Followup on Houston's great K-Mart roundup
August 24, 2002 7:55 PM   Subscribe

Followup on Houston's great K-Mart roundup To the great relief of many in Houston, it does indeed appear that heads are going to roll over the mass arrest last week. Or at least, one head will.
posted by John Smallberries (17 comments total)
 
that capt. mark aguirre will be asscroft's right-hand man one of these days, mark my words.
posted by quonsar at 8:14 PM on August 24, 2002


Sigh. Yes let's change the "h" in Ashcroft's name so as to denote him as a character we don't like, then let's compare him to someone who's made one bad decision in his life and who we don't know anything about.

I'm against arresting teens, just because they're teens, but there were a ton of people there. Not 20-30 teens with Honda Civics, deciding who they will race next, but hundreds. A warning or something similar would have been better, it was a terrible decision to arrest a ton of rich white kids whose parents will sue at the drop of the hat, which is really what this about. I know of areas around where I am that inner-city youth (read mainly black, or at least minority) gather and are promptly broken up by police.

Now police didn't arrest any (or that I'm aware of), so all I can guess is that either the guy in charge is really dumb, or the kids were giving the police guff about having to be broken up, and they decided to "show them".

The only thing that I am against would be the arresting of people at the nearby Sonic, they were eating there for God's sake. It sounded like the kids at Wal-Mart were just loitering, without having any business being there. The whole Sonic theme seems to encourage eating in your car, and socializing.
posted by geoff. at 9:15 PM on August 24, 2002


Well, interesting that Drag Racing wasn't mentioned in the original link.

Any further news about that ten year old girl?
posted by Joey Michaels at 9:18 PM on August 24, 2002


geoff: Did you read the artical?

They whent looking for street racers, but no one was racing. Similar raids netted like 6 and 16 arrests and lots of tickets and citations.

Why don't you stop fucking "guessing" about what happened and read the artical. Not even the two officers who spoke to the press, and were there liked what happened.
posted by delmoi at 9:35 PM on August 24, 2002


Ginger Stampley has more, including departmental politics, crashed squad cars, and residents defending the raids. This from Thursday, so fast-moving waters.
posted by dhartung at 9:47 PM on August 24, 2002


Yes I did read it, and I read it again. is the man who ordered police officers during an illegal drag racing bust. It was a drag racing bust, are you telling me that they just went out on a "hunch"? You don't go on busts without probable cause.

The story on this keeps changing, first I remember reading the store owners complained about the kids, now someone is saying something about drag racing. I tend to believe the drag racing one more because in this section of the midwest, wherever teens gather in large numbers in a parking lot, it's for drag racing.

I don't trust the officers who said they didn't like what happened, more then I trust this article. As dhartung pointed out, there's much more involved then teens being arrested for doing nothing.


It would be foolish to assume that this head cop was angry that there were no drag racers and decided to arrest everyone. Instead of saying "guessing", I should say "from personal experience", I've learned that cops only get angry when provoked.

I'm as big a civil libertarian as anyone, but I also like to use my common sense, or cynism. And something about 278 teens in a parking lot loitering seems fishy.
---
Also, I don't want to be snarky, or seem snobby, but if you have a problem with something I say at least show some courtesy and not attack me, but instead my comments.
posted by geoff. at 10:13 PM on August 24, 2002


Actually, on reflection I believe that my speculation really wasn't a good choice for this article. With the new facts, conflicting facts, and the overall not-everything-is-being-told vibe, it seems that everyone would have a different idea of what's going on.

I'll still stand by that with facts presented, arrests were unnecessary, but that a lot of teens in a parking lot is not a good thing either. From personal experience with teens (which is extensive), all those in a parking lot cannot be there to just sing Christian hymns. In the midwest, drag racing is popular and it starts by gathering in parking lots. I just put two and two together. There's a good possibility I could be wrong, I'm really interested in how all this pans out.
posted by geoff. at 10:39 PM on August 24, 2002


geoff.:

a) Houston is in the South, not the Midwest.

b) I should say "from personal experience", I've learned that cops only get angry when provoked...if you have a problem with something I say at least show some courtesy and not attack me, but instead my comments.

As you've tied this comment rather closely to your own experience, as well as your capacity to judge people and situations, you make it pretty hard to disagree here without it seeming like a personal attack. But I'll try. In my experience with police (who tend to be small-minded, easily angered people looking for power trips), and with people in general (many of whom are easily angered, regardless of their profession) your statement is flatly wrong.

c) From personal experience with teens (which is extensive), all those in a parking lot cannot be there to just sing Christian hymns. In the midwest, drag racing is popular and it starts by gathering in parking lots. I just put two and two together.

You have a strange way of putting two and two together. The fact that they were not there to sing hymns does not mean that they were there for drag racing. And even if they were there for drag racing, the police are required to have evidence of illegal activity before making arrests.
posted by bingo at 12:33 AM on August 25, 2002


Besides the fact that I always thought that Houston would be a midwestern city, I shall concede defeat. It was late, I should have known better than to post something speculative that could easily be rebuked. I apologize to all.
posted by geoff. at 8:48 AM on August 25, 2002


Yeah, what a fucking joke. It doesn't seem likely that all of those people are guilty as charged. Based on my experience, once they've given your car to a private company to tow away it's almost impossible to get your $100+ back. Which is real money to kids and a lot of other folks.

Mass arrests are bad news. Even if there was something illegal like racing or "loitering" (god forbid), once you start arresting hundreds of people I don't think that the formalities (like evidence) get observed. What sort of accuracy is required for hauling people to jail? 90%? 75% When they did mass arrests in Seattle during the WTO meeting in Seattle many groups were simply released with no charges filed.
posted by Wood at 8:51 AM on August 25, 2002


Sigh. Yes let's change the "h" in Ashcroft's name so as to denote him as a character we don't like, then let's compare him to someone who's made one bad decision in his life and who we don't know anything about.

i already did that geoff.
posted by quonsar at 10:48 AM on August 25, 2002


Why does everyone confuse Wal-mart and K-mart?
posted by ODiV at 2:56 PM on August 25, 2002


Because they both end in "Mart".
Seriously though, Wal-Mart is doing great and is one of the largest company in the world, and K-Mart is not doing well at all. I guess not everyone confuses em.
posted by ac at 3:08 PM on August 25, 2002


Buy-mart!

Well, anyway, it does kind of bother me when people replace the 'h' in Ashcroft. I mean, I don't like Ashcroft at all; he sometimes downright scares me. But to do that to peoples names is kind of juvenile. If his name was different, then you couldn't do it. Therefor, it depends on his name, not his behavior.

Oh, yeah, don't hang around K-mart. Bad vibes, I tell ya.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 3:39 PM on August 25, 2002


geoff:

Well, good night. It just irritated me that you were just randomly making stuff up that you think 'probably' happened to justify the actions of the cops. Sometimes things happen that are not justified.

Do you really think arresting fifty times the number of people (a huge number of whom are innosent bystandards) the do in drag racing for something is an acceptable thing to do if one is 'provoked'
posted by delmoi at 6:52 PM on August 25, 2002


I'm as big a civil libertarian as anyone, but I also like to use my common sense, or cynism. And something about 278 teens in a parking lot loitering seems fishy.

A civil libertarian as much as George Bush I'm guessing. Remember, innocent until proven guilty, mmkay?
posted by wackybrit at 7:22 PM on August 25, 2002


ummm shop smart shop S- mart.
Seriously folks, People replace the ashcroft because of he is a christian looney toon that wants to impose his beliefs on all of us. so there!
posted by hoopyfrood at 7:32 AM on September 1, 2002


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