateboarders! If possible, they’re more arrogant and sanctimonious than bicyclers.
Here in the college town I live in, Indiana we’re infested with them — overgrown infants playing with their little wheeled play-pretties in traffic, on the sidewalk, and anywhere else. They dare you to object to them zooming down the sidewalk at a breakneck speed, endangering pedestrians and their own lives when they roll right into traffic.
All arrested development head-cases need, to complete the picture, is a propeller beanie and some marbles to play with. Then they would be the complete image of 5th-grade schoolboys.
Ghetto cop got it right, local police know their area (and the key players) better than the average citizen. Being proactive in stopping a suspected bad guy is what a good cop does, but if you believe Root this shouldn’t be the case because beat cops are only supposed to be reactive and not proactive. Well here’s a clue: when cops are only reactive (only responding to radio calls after something has happened) good citizens suffer the consequences and they are the ones getting hurt and victimized. Proactive policing on the other hand prevents crime because cops get involved with thugs before they upset the balance of nature with good people.
You guys who think that cops should pretend the streets of L.A. are like Disneyland are living in a fantasy world, and unlike Root there are a lot of citizens who understand this reality. Yes, sometimes even good cops can go rogue, but in this day and age that’s the exception rather than the rule, there’s just too much heat and payback for going overboard. The fact is if you keep hammering good cops for doing their duty then they can just as easily look the other way when they’re thinking of making a stop … and then you can deal with the AH one-on-one when the cops just wave and keep on rolling by.
As for Root; he may or may not have been a Marine and/or a cop, but his attitude is certainly different than what I experienced because I, too, was a Marine and a cop and I didn’t see the job the same way he did. Maybe he should have hung in there a little longer before getting all bitter and anti-establishment and giving up, that’s what most good Marines would do. I’m just saying.
I am an LAPD officer who is tired of people hating cops and always thinking there’s a conspiracy in framing or beating up idiot suspects. Thats why I and a large growing amount of cops are starting to refuse to do their job and are willing to just get that paycheck without working for it. We get payed whether I work which will end up in an idiot saying I did something illegal, or I can just hide out all night doing nothing and getting that FREE paycheck til I retire. I do feel sorry for those very few good people that do support us and need us, but it’s not worth getting fired from some false allegation that We did something illegal. We will just continue to get that paycheck and stay out of trouble by not doing my job which YOU expected me to do. So don’t complain when the officer shows up 1 hour late to your call or he doesn’t care about helping you out. You chose for US not to do our job.
I grew up in SoCal where my grandpa was a chief of police in a small town in a different part of the State.
When I was 12, I was ticketed by a motorcycle cop for riding my skateboard on the sidewalk in front of my house. Yep, that’s right, he wrote me a full-on traffic citation for minding my own business on an empty sidewalk on front of my house in the middle of summer. My mother even came out to vouch for me to no avail.
At the insistence of my grandpa I made the court appearance to dispute the ticket. Thankfully the judge grilled the cop and my ticket was dismissed. To this day, I remember the cop and his abusive, nasty, and outrageous attitude. Had my mother or I done anything other than submit to his illegitimate use of authority, I am absolutely certain the situation would have been worse. And that’s the point. This cop was absolutely comfortable abusing the rights of a 12 year old kid for no reason other than to get his jollies and make himself feel important.
Does that mean the kid in this story is some kind of saint? No, of course not. But cops are NOT a bunch of saints either. Yes, they work in tough circumstances and do dangerous and thankless jobs. But that doesn’t mean that any of us would like it if we (or our kid) was arrested and beaten up for refusing to submit to some jackass cop who wants to write you a ticket for something as trivial as riding a skateboard.
DID YOU READ THIS ARTICLE or are you just venting cause you still hold a grudge for a cop? Get a life, move on. Everyone complains about cops until they become a victim of a crime. Go into the most violent areas of Los Angeles and see the gangsters who terrorize communities begging for more cops to patrol. Gangsters are now going to all areas of LA cause they’re desperate for money. Most residents in LA are intelligent and support their officers. But we hardly ever hear the positive stories because we live in a society that loves chaos.
@ Not worth doing my job: Thanks for your insight. Unfortunately, most police in the US don’t understand that Americans are completely fed up with police misconduct. I lead an insulated middle class life and I have seen cops lie, withhold evidence, and steal. And this is supposed to make me feel comfortable in my dealings with LE?
Attitudes won’t change until the average, innocent citizen can have an encounter with police without feeling like they have to grovel to the badge.
To Master of disaster, brother every industry including your field of work, there will always be workers who are dishonest, lie, and abuse whatever power they got in their job title. People like you will always see and focus on the 1% or less bad cops that do exist on police departments, same 1% at your job. Like I said, I will continue to get my $95,000 a year paycheck with NO overtime, and some years I was earning up to $140,000 with overtime, without being required to do my job cause people will always Assume we did wrong and are corrupt. I get payed whether I work or sleep all night hiding somewhere til my shift is over. Your loss my friend. And sadly, cops like me who have lost faith and hope in our society are growing in numbers rapidly refusing to do their job to avoid getting falsely and constantly accused of supposidly being corrupt cops. I do apologize to the few good people out there who support us and that we have failed you by giving up when you didn’t give up on us and you continued to be a good citizen. After 23 years as a cop, I give up on society changing for the better. Since I was a Rookie, society has been getting worst but expect the cops to saints.
Yo, Not worth, I feel your pain and disgust with the system bro, but your response leaves me just a bit angry. I was in your shoes once (77th, Venice, Harbor, WLA & West Valley) and I also worked as a Detective for awhile, and I also did a stint at the academy as an instructor, but I always felt that my heart was in patrol and I eventually went back and served in a B&W until my last day. And I loved it!
Sure, we had complaints and bad raps against us, and we were spit on and cussed at and treated like pond scum, but not once did I ever NOT want to do my job, and if I ever felt that way I would have quit. I really don’t like to hear about a seasoned field officer like yourself who doesn’t like his job, and it’s even worse when you talk about how little you do for the big bucks you get.
Don’t get me wrong, I perfectly understand the burnout issue, but if that’s the case then go inside and do something else … but do something because even if you don’t want to help the taxpayers out there who are paying your salary, all the other cops in your division are hoping you still have enough spunk left in you to do the right thing when they put out the Officer Needs Help radio call, and they’re expecting you to hang it all out to get to the scene and take care of business. If you can’t do that (and I know it happens) then go inside and bide your time until you retire. I’m just saying.
Sir:
With respect technology has provided a solution to this problem. My unit in Iraq used wearable digital video cameras every time we rolled out the gate of our FOB. The cameras were rolling the whole time until we rolled back in the gate and went to debrief where the intel weenies would collect our gadgets and download the content. They said they were looking for familiar faces, vehicles, etc as we moved through parts of the city mounted and on foot. The trainers reviewed the footage to see where we screwed up and how we could improve on future missions. One of the greatest added benefits was that the cameras kept us on the up and up dealing with the Iraqis. Please believe me that some of them were every bit as difficult and dangerous to deal with as some of your L.A. gang bangers. The flip side of that coin is that it covered our asses. On several occations my unit had been accused of damaging civilian property when in fact the various Iraqi Army units had been the really bad drivers… Ditto for the out of town pilgrims who were roughed up. It was some of our European allies who mistook them for Jaish al Mahdi, not us, who were accused of it. Since every patrol officer is collecting taxpayer money when they punch in, have them strap on a pair of recording cameras. At the end of their shift they check them in for download and storage for the next 180 days. The technology already exists, the cost is minor compared to much of the equipment PDs purchase, It’ll keep all officers honest on patrol and will protect officers from unfounded accusations from huxsters and proffessional victims, and it should keep you awake and doing your job if there is any decent supervision at all in your division.
Thank you for your service. I hope you can improve your attitude. If you can’t, find a new job. The public and your fellow officers deserve it! I couldn’t, and that’s why I retired from the military as soon as I hit twenty years…
Sincerely, Armageddon Rex, MSGT, Retired
I do not understand why you brought color into this? Also what difference what part of the city it was in, it appears you are playing the poor cop card when you do that. While South Los Angeles does have it rough part it does not mean all the people are bad. The people who voted for the police to have raises or pass bonds (taxes) on your behalf you lump in being a criminal element.
I do not know the facts of the case and I will not judge those officers I know their job is tough, but in that same token lets not trade victim for victim.
Guess you didn’t read the coverage of LA Weekly, the first print-based outlet to report the story. Nowhere in our coverage was there more than one punch, or a victim being beaten while he was “handcuffed.” We questioned why Weekley didn’t just submit to the officers’ orders, as he should have. Compliant media indeed.
On the other hand, police need to answer what they were doing taking a skateboarder down for nothing more than riding on the wrong side of the street.
Mr. Dunphy, the neighborhood and the socioeconomic/ethnic backgrounds involved have nothing to do with it. You describe this part of Venice as if its unknown ghetto status is a gotcha. There’s also a Whole Foods within walking distance, and officers need to treat any skater the same as they would a soccer mom picking up organic grapes. Police should treat everyone as if they’re wearing a Brooks Brothers suit and $500 loafers.
To Dennis: “On the other hand, police need to answer what they were doing taking a skateboarder down for nothing more than riding on the wrong side of the street.”
Dennis you obviously think Venice is just a bunch of yupies, its not. There are gangsters trolling around waiting for their next victim. You wrote the story of the dog that was stabbed in broad daylight after he assaulted another victim in Venice. Some say the area where this skateboarder was is Crip territory. Sorry Dennis but the area has everything to do with motive. If police are in a gangster area who do you think they come across a lot? Gangsters!!! Police would treat people like they’re wearing a Brooks Brothers suit but problem is way too many officers have been assaulted because more and more criminals are packing heat. When an Officer guard is down that’s when suspect like this kid resisted arrest fight like hell to get away. Wake Up Dennis Romero. We’re living in LA
Hector:
I lived in Venice for eight years, know the area well, and wrote a definitive piece about the gangs in the community (Google my personal website and check it out).
The area is mixed. It’s Shoreline turf and it’s Venice 13 turf and it’s yuppie turf.
As I said above, the guy doesn’t look like a Shoreline from a mile away. He was a college kid riding a skateboard. Dunphy’s inclusion of racial and socioeconomic background says a lot about the old LAPD mindset when it comes to people of color. Guilty of being the wrong color in the wrong place, it seems.
Like I said, the kid should have stopped, end of story. But if you’re saying cops were profiling him as a Shoreline and using skating as a pretext to check him out, then they have some apologizing to do, at least for getting that part wrong.
College kids in that area typically have three warrents outstanding?
Cops stop working! Do not be proactive! The Depart and City will not back you! The “Community” is not the same “Community” that built this city and supported it police officers. Let them reap what they have sown and quietly collect your pay check. The Oaklandization of Los Angeles is inevitable just like every race bating social justice minority run city has become. Michigan, Baltimore, Oakland, Philadelphia etc….. The Titanic is sinking don’t let you and your family get caught in this failed progressive experiment.
Am I wrong in assuming that the skateboarder and his parental units are raising hell in the hopes of getting some kind of financial payoff from the City? Isn’t that usually the reason Obama’s people cry racism any more, especially since our President has found it difficult and time-consuming to actually pry wealth from the hands of those who have it, to “equitably distribute it” to those who voted for him (another way of saying, “taking from the rich and giving to the poor”, or just … “theft”).
Is everyone serious? The officers actions were justified because the kid tried to “run away”? He was skateboarding outside his house, how is retreating inside trying to escape? If he wanted to get away don’t you think he would go ANYWHERE other than HIS OWN HOUSE. It’s not like once he makes it inside the officers can no longer issue a citation. Definitely isn’t a justified use of force, I would have resisted being detained without any legitimate reason as well.
Armchair conductor…you’re missing the point / essence of the story Sam….police tells u to stop…you stop…not two blocks away…not in your house. He did not get the ” pile- up” treatment because he ran…its because of all of his actions taken together:. And not complying.If you would’ve done ur homework… you would know about the use of force continuum and escalation of force appropriate actions…ehhh…feels like I’m wasting letters, your mind is made up.
Deja vu all over again. Two of LA’s finest caught on video for slaming a 34 year old nurse and mother to the ground twice, then fist-bumping when they pop her into the patrol car. For talkin’ on a cell phone. Google “Michelle Jordan Sunland”.
So really, you guys are not all dicks?
It’s time for good people like you to step up to the plate…