They don't play
by digby
This story of police bursting into a woman's home and manhandling her naked for no good reason is the sort of incident which inevitably evokes the response that the citizen was asking for it by disrespecting the police.
She was summoned out of the shower by her daughter, threw a towel around herself and then left the officers at the door to get her cell phone to record the interaction. This apparently inflamed the officers, who entered the house and manhandled her resulting in her losing the towel and winding up handcuffed naked on the floor as the officer told her to look him in the eye as he lectured her for 20 minutes:
“Don’t take the attitude with cops, because we don’t play,” he says as she sobs. “When a cop shows up, you’re not the one in charge. I don’t care if this is your house. You understand me?”
The officer's partner did not intervene at the time but he did report the incident to his superiors after the fact leading to the partner's decision to retire from the force.
I guess I just don't understand how we can believe we live in a free country when the rule is that you must submit to any police officer's orders, regardless of what it is, because you can file a complaint after the fact. Liberty.
The problem here is obviously not that this citizen had the wrong attitude. It's that the police officer had the wrong attitude. And yet most people just shrug their shoulders and say the citizen was the one looking for trouble by disrespecting the police. That may be true in practical terms --- you probably shouldn't mouth off to an armed gang member either. But for some reason people persist in thinking that you shouldn't have to act toward a cop the same way you would act toward a dangerous criminal. Don't kid yourself --- you do. Freedom.
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