“Jesus. Call the police”.
March 16, 2015 7:03 PM   Subscribe

Why I didn't call the police when I saw two black boys with guns next door. [The Guardian]
"My husband’s instinct was to call law enforcement, but that didn't seem like the solution. Especially after Tamir Rice."
posted by Fizz (93 comments total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 
Well that's an intelligent, thoughtful and brave way to behave.

But I can't help feeling that writing an article for the Guardian about how great you were for acting in a completely reasonable, responsible way is a bit icky...
posted by Jimbob at 7:08 PM on March 16, 2015 [18 favorites]


But I can't help feeling that writing an article for the Guardian about how great you were for acting in a completely reasonable, responsible way is a bit icky...

Agreed. But sadly, this kind of "intelligent, thoughtful and brave" behaviour is rare enough that I think it's important to share and highlight.
posted by Fizz at 7:19 PM on March 16, 2015 [6 favorites]


I read it more as a kind of gentle public service reminder. A lot of people, especially sheltered white suburban types, are very casual about calling the police to deal with just about any out of the ordinary situation, and those people need to be made aware that doing that can have horrific consequences.

In the case where the police shot John Crawford to death in Walmart, there's a video synced up with the 911 recording, and you can hear that realization in the caller's voice as the police that he called kill an innocent man.
posted by ernielundquist at 7:23 PM on March 16, 2015 [45 favorites]


Yep. I'd have to be pretty damn sure there was danger before I'd call the cops these days. I don't want some innocent person's blood on my hands. Of course, not calling the police also might mean innocent blood on my hands. Thanks for nothing, asshole police departments.
posted by emjaybee at 7:31 PM on March 16, 2015 [47 favorites]


I feel like this all the time. How can I possibly call the police on somebody else when I know they could die because I did?
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:32 PM on March 16, 2015 [10 favorites]


A couple years ago, I looked out my kitchen window, to the rooftop next door where my neighbors sometimes have parties, and saw a guy pointing (what looked like) a rifle in my general direction. But, white dude, trilby/fedora, so...no one was going to call the cops.

It was maybe the previous December, right before Christmas, two young men, previous gang members, were shot to death around the corner from my house as they sat on a stoop. (I did call the cops that night, because I heard the shots from my back porch, the shots and the screech of tires.)

Last week, an 18-year-old man, a black guy, a close friend of the boy who lives next door who I've known since he was about five years old, was shot to death along with another young black man as they sat in a car by a park.

But.

A couple weeks ago, the police shot a young Guatemalan man to death on the street near my house - they were plainclothes, and he had a knife, because he was chasing a man who had just robbed him. Two people saw it happen; they're afraid to talk to the police because like the victim, they are undocumented.

And in the meantime, the DA's office will be reviewing dozens of convictions because four officers have been found to have texted racist and homophobic messages to each other. One of those officers was just convicted of corruption; all of the officers under investigation have been on the force for a decade or more.

Yeah, I think twice about calling the cops.
posted by rtha at 7:37 PM on March 16, 2015 [33 favorites]


I'm OK with someone being a bit self-congratulatory if maybe it encourages other self-congratulatory people to not call the racist-ass cops if they might end up killing more children. If we can use people's natural inclination to be self-aggrandizing to reduce the amount of police violence I'm OK with that.

Also, the author of the piece is Black, so that might spin things a bit differently, and I kinda think that makes it sound a bit less self-congratulatory. I'm glad the kids were OK.
posted by NoraReed at 7:40 PM on March 16, 2015 [25 favorites]


This is interesting in a way that's not captured by the pullquote.

She doesn't call the police because she knows the boys -- they're neighbor kids she knows, and they're playing with toy guns, and she calls their mom.

This isn't a case of "they were unknown kids with real guns and I still didn't call the police"... it doesn't really make an argument for that. The point is that she knows the kids, and that she takes the extra moment to look and recognize them and recognize their guns are toys. So the important part is the knowing black boys as kids, as your neighbors. That's the missing piece. Residential segregation, class and race based residential segregation, white cops who don't know any black kids as just kids.

I think there's also a further cultural piece she's trying to point out. The author is black (I gather) herself, and married to a white guy, and they know their neighbors who live in the low-income building next door. She talks about how in Trinidad, it's common for adults to tell other people's kids to behave themselves, and generally there's more comfort getting into each other's business (maybe she means, by contrast with her white American husband who would tend to wait and let the police handle it?).
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:42 PM on March 16, 2015 [50 favorites]


You'll shoot your eye out, kid.

Seriously though, one major point is missing from this article.

According to Section 36 of the VCRA (Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006), which came into effect on 1 October 2007, RIF's (Realistic Imitation Firearms) may not be sold, imported or manufactured.[32] Unrealistic imitation firearms (IF's) must have their principle colour as transparent, bright red, bright orange, bright yellow, bright blue, bright green, bright pink or bright purple or have dimensions of no more than a height of 38 millimetres and a length of 70 millimetres (as defined in the Home Office regulations for the VCRA).

The author says:

In their hands the black, snub nosed guns look real.

She means, the bright orange or bright blue imitation guns, perhaps?
posted by charlie don't surf at 7:45 PM on March 16, 2015


Those links are UK links. Please see these Airsofts available in the US, from Dick's Sporting Goods. Do they look bright blue or orange to you?

The kid shot by the cop in Santa Rosa a few years ago was carrying a bb gun that looked real to the cop, who was a shooting range instructor.
posted by rtha at 7:49 PM on March 16, 2015 [12 favorites]


Yeah, the author lives in Brooklyn, not the UK.
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:49 PM on March 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Airsoft guns in the US are, at least in CA, required to have orange safety tips on the muzzles. But kids take them off or paint them over. Bad deal.
posted by wuwei at 7:58 PM on March 16, 2015 [4 favorites]


Never, ever call the cops. Under any circumstances. No matter what.
posted by 445supermag at 8:13 PM on March 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


A Letter From Black America
The shots stopped as quickly as they had started. The man disappeared between some buildings. Chest heaving, hands shaking, I tried to calm my crying daughter, while my husband, friends and I all looked at one another in breathless disbelief. I turned to check on Hunter, a high school intern from Oregon who was staying with my family for a few weeks, but she was on the phone.

“Someone was just shooting on the beach,” she said, between gulps of air, to the person on the line.

Unable to imagine whom she would be calling at that moment, I asked her, somewhat indignantly, if she couldn’t have waited until we got to safety before calling her mom.

“No,” she said. “I am talking to the police.”

My friends and I locked eyes in stunned silence. Between the four adults, we hold six degrees. Three of us are journalists. And not one of us had thought to call the police. We had not even considered it.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:25 PM on March 16, 2015 [31 favorites]


Never, ever call the cops. Under any circumstances. No matter what.

Poe's Law is too strong in this thread.
posted by Sangermaine at 8:25 PM on March 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


Sometime around '89-'90 in Glendale, CA, my friends and I had the cops called on us because we were out in public with guns at night. It was a late after-school practice for our high school ROTC armed drill team. We had surplus M1 rifles that had the barrels filled in. Totally inoperable. And we were spinning and throwing them around.

To this day, my mom thinks it's one of the most hilarious moments of my childhood. That was, alas, a good 25-ish years ago. And in a predominantly white, Asian & Armenian suburb of LA.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 8:28 PM on March 16, 2015 [4 favorites]


> Never, ever call the cops. Under any circumstances. No matter what.

See, but then, this, in which a young woman, a mom, was caught in crossfire trying to get her kids in the house. A fight had started a little while earlier between two groups, and neighbors called the police, but the police did not come. They came when the bullets started, though. It was broad daylight. Suspects have been arrested.
posted by rtha at 8:32 PM on March 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Never, ever call the cops. Under any circumstances. No matter what.

In ten years of living in Seattle, I've had a lot of interactions with cops. All but one or two of them were positive experiences--even "restore your faith in people" positive. The bad experiences really weren't any worse than dealing with a cranky salesperson at a store.

But I'm white, and fairly clean-cut, and I have just close enough of a background with law enforcement of my own that I tend to be reflexively sympathetic to cops. And I see an awful lot of headlines about cops in this city that run completely counter to my experiences.

I'm not going to ignore the scary headlines and the complaints others have against police, but I'm not ready to adopt the "don't ever call the cops" stance, either.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 8:36 PM on March 16, 2015 [7 favorites]


Never, ever call the cops. Under any circumstances. No matter what.

I can see why many Americans would hold this opinion - US cops seem to execute unarmed people on the street with staggering frequency. But it reads as insane from my Australian perspective.

Not that Australian cops are perfect - I've seen high handed behaviour at protests by cops, horses stomping on protestors, and Aussie cops have killed unarmed people during arrests before. But when someone gets killed here, there's an automatic investigation, no arguments.

But I've also called the cops when I found a guy unconcious on the street because a cab had hit him and drove away, and had them show up in minutes with an ambulance. I've dealt with polite and professional cops on random breath tests numerous times, or even in speeding ticket interactions (when I was in the wrong).

NSW cops are now introducing body cameras, and they're not even complaining about it.

I guess that what I'm trying to say is, it doesn't have to be this way. You can have a police force that has a reputation for trust and works to live up to it, and it's better for both the police and the community. I just don't understand why so many US police forces seem to have no interest in this.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 8:41 PM on March 16, 2015 [27 favorites]


Think about it like this. Even if you are a white person, which makes it less likely, a routine interaction with the police can lead to the seizure of your property or person for no reason. You can be arrested, which will derail your career because of background checks, or you can simply incur surveillance or suspicion by making the police aware of your existence. If you have anything that makes you remarkable in any way—an interracial marriage, a prominent tattoo, a bumper sticker of the flying spaghetti monster—you're more memorable, and thus at greater risk.

I would have a hard time calling the police for anything less than "my house was broken into and everything was stolen." They're not going to do anything for you in most cases, and sticking your neck out only has negative outcomes.
posted by sonic meat machine at 8:44 PM on March 16, 2015 [15 favorites]


Yeah, the author lives in Brooklyn, not the UK.

I stand corrected. But the author is clumsy and even upon re-reading, it's hard to tell whether she is talking about Trinidad or Brooklyn or even some metaphorical location.

However, my point stands.

In 1999, the New York City Council expanded and amended the 1955 law requiring that toy guns be colored white, bright red, bright orange, bright yellow, bright green, bright blue, bright pink or bright purple, or constructed entirely of transparent or translucent materials.
posted by charlie don't surf at 8:47 PM on March 16, 2015


the whole "Never call the cops!" thing coming from white people strikes me as macho bullshit.

I've met plenty of black people in my mid-sized southern city who have ambivalent feelings about the police but who call the police when something is up. Police killings are a huge problem, and black people bear the burden majority of that problem. But for all the (justified) complaints I hear about police (I've been working with public defender offices and legal aid offices for about two years now), I don't really hear this militant "Never call the cops!" stuff except from white people from fairly privileged backgrounds.
posted by skewed at 8:50 PM on March 16, 2015 [30 favorites]


Well, I am a white person who grew up trailer-park poor.
posted by sonic meat machine at 8:53 PM on March 16, 2015 [6 favorites]


Well quite a few years ago I was the teenager running around with a very realistic looking bb pistol. One of our neighbors noticed and called my mother--just like this story. My mom, as usual, gave me hell.

Just like this story I knew who called my mom. And yeah, she paid for it. I grew old anyway, stayed out of prison and even went to college.
posted by lester at 8:57 PM on March 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


> However, my point stands.

What is that point, exactly? That she couldn't have seen what she says she saw, because toy guns can't look like real guns, because the city supes passed a law almost 20 years ago? That the kids couldn't have bought - or been given - bb guns from New Jersey or Connecticut?
posted by rtha at 8:58 PM on March 16, 2015 [16 favorites]


I'm not a parent but probably teenagers shouldn't be shooting BB/airsoft/anykindof guns in a residential area.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 8:59 PM on March 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


I hate to come to this conclusion, but there's almost no situation where interacting with the police can leave you better off. Probably nothing will happen, maybe it'll ruin your day, maybe it'll ruin your life, maybe it'll ruin the life of some innocent third person. I guess I'd still call for stolen cars or armed robberies, but anything less, I'd have to think about it pretty hard. Kids running around with possible weapons? Apparently drunk guy hurling verbal abuse on passerby? They taught me in school that I should call, but I've learned from the news that I shouldn't.
posted by echo target at 9:01 PM on March 16, 2015 [4 favorites]


I don't really hear this militant "Never call the cops!" stuff except from white people from fairly privileged backgrounds.

Wealthy, privileged, middle-class white-males, such as myself, routinely call the cops. This is our default-behaviour, when things go awry. So, is it your contention then that poor people, of-colour, don't this more often? Are you living in some alternative universe? Because I can gauranfrickingtee u that this is the precise opposite experience of, gee, almost everyone alive on this planet. Cite will be needed, because this is the exact opposite of how this planet works, from what I've seen.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 9:08 PM on March 16, 2015 [4 favorites]


I'm not clear on your point, either, charlie don't surf - if you're suggesting the children were breaking the law, well, while selling realistic-looking toy guns is illegal in NYC, possessing them isn't.

(And it's pretty easy to discern that the author's talking about Brooklyn. "In Brooklyn, in America, there’s so much hesitation to communally parent. I do it - I’ve told teenagers to stop smoking (actually what I said was I’d prefer they smoked pot than cigarettes), glared at them for roughhousing on the subway and given them the eye for swearing in front of my children. In each instance though, I take quick measure before the reprimand. Is this kid going to cuss me out? Or worse? It hasn’t happened yet, but Brooklyn is not that village.")
posted by gingerest at 9:11 PM on March 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


I'm sure that the forces in the three major cities I've lived in Canada have their problems, but I've only ever had pretty decent interactions with cops even as a teenager, and when I was clearly in the wrong. That's not to say that they weren't scary, because they were, but not scary in a good-christ-I'm-going-to-die kind of way. I'm white, so maybe that's why but I my black friends never had a complaint either.

The news coming out of the States about cops is frightening. I sometimes have a need to go to the States but I'll always avoid it if possible. There is such a huge, circular and escalating culture of fear over there...

Anyway, I liked this article. It had a positive vibe and a nice message: get to know your neighbours.
posted by ashbury at 9:15 PM on March 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


I think probably charlie don't surf is saying that the law against realistic-looking guns ought to be enforced better, and that that would ease situations like this. Not entirely sure, though.
posted by koeselitz at 9:15 PM on March 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


echo target: Kids running around with possible weapons? Apparently drunk guy hurling verbal abuse on passerby? They taught me in school that I should call, but I've learned from the news that I shouldn't.

Really? Because the news has told me a lot about kids accidentally shooting themselves and others, and about people acting unpredictably or hostile in public suddenly assaulting or killing strangers. There are consequences on both sides, you really need to use your judgment.
posted by Mitrovarr at 9:19 PM on March 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


Old problem: Cops shoot innocent kids wielding guns that look very realistic.

Solution: Outlaw guns that look realistic. (now only outlaws will have realistic fake guns).

New problem: Cops shoot innocent kids who are obviously unarmed.

(no, I don't really have a point, and I'd call 9-11 if there were a medical emergency, but calling the COPS? That would take extraordinary circumstances, methinks).
posted by el io at 9:21 PM on March 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


Wealthy, privileged, middle-class white-males, such as myself, routinely call the cops. This is our default-behaviour, when things go awry. So, is it your contention then that poor people, of-colour, do this more often? Are you living in some alternative universe? Because I can gauranfrickingtee u that this is the precise opposite experience of, gee, almost everyone alive on this planet. Cite will be needed, because this is the exact opposite of how this planet works, from what I've seen.

I have little doubt that minorities are less likely to call police in general. What I said is that the absolutist stance of "I'd never call the cops under any circumstances" is something I encounter almost exclusively from white people, and it strikes me as grandiose posturing. I've worked with lots of black people who don't really trust police and seem like they would go out of their way to avoid having to call them in an emergency. But I rarely or never hear them loudly trumpeting about how they'd never, ever, under any circumstances, ever, never call the police. I see that from white people on the internet, mostly.

I, a white person, have never called the police in my life either, but that's because my need to do so has been minimal. For me to start loudly and frequently making a big deal out of that would be disingenuous, like an 18 year old talking about he'd never call a doctor. if he were sick. Great for him, but that's not an option for everyone.
posted by skewed at 9:22 PM on March 16, 2015 [5 favorites]


As far as not calling the police -

I'm white, grew up with those privileges, although there was a time when I was on food stamps and living in a place where about once a month a SWAT team would fly up the block and rush into the apartment building around the way, or some abandoned home. I've been arrested three times before, although only on "bench warrants," which is to say because I had missed court dates, and I never stayed in jail more than 20 hours on any of these occasions (which is absolutely white privilege, let me tell you).

There have been times when I was kind of wary about the idea of calling cops. Even being white, if you're in trouble and call something in and you've got a bench warrant out on you, well, they have to haul you in. I gather there are some cops who won't even then, if they figure you deserve a chance - that's one place where the white privilege comes in - but I don't think you can trust to that.

Even so - you know what I feel like I've learned from watching activists in Ferguson protest and attempt to make the police department work for them again? "Never call the cops" is sadly unworkable. Here's the hideous irony, a reality we all should see: if you're more likely to be in danger from the cops - if you're poor, a person of color, etc - then it turns out you're more likely to need to call them. I do kind of agree that the wholesale rejection of cops is something that requires at least a little bit of privilege. "Never trust the cops" often isn't an approach people can take realistically.

I think the safe alternative is: know the cops. This isn't easy, and it's easier in the cities where cops tend to have a smaller beat or area they patrol. But knowing the cops - knowing their names, knowing what they tend to do in tough situations, knowing if they've done awful shit - is the best way of knowing what to expect when you pick up the phone and call them.

I really think this kind of knowledge is one of the best forces for police reform we have at our disposal. And it's something people in many neighborhoods to pull together and do, as long as they talk with their neighbors and keep their ears and eyes open.
posted by koeselitz at 9:31 PM on March 16, 2015 [11 favorites]


I don't really hear this militant "Never call the cops!" stuff except from white people from fairly privileged backgrounds.

Maybe I'm all turned around on this subject. If privileged white people say that, it must be wrong.
posted by 445supermag at 9:38 PM on March 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Mod note: Folks, the article doesn't advocate this 'never under any circumstances' idea, so maybe that's a derail we can leave behind? And 445supermag, if you're just stirring the pot here, please stop.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:43 PM on March 16, 2015


What is that point, exactly? That she couldn't have seen what she says she saw, because toy guns can't look like real guns, because the city supes passed a law almost 20 years ago?

I had a toy Uzi when I was a kid, part of some Commando Action Guy toy set or something. It was solid bright orange, and looked doofy as hell until I spraypainted it black. Then it looked just like the cool guns in the movies!
posted by FatherDagon at 10:02 PM on March 16, 2015 [5 favorites]


I can see why many Americans would hold this opinion - US cops seem to execute unarmed people on the street with staggering frequency. But it reads as insane from my Australian perspective.

As part of that perspective it's worth noting that there were only 100 fatal police shootings in Australia over the last 25 years. In the U.S. police kill more than that in one month.
posted by JackFlash at 10:57 PM on March 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


His thoughts were red thoughts:

The big difference here in Australia is gun ownership. The police are nowhere near as trigger happy because their potential to get shot is far less.
posted by adept256 at 10:59 PM on March 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


I hate to come to this conclusion, but there's almost no situation where interacting with the police can leave you better off.

It depends where you live and the relationship the police have with the community. We live on the edge of downtown in a small city (about 350,000 people in the region). It's a nice downtown mostly, but there is a drugs scene and a lot of camping in the large, wooded city park a block from our house.

In the summer the park can get a little wild, especially later in the evening towards sunset at 9pm. But it's my neighbourhood park, and I want to feel safe, so I have called the cops a couple of times when I have noticed people vandalizing stuff.

Another time someone was banging on our neighbour's door. It was the boyfriend of their teenage daughter. They had had a kid together and for a while the boyfriend lived with the family. Something happened and he stopped living with them.

One day he came back and banged on all the doors and windows, trying to get in. Another neighbour and I told him to go away (our exact words were "fuck off") and he did.

But he came back again and was pretty threatening to the girl inside (the grandparents must have been at work).

So I called the cops. By the time they arrived 5 minutes later, he was gone. As I was talking to them on the sidewalk, next to the bus stop, the moron came back and sat down at the bus stop.

The cops talked to him for a while and then put him on the bus back to the town he was living in an hour up the highway.

However, the extreme level of police violence you see in the States doesn't exist in my town. The cops even have a Reddit handle, and frequently show up in the local subreddit to talk about this or that.

While I have sympathies for people who are living on the street, after a couple of bikes have been stolen, most likely for crack, I have little tolerance for choppers and if I see one I'll call the duty officer and let them know where to find them (I even stopped a chopper from stealing a bicycle at about 6am in the fall).

As for the kids with the gun, the writer did the right thing. I wouldn't have called the police, that's for sure, not even in my nice and relatively peaceful city in Canada.
posted by Nevin at 11:06 PM on March 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


This is absolutely preposterous.

Firstly, the article makes it seem like the boys being african-american somehow matters when they are wearing hoodies and holding guns. Two boys of any race, partially covering their heads and standing on roofs loading guns are likely to have the police called on them.

Secondly, BB guns are dangerous. They have severely injured, blinded and even killed people. They are illegal in every urban area I know of. They are certainly illegal in Brooklyn.

Thirdly, They are standing on the neighbors roof- another place they are not supposed to be and another place where you are likely to find a burglar or attacker.


So you have two guys with their faces partially covered, standing on a roof, with guns and people are acting like it is stupid and immoral to call the police upon seeing such a sight.

No it would not have been stupid or immoral. And though I'm glad no one got hurt, if someone did it would be ENTIRELY the fault of those kids and whoever sold them those bb guns. Not the fault of people who called police upon witnessing them. A society where people hesitate to call police when they see strangers with hooded faces carrying guns on the roof can become dangerous very quickly. I wish I was seeing more backlash against these kids and their parents (how are they buying these bb guns?) than I was seeing against the citizens who decide to help and report what they see.
posted by rancher at 11:28 PM on March 16, 2015 [5 favorites]


I think probably charlie don't surf is saying that the law against realistic-looking guns ought to be enforced better, and that that would ease situations like this. Not entirely sure, though.

Well, that's a good point, but not exactly the one I intended to make. And the NYC.gov document I posted shows pretty clearly that the government and the police do want to stop sales of deceptively realistic guns, and that the police are trying to avoid tragic deaths of innocent people carrying fake weapons. They even admit their mistakes (although they don't admit liability) and describe several deaths. Unfortunately, the document also shows a horrible police tendency to blame the victims. There are other NYC governmental agencies that have more recent, and more direct actions to stop the sales of illegal fake guns, and prosecute the sellers. I think everybody can agree that this is a good thing:

DCA aggressively enforces the City’s sales ban on dark-colored fake guns and since 2002, DCA inspectors have removed more than 7,500 imitation guns from the shelves of more than 200 stores throughout the City, and levied $1.76 million in fines.

But more to my point, that same document describes the Federal law that requires all toy guns to have a bright orange tip that easily identifies it as a toy, and that NY laws are even more strict, so Federally permitted orange-tip toy guns could still be illegal. And sure, kids could modify their toy weapons. But I just think it is unlikely that the author really saw what she claimed:

In their hands the black, snub nosed guns look real.

It wouldn't be much of a polemic if she wrote

In their hands the black, bright orange-nosed guns look real.

Just to further mislead the readers, look at the article's illustration of a big red gun with an orange tip in The Guardian, a news source from the UK, where personal handgun ownership is forbidden, even abhorrent.

I think this article is deliberately misleading and is intended to manufacture outrage against Americans, amongst an international audience. It is overwrought semi-autobiographical fiction from an MFA Creative Writing student.
posted by charlie don't surf at 11:46 PM on March 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


As part of that perspective it's worth noting that there were only 100 fatal police shootings in Australia over the last 25 years. In the U.S. police kill more than that in one month.

Yeah, ProPublica says ~1200 people were killed by police 2010-2012, (just 77 per month less than your 100 per month stat).
posted by sideshow at 12:08 AM on March 17, 2015 [4 favorites]


I think this article is deliberately misleading and is intended to manufacture outrage against Americans, amongst an international audience.

It's not. It's clearly part of The Guardian's American coverage that's aimed at their American audience.
posted by ambrosen at 12:10 AM on March 17, 2015 [6 favorites]


I think this article is deliberately misleading and is intended to manufacture outrage against Americans, amongst an international audience.

Dude, at this point you're just looking for excuses to stay mad at an article you didn't read properly as well as behaving in the same way as all those people excusing Mike Brown's killing.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:51 AM on March 17, 2015 [16 favorites]


A society where people hesitate to call police when they see strangers with hooded faces carrying guns on the roof can become dangerous very quickly.

Not as dangerous as a society in which black people are routinely killed for being unarmed or walking with a fake gun in the store in which they bought it.

The original writer did exactly the right thing: she saw something that looked dangerous, observed what happened and recognised the people involved, concluded that the danger was mostly to themselves and made the conscious decision that calling the cops was more likely to result in bad outcomes than not doing so.

They were only "hooded strangers with guns" until the writer recognised them and her husband recognised the guns as BB guns.

Note that she did talk to their mother about this, so it's not like they escaped all punishment.

Note also that if the police was called and miraculously managed not to kill these two boys, they'd likely arrest them and once you're a black man with an arrest record, your life is screwed.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:57 AM on March 17, 2015 [18 favorites]


Yeah, ProPublica says ~1200 people were killed by police 2010-2012

That's still twelve times as many police murders in two years than happened in Australia in twentyfive...
posted by MartinWisse at 1:01 AM on March 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


Incidently, I don't really understand why realistic BB or airsoft guns are supposed to be soo dangerous that there are all these kinds of laws against them, when you can just buy a proper shooter with little to no oversight in most places in the US. It feels very much like cargo cult policing, "since the NRA won't allow us to tackle the real problem of guns, let's concentrate on the fake guns instead".

It also makes little sense from a "prevent innocent people from getting killed by the cops for carrying fake guns" because if one fact is clear, the likelyhood of you getting killed by them doesn't depend on the kind of gun you carry (if at all), but rather the colour of your skin.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:05 AM on March 17, 2015 [8 favorites]


That same document describes the Federal law that requires all toy guns to have a bright orange tip that easily identifies it as a toy.
And yet.

since 2002, DCA inspectors have removed more than 7,500 imitation guns from the shelves of more than 200 stores
You do realize that proves that some local stores stock dark-colored imitation guns, right?

MFA Creative Writing student
Whuh? This is just bonkers. The fact that someone is studying fiction in no way prevents them from writing nonfiction.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 1:10 AM on March 17, 2015 [3 favorites]


A society where people hesitate to call police when they see strangers with hooded faces carrying guns on the roof can become dangerous very quickly.

It's already dangerous because children are constantly in danger of being murdered by racist-ass cops. This comment reads like the apologia you generally get from whack job racist columnists, actually.
posted by NoraReed at 1:24 AM on March 17, 2015 [6 favorites]


I think the article is a good wake-up call to those who think all that black-kids-being-killed-by-bad-cops stuff only happens somewhere else - not in their neighborhood. It flags a person's attention and asks the question, What would YOU do if you were in this situation? A lot of people have never considered the idea of themselves actually being involved in such a scene, so it's somewhat thought-provoking, which never hurts.

As for me, I'd do what this lady did. Whether I knew the kids or not, I'd at least try to talk with them and point out the danger they're putting themselves in. Things just are not the same now as they were 50 years ago when nearly every boy had a BB gun - waving a gun around, even if it's plastic and purple and orange in color, will likely get you killed if you're black or hispanic and possibly even if you're plain-old white, especially if you're poor. Police no longer use common sense or rational thinking - they shoot first and don't even bother asking questions later. These boys would very likely lose their lives if the police were called and I have to wonder about someone who thinks that's just fine - is it really just fine to kill someone who hasn't even stolen a bicycle or committed any sort of a crime? To me, that kind of thinking is a lot more dangerous than the kids with the BB guns.

I'm glad this was posted - it's a humane and sensible way to handle the problem, which is nice for a change.
posted by aryma at 1:52 AM on March 17, 2015


(maybe she means, by contrast with her white American husband who would tend to wait and let the police handle it?)

Except in this case, it's the white American husband who is like "Whatever, we all had guns growing up, why is this a problem?" while she is agitated and thinks Something Needs To Happen.
posted by corb at 2:04 AM on March 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


Except in this case, it's the white American husband who is like "Whatever, we all had guns growing up, why is this a problem?" while she is agitated and thinks Something Needs To Happen.

Am I missing something or was he not the one who wanted to call the police urgently?
posted by knapah at 3:40 AM on March 17, 2015 [2 favorites]


And yet.

I was going to point this out, so, thanks. (Actually, I was wondering if things had changed -- apparently they haven't).

Short story is, you can buy airsoft/bb guns at Wal-Mart that look 100% like real guns, and do not have orange tips. Maybe 10-12 years ago I had one for no good reason, and it looked real enough to practically cause some friends to piss themselves when they saw it. My guess is that somehow they don't count as a "toy" (if I recall correctly, they were behind the counter in a case, and you had to ask for them). None of them in the case had any markings indicating they were not actual firearms, and all were modeled explicitly to look like real-world weapons.
posted by tocts at 4:18 AM on March 17, 2015 [3 favorites]


Getting to know the police is not an option here, because police interventions on my street tend to come in the form of swarms of them in bulky jackets carrying extremely scary guns materializing out of nowhere to bust one or another of the groups of dealers that hang around on the corners.

I'm thinking very hard before saying this, because it's um a little posture-ey, but, what the hell. You know who I wish I could call if I saw a dangerous situation? Not the cops, certainly. I wish I could call the Panthers.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 4:37 AM on March 17, 2015 [6 favorites]


I call cops, but I try to be mindful of when I do. There was a fellow having a psychotic episode on the streets a few weeks ago, and his behavior had been extremely aggressive toward me and my girlfriend. I had my phone out and 911 dialed, but he never got closer than 40 feet and then would go away again, and despite his hostility, he never actually got violent in any way. Cops are not mental health workers and have a terrible history of killing the mentally ill (just a few weeks ago in Omaha, in fact, in what was clearly a case of suicide by cop), and so I hesitate and hesitate until a threat becomes undeniable. Cops are never the best option, but sometimes they are the only option.
posted by maxsparber at 4:52 AM on March 17, 2015 [2 favorites]


I'm pretty sure most people agree that a world in which you could call the police in this situation without worrying that you were signing a death sentence for two neighbor kids would be a better and safer one. When people say that they think twice before calling the police, they are generally not saying that in an ideal world they would rather not have help, but that in this actual world they can't be very sure that help is what they would get.

I was held at gunpoint when I was a young teenager. After getting away, I did not call the police. I'm white and was a "good kid", but my family was low income and my experience with the police was not positive. This was the wrong decision, but I had reasons for making it. I can't even imagine how it must feel if you expect the police might well kill you.
posted by Nothing at 4:53 AM on March 17, 2015 [5 favorites]


Which of these gun are real and which are fake? According to DPD [Denver Police Dept] spokesman Sonny Jackson, the department decided to put together the quiz following a couple of recent cases, including one that took place late last week. "A party was arrested with what we discovered was a BB gun, but it looked very real," he says. "And we also contacted a couple of juveniles who had guns that looked very, very real."
posted by rtha at 5:43 AM on March 17, 2015 [2 favorites]


It's already dangerous because children are constantly in danger of being murdered by racist-ass cops. This comment reads like the apologia you generally get from whack job racist columnists, actually.

I'm not sure the proper response to one kind of hysteria (i.e., young black thugs are going to murder us all trope) is to respond with another (white racist cops are going to murder all your black sons trope).

That's a defense of rational discussion, not racist cops.

If violence among young black men is a serious social issue, let's approach it as such. If excessive force by police is a serious social issue, let's discuss it as such.

Dueling caricatures isn't really a solution to society's problems, even if they make for satisfying Internet soundbites.
posted by echocollate at 6:14 AM on March 17, 2015 [7 favorites]


I guess that what I'm trying to say is, it doesn't have to be this way. You can have a police force that has a reputation for trust and works to live up to it, and it's better for both the police and the community. I just don't understand why so many US police forces seem to have no interest in this.

Our society has become a prison is why.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 6:19 AM on March 17, 2015


I liked this article as a lesson in "how not to overreact", but seriously dislike the general fetishization of guns that leads to it being necessary. (Not to mention the police "shoot first, ask questions never" policy that seems to be so common.) I'm not anti-gun; I'm anti-gun-fetishization.

As an aside, I keep reading the title of this article in my tabs bar as a variation on "Jesus, take the wheel..." and it's much more amusing.
posted by jferg at 6:26 AM on March 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


Mod note: One comment deleted; please just discuss the topic rather than what you think of Metafilter/other members. And folks, just generally, it would be great to keep this non-personal. Thanks.
posted by taz (staff) at 6:50 AM on March 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


charlie don't surf: “I think this article is deliberately misleading and is intended to manufacture outrage against Americans, amongst an international audience. It is overwrought semi-autobiographical fiction from an MFA Creative Writing student.”

I guess you might not be aware that black, non-brightly-colored BB and air guns are actually broadly available in the United States. Seriously, they are everywhere. So you can sit there saying "nuh uh, it's completely incredible to believe that TEENAGERS are SMOKING MARIJUANA, because MARIJUANA is ILLEGAL!" but – well, sorry. This stuff is much more common than you think.

Heck, I'll bet you'd just have to drive a few hours from Brooklyn to find a place to buy one. Or you could buy one on Ebay, and nobody'd really care. It's not like sellers there are apprised of state and local airgun laws.

There is nothing difficult to believe about this lady's story. You can keep telling yourself that every single "toy gun" in the United States has been carefully and thoughtfully marked as such, and that all non-marked "toy guns" have been completely eradicated and removed from the market, but that isn't the case. Sorry.
posted by koeselitz at 7:22 AM on March 17, 2015 [3 favorites]


I also am not sure why this article was published by the Guardian--as a regular reader of the Guardian I am fully aware that it is relentless liberal/progressive, generally anti authority and pro-disenfranchised. But this article almost certainly was published to tweak America with a bit of self satisfaction. This is not a general news item following The Guardians coverage of America but one persons idiosyncratic somewhat self congratulatory essay on very complex and difficult subject--and one that I am not confident reflects the reactions and feelings of many in the working/middle class African American community who confront issues of safety and neighborhood stability on a very regular basis.
posted by rmhsinc at 7:46 AM on March 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


The fact that good trustworthy policing would be useful to a community doesn't mean they can count on actually receiving good trustworthy policing.

It doesn't seem that controversial to suggest that police would make a dangerous mistake if they were called in this case, and that being in a position to recognize the kids and call their mom allows a much, much better way of handling it.
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:55 AM on March 17, 2015 [4 favorites]


I understand where people are coming from, but I think "never call the cops" is a dumb rule. A long time ago, I was working the night shift at a gas station near a major highway. A guy filled up his car and came inside to pay. He was stumbling, couldn't count his money, slurred his words. I'm 100 lbs, he's at least 180. What are my options here? Just let him get back on the road and maybe kill someone?

As soon as he went back outside I locked the door and called the police. Fortunately, the guy'd dropped his keys somewhere in the parking lot so that gave them enough time to arrive and stop the guy. One of the officers came in later and thanked me - the guy had a warrant out on him.

Other times I've called the cops: a guy aggressively tapped my bumper while driving on the interstate. Our garage was burglarized. In front of my apartment, a homeless man was passed out, face down, in the street where he could have been hit. My car was hit by another car and blocked a major intersection during rush hour. I am no big fan of the police - I think it's a systematically corrupt and racist institution even if individual cops are fine - but I don't see what my other options were.
posted by desjardins at 8:38 AM on March 17, 2015 [3 favorites]


I also am not sure why this article was published by the Guardian--as a regular reader of the Guardian I am fully aware that it is relentless liberal/progressive, generally anti authority and pro-disenfranchised. But this article almost certainly was published to tweak America with a bit of self satisfaction. This is not a general news item following The Guardians coverage of America but one persons idiosyncratic somewhat self congratulatory essay on very complex and difficult subject--and one that I am not confident reflects the reactions and feelings of many in the working/middle class African American community who confront issues of safety and neighborhood stability on a very regular basis.

It's in the Comment Is Free section, which the site calls the "US opinion page for the Guardian," which don't seem to appear in the UK print version ("Please note that Guardian US pitches, if commissioned, will be published online, and few (if any) will appear in the UK-only print edition newspaper."), and which seem to be all user-pitched and user-submitted, not assigned. The whole point of the section is that it's not news, it's opinion.
posted by jaguar at 8:40 AM on March 17, 2015 [2 favorites]


> I also am not sure why this article was published by the Guardian--as a regular reader of the Guardian I am fully aware that it is relentless liberal/progressive, generally anti authority and pro-disenfranchised. But this article almost certainly was published to tweak America with a bit of self satisfaction.

I’m trying very hard to understand why you’re the second person to wonder “but why did the GUARDIAN publish this?” when it is a bog-standard column for them. Seriously, if I’d just read the headline and the body in isolation, I’d have known that this was a Guardian column.

As a regular reader of the Guardian, you must also be aware that they have been making a big push into America recently — a couple years back they started redirecting American visitors from guardian.co.uk to theguardian.com/us, which is a page filled with US-specific news. The UK version of the Guardian has opinion pieces; I don’t understand why the US version shouldn’t have them as well.

On top of which the message of this column (one should not have to worry about the unintended consequences of calling the police) is so important that it strikes me as an unproductive derail to try to read smugness into its publication. If your mind is so eager to search for a reason to discredit that message, perhaps it is worth stopping and reflecting on how far afield that search takes you.
posted by savetheclocktower at 8:44 AM on March 17, 2015 [6 favorites]


On top of which the message of this column (one should not have to worry about the unintended consequences of calling the police) is so important that it strikes me as an unproductive derail to try to read smugness into its publication. If your mind is so eager to search for a reason to discredit that message, perhaps it is worth stopping and reflecting on how far afield that search takes you.

It's not far afield at all. She discredits her own message. The author's self-penned bio says she is a highly privileged college professor, educated at Vassar and in England. She feels entitled to "cuss out" the neighborhood kids, and their parents, for behaviors she dislikes. She describes how she cursed at kids smoking, or "roughhousing" and bemoans the lack of "communal parenting" which presumably means people behaving the way she tells them to. If I had some busybody like her sticking her nose into my business, I'd tell her to go take a flying leap.
posted by charlie don't surf at 9:00 AM on March 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


Am I missing something or was he not the one who wanted to call the police urgently?

I got the impression - though it may have been otherwise, because honestly the article is pretty vague at this point, that she called her husband panicked about TEENS on the ROOF with GUNS and he was like "Well fuck, call the police" and then he looked out and was like "wait those are BB guns. Man, I remember having BB guns, it was great!" And you have this interlude
My husband grew up in a neighborhood of long driveways, of single houses screened by large trees on private land. He still has that suburban instinct of detachment, a wait and see attitude. I couldn’t stand the tension of watching.
It seems very much that she is the one driving the "We have to DO something!" train while her husband is just reacting to her statements and wishes.
posted by corb at 9:10 AM on March 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


I think a bigger question is why kids love to play with guns. On the one hand we're mad that they have realistic-looking toy guns and realize that them running around with toy guns is dangerous; but on the other we continue to produce entertainment where guns are the solution, we use guns as our primary means of foreign policy execution, and we seriously debate (even on Metafilter) whether any sorts of restrictions on guns are unconstitutional. These kids are aping the behavior that they think is cool, and no one tells them it isn't cool.

I tell my young kids, "Sometimes when people aren't very smart, they can't solve their problems, so they use guns instead." Obviously that's an oversimplification but in 99% of cases where people use guns, they didn't really need to use guns. That goes for cops too.
posted by freecellwizard at 9:11 AM on March 17, 2015 [4 favorites]


It's not far afield at all. She discredits her own message. The author's self-penned bio says she is a highly privileged college professor, educated at Vassar and in England. She feels entitled to "cuss out" the neighborhood kids, and their parents, for behaviors she dislikes. She describes how she cursed at kids smoking, or "roughhousing" and bemoans the lack of "communal parenting" which presumably means people behaving the way she tells them to. If I had some busybody like her sticking her nose into my business, I'd tell her to go take a flying leap.

The author could be a huge busybody and the Guardian could be a paper for self-satisfied British pseudo-socialists who hate America, but how does any of that discredit "One should not have to worry about the unintended consequences of calling the police"?
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:11 AM on March 17, 2015 [9 favorites]


She describes how she cursed at kids smoking,

I don't know what's up with your reading comprehension, but nowhere does she describe herself as cussing at any neighborhood kids.
posted by rtha at 9:12 AM on March 17, 2015 [4 favorites]


charlie don't surf, none of that discredits her message and neither does the thing about the color of toy guns. Suppose for the sake of argument that this whole essay is fictitious. Still, the point of the essay remains: she wishes neighbors could handle regular teenage stuff among themselves, like when she was growing up, and it would be better if white cops knew enough black kids that stuff like the Tamir Rice shooting wasn't a real risk in this case.

corb, I think she was wanting to "do something" = go outside and yell up to the boys that they should get down (because she sees they'll be at terrible risk if someone else calls the police), whereas her husband was at first the one who suggested calling the police (when they thought it was unknown black kids) and then hung back even after they recognized the kids (because hey, they're just playing with bb guns and everybody knows that's harmless fun, so what could go wrong).
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:18 AM on March 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


She describes how she cursed at kids smoking, or "roughhousing" and bemoans the lack of "communal parenting" which presumably means people behaving the way she tells them to.

She tells the kids they should smoke pot instead of cigarettes. I WISH my parents had "cursed at me" that way when I was a kid.

And the communal parenting she talks about is the cultural norm in Trinidad, not "people behaving the way she tells them to." There are places in the world where adults have a generalized authority over the young people they know, whether or not they are those kids' parents. This is not to say that such a system is good or bad, but if it's what you grew up with the US norm is sure going to look strange and alienated to you.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:22 AM on March 17, 2015 [2 favorites]


savetheclocktower--I usually read the print copies of the Guardian (available in Ireland) and sometimes the electronic copy. I seldom if ever read opinion pages in any publication. I don't think I used the word "smug"--seems a bit too strong. I just did not like it, did not find it particularly instructive and I think it misreads the experiences of many of my working/middle class African Americans neighbors where I live in The States ( inner city non suburban ).
posted by rmhsinc at 9:26 AM on March 17, 2015


I would feel better if I knew other adults, if they saw my kid doing something dangerous or stupid, would be likely to say something to him or try to convince him to stop. I don't see anything upsetting about that. I do sometimes say things to kids doing dumb things, if I don't see their parents around, but these days, kids generally don't roam around without parents at all, which is a whole other discussion.

I tell my young kids, "Sometimes when people aren't very smart, they can't solve their problems, so they use guns instead."

Stealing this one.
posted by emjaybee at 9:40 AM on March 17, 2015


> I just did not like it, did not find it particularly instructive and I think it misreads the experiences of many of my working/middle class African Americans neighbors where I live in The States ( inner city non suburban ).

Well, I am genuinely interested in hearing more about the experiences of your neighbors, but that's fair enough. I regret lumping your opinion in with the, er, slightly-more-ostentatious opinion of the other gentleman in this thread.
posted by savetheclocktower at 9:45 AM on March 17, 2015


Rtha, I live in SF too, but I missed the story of the police killing Amilcar Perez-López and saying that he was trying to steal a bike rather than that he was chasing someone who'd stolen his cellphone.
posted by larrybob at 10:36 AM on March 17, 2015


I understand where people are coming from, but I think "never call the cops" is a dumb rule.

Instead I use "don't call the cops unless you're prepared for someone to get shot." Maybe the suspect, maybe my dog. I'll admit that my willingness to ponder the person creating the disturbance getting shot changes if they're keeping me awake.
posted by phearlez at 10:51 AM on March 17, 2015


> I think it misreads the experiences of many of my working/middle class African Americans neighbors where I live in The States ( inner city non suburban ).

Well, it likely doesn't fully reflect the experiences of my working/middle class mostly Latino neighbors in my inner city neighborhood either - but it was written to reflect her own experience in her mixed-income Brooklyn neighborhood, not the experience of everyone else who may or may not live in similar areas.

I know that there is reluctance to call police where I live in part because many residents have undocumented friends and relatives, or themselves may be undocumented. But that doesn't mean that all of them are reluctant to call the cops and never do so. There are gang shootings that never get solved, but others that cross a line, as perceived by the people who live with it - like the one in Oakland I mentioned upthread - and then witnesses call the cops.
posted by rtha at 11:00 AM on March 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


Related, this was doing the rounds on Twitter: mother calls cops to talk to her nine and ten year old sons about why stealing is wrong, gets arrested.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:51 AM on March 17, 2015 [4 favorites]


Incidently, I don't really understand why realistic BB or airsoft guns are supposed to be soo dangerous that there are all these kinds of laws against them, when you can just buy a proper shooter with little to no oversight in most places in the US. It feels very much like cargo cult policing, "since the NRA won't allow us to tackle the real problem of guns, let's concentrate on the fake guns instead".

You can't buy an actual firearm (legally) in the US unless you are at least 18 (and 21 for handgun). You can't hardly buy one at all in New York City (and only a little easier in the rest of the state), regardless of age. Private sales have long been illegal in NY as well. And despite what propaganda you hear, most of the private sellers are very scrupulous and won't sell to someone who is obviously underage/impaired/weird about it. Getting an air rifle or airsoft (not air powered-spring powered) gun is way, way easier anywhere in the US. For one, no background check is required anywhere that I know of.

Which isn't to say it is impossible to get a gun if you want to (and aren't legally allowed to)-it just isn't going to be through normal channels.
posted by bartonlong at 12:16 PM on March 17, 2015 [2 favorites]


Instead I use "don't call the cops unless you're prepared for someone to get shot."

So, in my example, I should've just let an extremely drunk guy get back on the highway?
posted by desjardins at 1:18 PM on March 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


Mod note: One comment deleted; if your comment is interpretable as "black kids' ignorance of gun safety is the real problem", please reconsider.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 3:01 PM on March 17, 2015 [4 favorites]


So, in my example, I should've just let an extremely drunk guy get back on the highway?

I'm not the person you're asking, but in your situation, I probably would have called the police, too, but my decision to call would have been made with full knowledge that there's a chance that someone could get shot.

Before I call the police, I do my best to evaluate the situation and calculate the risks. And one aspect I evaluate is race, because there are very pronounced biases in our culture that have resulted in a pattern of violence against young black people in particular. And I don't want to be the panicky racist who essentially calls the cops on a kid for playing while black.

I currently live in a predominantly white area with a police presence that seems very disproportionate to the amount of crime. And I've listened to our local police radio a few times, and one thing that's struck me is the ridiculous things people call the cops about. Unattended 10-12 year olds in a park in the middle of the day.* People playing basketball near parked cars. Some twine that was securing a tarp appeared to have been cut one time, apparently striking terror into the heart of the victim.

Those are extreme examples of itchy 911 fingers, but I think everyone should really stop to consider the possible consequences of summoning the police to any situation, and decide whether it's worth taking that risk.

* I walk my dogs in that park all the time, and it is lousy with unattended 10-12 year olds. I can only speculate about what prompted that call.
posted by ernielundquist at 3:19 PM on March 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


the whole "Never call the cops!" thing coming from white people strikes me as macho bullshit.

Not only is it macho posturing performative bullshit, but i also have nearly exclusively heard it from the worst kinds of white people as far as bullshit posturing crap goes. Wangsters, oogles/gutter punks/"street kids", and "anarchists". All of which have a big stake in acting "hood" or hard/"like they're from the streets" and working class but very often come from middle class or better suburban backgrounds. People whose experience with police discrimination amounts to an arrest for graffiti, getting pepper sprayed at a protest, or harassment for drinking their malt liquor in public.

It's one thing to say "i hesitate to call the cops", that doesn't strike me as back slapping cool guy bullshit. But "never call the cops for ANYTHING maaan" is absolutely jackoff BS. And i've only ever heard it stated that way, totally absolutist, from those kinds of bullshit people.

Wealthy, privileged, middle-class white-males, such as myself, routinely call the cops. This is our default-behaviour, when things go awry.

See above, but it's a very specific kind of very vocal posturing white male(or occasionally, from the same social groups, white lady) who says this kind of stuff. It's absolutely a thing though. And i've seen and heard it repeatedly from those kinds of people, especially in the past few years.


And fuck, if we're going to drop anything, why not the "did their guns look fake?" derail. THAT is completely asinine.
posted by emptythought at 3:53 PM on March 17, 2015 [3 favorites]


Seems like a good time to make note of the old saw about the words "always" and "never." The idea of never ever calling the police no matter what is nonsense - I don't even think 445supermag was serious and I think that's where the NEVER got started here.

For me, the situation would have to be one that there was simply no other way out of or that was way, way out of my league to handle. An example would be when Joseph Duncan kidnapped Shasta and Dylan Groene after murdering the rest of the family. The public was alerted to watch for the kids but nothing happened for several days - a week or more, I believe. Then Shasta and Duncan showed up at a Denny's late at night and the waitresses recognized Shasta and called the police. They captured Duncan, freed Shasta and then learned that Dylan had also been murdered. But that was an occasion when a person would absolutely have to call the police IMO. Other things, like vandalism and noise and arguments, underage drinking/pot, selling individual cigarettes on the street, well - I'd have to consider carefully if I thought the emergency warranted the possible death of the person in trouble; if that person was black, I'd be even less inclined to call in the police.

I've had good experiences with the police in the small town in Colorado where I lived for 11 years - they were the ones you called for help and were glad to see them when they got there - but in Spokane? Our police are scarier than hell. We don't have a large black population here, so they just practice on white people - young, poor or homeless ones in particular. I called them many years ago for kids stealing gas in the alley behind my house. They asked me if the kids were armed and I told them I didn't know. They said they really needed to know so I told them to hold on - I'd go ask them if they had guns because the police wanted to know before they came. Bah.

Other similar occasions, same type of response. They never show up until the excitement is over and then there are swarms of them - and fire trucks - everywhere. They officially stopped bothering with property crime about ten years ago but there was so much fuss they had to back out of that one - which was obviously just a ploy for more money, anyway - so they went back to pretending to enforce burglary and car break-ins. We now have a new police chief - from Indianapolis; he was under investigation there and so took over our top job to get the heck outta Dodge; meantime, one of our thugs, also under investigation, moved on to take the Chief of Police position in some small town in the midwest.

The whole intimidation thing - the overdone SWAT gear/military equipment/big guns, the loud voices shouting rapid-fire commands a person can't even follow, the in-your-face attempt to terrorize the confused/innocent/ill/poor/uneducated fool who stumbles into their attention - well, it's all technique that's been used for generations in places other than this one and it usually works without the real need to kill, but in today's world, the killing follows the rest of it as often as not. It makes me ashamed and sad for what we've lost.

Even without race being involved, I'd do anything I could to avoid calling the police, and if any of the parties involved were black, I'd be even more leery. It's bad enough being the same color as the truly bad cops who are apparently trying to rid the world of dark-skinned people, I don't want to be party to their idea of an afternoon's fun.
posted by aryma at 7:14 PM on March 17, 2015 [3 favorites]


Thanks, NYPD, for making the point in such a timely manner.
posted by sonic meat machine at 9:57 PM on March 17, 2015


Mod note: A few comments deleted. Charlie don't surf, you need to drop it now. Your insistence over what you are personally reading into this that is not supported by the actual article is becoming a huge derail.
posted by taz (staff) at 11:20 PM on March 17, 2015


So, in my example, I should've just let an extremely drunk guy get back on the highway?

Not everything is about you, Mulder.
posted by phearlez at 10:03 AM on March 18, 2015


Thanks, NYPD, for making the point in such a timely manner.

For the love of god, don't google the mom's name looking for more information. There is no more information and racists have seized on this case for some awful shit.
posted by corb at 10:46 AM on March 19, 2015


« Older "But TO PIMP A BUTTERFLY. It's the American dream...   |   Life as a ghost Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments