Girl buys water, spends night in jail
news.yahoo.com
news.yahoo.com
Wait, am I understanding this correctly? At the age of 20 she's not allowed to buy alcohol but could have already owned a gun for 2 years?
The world is a funny old place.
Note that one huge difference between Army and civilian life is enforcement of drinking might be a touch lax compared to civilian life, but enforcement of drunken-ness is absolutely draconian compared to civilian. You absolutely, positively do not want a blood alcohol level over 0.0000 when on duty or behind the wheel, even off post or in the barracks, etc. At least in that way my .mil experience was extremely European... you want a beer with that pizza, fine, you know its illegal but I'm not going to stop you. On the other hand god help you if you're caught being drunk, you may as well shoot yourself, its very draconian. You're literally better off smoking weed than being drunk, seriously, and yes I know the army is/was nuts about drug use. You'll merely get kicked out for a failed pee test... for being drunk on duty or behind the wheel you'll serve time. My European analogy is I'm told you really don't want to get busted for DWI in Germany... in Wisconsin its just a minor misdemeanor right up there with being 5 mph over speeding (seriously, WI is legendary for being lax)
Like many things in .mil, "good soldiers" get away with quite a bit more than the proverbial platoon F-up can get away with.
The key was figuring out that if you pressure the federal government enough you can get states to fall in line. The federal government doesn't have the ability to set a blanket drinking age for every state. But it does have the ability to withhold federal highway funds from states that refuse to set their minimum drinking age at 21.
The 21 age was chosen partly because there was already historical precedent in holding back certain rights or privileges until the age of 21, such as voting prior to the 26th amendment. Also, it helps that it's only 3 years from 18, so it can be written off as just a minor change.
As I mentioned MADD basically transitioned into becoming a neo-prohibitionist/temperance movement organization. Even the founder, who left the group the year after MADD succeeded in getting the National Minimum Drinking Age Act passed, believes that to be the case. Shifting the drinking age is one part of that, they've also campaigned for increasing the excise taxes on alcohol to reduce consumption.
"Contrary to popular belief, since the act (that set the drinking age at 21) went into law, only a few states prohibit minors and young adults from consuming alcohol in private settings. As of January 1, 2010, 15 states and the District of Columbia ban underage consumption outright, 17 states do not ban underage consumption, and the remaining 18 states have family member and/or location exceptions to their underage consumption laws."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_drinking_age#Americas
>> " One jumped on the hood of her SUV; another pulled out a gun"
What The F*ck America?
Wait, where did this happen again?
Not me though.
Man, that is blind faith in so many untrustworthy sources (remember '41 shots?') that I am trying to recover from the shock. Poor girl.
Seven people. I say: seven. One, two three, four, five, six, seven. They would have scared everything out of me.
But I wonder if it is worth the time, money and effort of 6 police officers to prevent kids (even though she is adult) from drinking ? Drunk driving is one thing, but drinking ?
I agree with you that this is a big waste of resources, though.
Against a teenage girl who may have gasp bought some beer?
How about:
"Excuse me, miss. We suspect you have illegaly purchased alcohol. May we inspect your car, please?"
Scenario 1: "Oh! Ok." Car is inspected. "Oh it's just water. Sorry about the trouble, have a good day!"
Scenario 2: Girl tries to escape and drives off. Note personalia and license number. File charges as usual.
There is no realistic scenario in which they need to threaten her on her life and assault her car because of a suspected 12-pack of beer.
but then it hit me how much this is sad, USA seems 100% psychotic to me these days... I honestly feel like stopping following US-related news because it's all so depressing goddamn
According to this (admittedly outdated) research paper [1], the high-end estimate of traffic stops resulting in the homicide of the police officer is 1:20.1 Million. This doesn't really sound like a traditional traffic stop - more like a sting (something that I couldn't readily find data for).
[1] http://blog.lib.umn.edu/jbs/Criminal%20Procedure%20in%20Amer... (Warning... PDF)
I think that if police are worried about being shot at when they approach under-age people buying alcohol the police might want to change their hyper-aggressive policing style.
Guns must be a measure of last resort. When you pull your weapon you must have the intent to kill someone. To have the intent to kill someone you must have reasonable fear that they pose a risk to you.
Under 21 year old girl buying "beer" doesn't feel to me like a deadly threat to my life.
Those cops grew up watching this crap, they know what a 'good' cop is supposed to do.
One sub-theme of the book is the carrying and use of firearms. In the novel being armed is part of being a man; otherwise he wears a brassard and is considered weak and inferior. Women are allowed but not expected to be armed. Duels, either deadly or survivable, may easily occur when someone feels that they have been wronged or insulted, a custom that keeps order and politeness. A defining quote from the book which is repeated throughout Heinlein's work is, "An armed society is a polite society," is very popular with those who support the personal right to keep and bear arms.
It should only ever be illegal to sell or (as someone overage) buy for someone underage.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/virginia-department-of-alcoho...
Update: apparently charges were dropped
The fact that the prosecution isn't pushing harder suggests that the story here is essentially true — "a girl was assaulted by a disorderly armed mob on her way out of a grocery store and managed to escape them, but it turned out that they were plainclothes police who had mistaken her bottled water for beer and were trying to arrest her, so they put her in prison overnight and filed three felony charges (which have since been dropped)." Classy, guys.
You have to wonder whether anyone in the group who performed the arrest has any kind of remorse or has developed any sort of insight about whether they might have done things differently.
I bet she's going to have an all-new viewpoint on law enforcement officers though.
The civil lawsuit is going to be interesting.
Exactly what one learns from one incident, in one state, in one country is hard to say.
The story has no round up of a greater meaning other than the one incident which leads the reader without any cause and effect.
Is this American budgets cuts? Is this the problem with counties having to much power? Is this the militarisation of the police force? What is the trend here if any?
As per news is bad for you, I think this is one of them. High stress, low information.
I completely understand their reaction to get away when a group of people suddenly draw their guns and try to force you to get out of the car...
Like cause a man a heart attack, by goading him to a bet a large sum (over some federal minimum). Heart attack was caused by SWAT members assaulting his house.
EDIT: Note it's not a heart attack they shot him through the heart. It's from this article http://www.cracked.com/article_19450_6-laws-youve-broken-wit...
In the gambling case a SWAT member actually shot the man dead: http://reason.com/archives/2011/01/17/justice-for-sal
And here's a story of an elderly woman having a heart attack from a flashbang in a failed drug raid: http://gazette.com/grandmother-sues-over-flash-bang-grenade-...
Sorry it wasn't a heart attack. They shot him through the heart (it was some heart related mishap). He broke the 1970 gambling act.
"They were showing unidentifiable badges after they approached us, but we became frightened, as they were not in anything close to a uniform"
This happened to me when I was travelling in Europe, a cop without a uniform approached to me on the train somewhere between Netherlands and Germany and asked me for my ID. I asked for his ID, he flashed something (obviously I had no freaking idea whether it was legit, no idea what was even written on it since I don't know the language).
What do you do in this case? Do you obey or challenge more? Isn't that dangerous as anyone can flash some random / fake badge and cause you to go with them, gather private information or worse?
At the age of 20 Americans are old enough to join the army and engage in combat duty, drive, run bank accounts, be tried as adults and even be sentenced to death. And yet drinking at the age 20 is perceived as an imprisonable offence, and law enforcement officers consider it reason to arrest adults because of that?
Frankly Americans tolerate too much nonsense from their corrupt and hypocritical law makers.
It seems to be one the laws retained to enable their fascist state to criminalize their citizens so they can have something to hold over them.
I'm sure there's a "girls gone wild" joke in there somewhere.
Both amusing and sad.
There's the original article - that hasn't been edited by deleting text and making later references to it nonsensical.
http://reason.com/blog/2013/07/01/get-cuffed-for-filming-pol...
If you were looking for a known fugitive/dangerous suspect that happens to frequent a grocery store for beer on the other hand...
All a bit Sharia, no?
Not like it hasn't happen exactly like that before. There was even a video of it online. I think if more tourists knew stuff like this is happening in America, they'd stay the hell away from it.
What possible requirement could the " Alcohol Beverage Control Division" need to be armed?! Does every Government Official get a weapon/carry/threaten permit when they join?!
Not sure I've ever thought that arming British police on a routine basis would be a good thing.
It seems to me that the UK police, since they are not armed, generally try to defuse situations. (Of course, they can call for armed backup if it is necessary.)
Time and again, I read of US police unnecessarily escalating situations. If your immediate response to any tension is to pull out a gun and start shouting, then things are very likely to get a lot worse in many cases.
Perhaps this is just confirmation bias though. I only get to read about the US cases where things have gone wrong.
I know this is a typo, but that picture in my head made me smile.
Confirmation bias is only dangerous when there is significantly more evidence against the statement. You rarely hear, "we could have saved the day if we had higher damage output!"
I meant that the police generally pull out their gun to emphasise their power and to reinforce their shouts, not always with the intention of actually shooting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jean_Charles_de_Menez...
I considered the same point before posting the link, but decided that it was appropriate considering (imo) that it is a product of the same 21st century paranoia and police culture of "shoot first, ask questions later".
I saw on a forum, a couple of people arguing that women should not be cops, I was confused, since the argument was filled with cop jargon and seemly started elsewhere.
Then someone posted a personal anecdote that I found interesting, about escalation.
The guy was a cop, returning home after work. He saw a female cop confronting a teenager (that the male cop knew personally) that was obviously not in the right state of the mind.
The male teenager, was obviously stronger than the female cop, and started to make a imposing pose (but not threatening, just "imposing" I am bigger than you), the female cop pulled her gun and threatened the guy, that obviously got shitless scared, and started to run toward her, the male cop also as soon he saw she pulling the gun, also run toward her (unseen by both of them), he shouted, and in the confusion she pointed the gun at him, he did some evasive movement and ended tackling her before the boy reached her.
Then he took her gun, and the boy stopped (not feeling threatened anymore), then he explained the boy he was a cop and was taking him to drug exams and he was free to go, and that noone would use violence against him. Immediately the boy turned around and allowed himself to be hand cuffed.
This guy was arguing that female officers in his apartment killed way more people with guns than male officers and this is why they should not be there...
But anyway, I brought this here, because I think it is a good example of a attitude to just bring up guns whenever they feel they can use it to impose power, and obviously this many times only result in dangerous escalations (like pulling a gun on a junkie, or a scared innocent), I doubt the pair (female cop, junkie boy) would leave intact if it was not outside intervention, or the junkie would have killed the cop, or the cop would have shot the junkie.
Even still, why would a unit that polices underage drinking need firearms?
In UK and other countries where police are generally not armed, using a dangerous weapon often also adds substantial amounts of time to potential sentences, and there's either low levels of private ownership of guns (UK) or tight controls on storage and use (e.g. Norway has tons of firearms, but the law requires it to be separate into at least two non-functional parts that must be kept locked down separately, so your hunting rifle is not something you'll go fetch on a whim when you hear a weird sound), and so criminals know that not only are they unlikely to face an armed response if they don't arm themselves, but they're also likely to get off lighter if caught without weapons, and so there's very little incentive for criminals to arm themselves in most situations.
It's one of those things where de-escalation is nearly impossible because of the likely public response to news of dead cops, and how widely guns permeate the culture.
America can't undo its weapons problem even if it introduced gun control but discouraging pulling weapons out in public without serious consequences (even for the police) might stem this trend of pulling weapons at every situation.
</sarcasm>
At the core of it though, I do believe the pervasive culture of fear in the US and the media that supports it renders any progress on serious gun control nearly impossible.
Unfortunately, it takes less training to become a police officer than a kindergarten teacher in the US so we don't see the same level of restraint. IMO we would be better served by a smaller but better trained force unfortunately the federal, state, and local governments all do law enforcement and at the local level there often seen as a way to generate revenue making them 'free'.
In 2010 there were 243k police officers in Germany. Could not find 2012 numbers.
There are about 7000 armed police in England and Wales. Their weapons are kept in safes in the back of their cars, they need to have a very good reason to be carrying one, let alone actually using one.
I think in the UK, despite the police closing ranks when threatened (I don't think we have this as bad as the US either) an officer that drew a weapon on a suspect that they had no reason to think was armed (and was only suspected of underage possession of alcohol) that officer would be subject to some sort of disciplinary action.
He was suspended from the team immediately - the UK police do take fire arms training very seriously.
Law enforcement showed great mercy in dropping charges against this girl. In fact she should consider herself lucky they spared her life. But I fear other disobedient subjects may think they too can get away with no consequences for their reckless actions.
As a team they showed tremendous lapse in judgment and should be fired for endangering a group of teens.
For all it was - tour de force by people who had nothing better to do. There are safe way to do things and there are stupid ways that might make them feel empowered.
That being said, knowing the proper way to deal with people in authority positions is incredibly important. In this case, she should have asked for ID (yelling at them through the window if necessary). If they kept insisting that she roll the window down - and for some reason her car is unlike every other car out there, requiring the engine to be on, she should have tried to explain that through the window.
(Seriously, what cars require the engine to be running for the windows to roll down?)
Upon further consideration, I wonder if she had a push-button starter. Having never driven a key-less car before, how the heck does the accessory setting work (if at all)?
In my wife's old Prius, tap the power switch without a foot on the brake and you get accessory mode. Tap the power switch with a foot on the brake and the car goes into run mode although its in park mode.
Confusing as hell precisely one time, especially if you're used to an automatic transmission. My regular tech car won't start unless its in park or neutral, why would I push on the brake? My left foot is already busy kicking the parking brake out... and the Prius does in fact have a parking brake for the left foot to kick out making the UI even more confusing. However it makes perfect sense to a manual transmission driver, because you always kick the parking brake out with your left foot and then hold the clutch in with left foot.
The confusing as hell part comes the first time you shut off the car and put your left foot on the parking brake to kick it out like you'd do with a normal car, and it boots up in accessory mode and won't move. WTF? Hopefully you try leaving the parking brake alone and press the regular brake before you ask for a tow.
This is all beside the point. If a bunch of crazy men in civilian clothes on a dark night waving guns rush my wife or daughter and start screaming at her, I want her to escape at all costs, run them over if necessary. Behaving like a pack of uncivilized wolves has consequences and she shouldn't feel sorry at all. Those officers should all be in jail.
Additionally, for various reasons you don't hear reports of equivalent stories like this happening in, for example, Europe, though such things are not exactly significantly less common there.
Its worse than that. They wouldn't need to have worried about a gun to open fire. A vehicle is a deadly weapon. I think that if the agents thought the car was going to hit them, they'd be justified in shooting.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02...
As a bicyclist, I'm just about ready to purchase a GoPro for when drivers are reckless and endanger me.
I cannot wait for the day when you can purchase a small recording device like a GoPro and have it stream continuously over wifi or cell phone signals. When that happens, citizens will be able to record the aggressions of police officers (especially during riots) without any fear that the device and it's contents will mysteriously "go missing".
Nothing to see here. Move on.
Watching the police in action is the one negative experience that I have had in the US. You guys really need to calm your (oversized) police force down - they're thugs in uniform.
You still don't pull guns on people you suspect may be carrying a case of beer, then lock them up and file felony charges when it turns out they haven't done anything more than get scared by your paramilitary tactics and try to escape from unknown, out of uniform assailants.
All I can do is echo the other comments, that regardless of whether or not something "bigger" is going on, the response is absolutely disproportionate, and also remind you that Virginia does have actual police to handle "bigger" problems than busting underage alcohol possession.
Instead, they applied maximum governmental force in order to show her her true place in society - to bow to armed thugs.
I hope your son has better training. But there is most definitely something to be seen here, and moving on is not the appropriate response of a civil society.
When the FBI kicks down your door, shoots your dog, smashes every bit of technology that you own, takes all your hard drives and removable media to search for more evidence (It is way hard to distinguish that picture your mom sent you of you flopping in the pool naked to porn.), please understand that them doing this is not a mistake and there would be nothing to see here, so do not post. Move on and accept a life in prison.
To a point when both sides have picked up significant good/bad behavior from each other. And then the very same police looks both aggressive and distasteful to the rest of us - i.e those who were not in the loop ever.
Wait, quantum entanglement?