Cops Respond to call of kids playing football in street

[bignflnut]

In the land of the free, playing football in your neighborhood street can be a criminal act which can often be met with police force. Kids in a Buffalo neighborhood were about to experience what playing football looks like in a police state — that is, until Officer Patrick McDonald showed up to the call.

Time and again, we’ve seen children held at gunpoint for walking home from a basketball game or assaulted for riding a bike. However, this story is different and it shows what a positive effect a compassionate officer can have when he uses his officer’s discretion while policing.

“I joined them for a couple of downs, and as you can see it’s taken on a life of its own,” McDonald said about the video which has since gone viral after being posted on social media this week.

Another stupid call to the police.

Great story. Good on Officer McDonald.

[djthomas]

In the land of the free, playing football in your neighborhood street can be a criminal act which can often be met with police force. Kids in a Buffalo neighborhood were about to experience what playing football looks like in a police state — that is, until Officer Patrick McDonald showed up to the call.

What a bunch of click-bait trolling inflammatory BS. What is "often"? Once in every 100,000 police encounters? Every million? People call the police over what they perceive to be quality of life complaints all day every day and I'd venture to say that far more than "often", in fact maybe "nearly always" end well for all involved.

And those that don't end well are again, nearly always, because somebody felt the need to show off their advanced understanding of civil rights but in reality they failed to grasp the subtle distinction that is officer/prosecutorial discretion vis a vis what constitutes unlawful conduct.

Great for the officer involved but a little perspective here - this is how things "almost always" play out.

[deanimator]

Once in every 100,000 police encounters? Every million? People call the police over what they perceive to be quality of life complaints all day every day and I'd venture to say that far more than "often", in fact maybe "nearly always" end well for all involved.

But when it DOESN'T "end well" for the citizen, somehow it's ALWAYS his or her fault. Ask James Blake or Levar Jones. And if you seek redress in the courts? To hear some tell it you make Ponzi look like a piker.

When it DOESN'T "end well", it usually goes REALLY badly, and right out of the gate it's painfully obvious not only that nobody cares, but there's genuine animosity for the victim for causing embarrassment to the compatriots of the perpetrator(s).

[djthomas]

But when it DOESN'T "end well" for the citizen, somehow it's ALWAYS his or her fault. Ask James Blake or Levar Jones. And if you seek redress in the courts? To hear some tell it you make Ponzi look like a piker.

If it's ALWAYS the citizen's fault then how is it that Chicago has paid out $662 MILLION over 12 years due to police misconduct? Or New York paid out $228 million in a single year (2016)? Forget what some union blowhard says to the press. He can say whatever he wants but at the end of the day he doesn't cut the checks, nor does he represent anybody but his members.

The numbers suggest that at the end of the day most people who were genuinely victimized get paid enough to consider the matter closed. I get it, you don't like cops, but it seems to me that one layer below the rhetoric (on both sides) the redress process basically works.

[deanimator]

If it's ALWAYS the citizen's fault then how is it that Chicago has paid out $662 MILLION over 12 years due to police misconduct? Or New York paid out $228 million in a single year (2016)? Forget what some union blowhard says to the press. He can say whatever he wants but at the end of the day he doesn't cut the checks, nor does he represent anybody but his members.

The numbers suggest that at the end of the day most people who were genuinely victimized get paid enough to consider the matter closed.

Somehow, I doubt that the families of Kathryn Johnston, Akai Gurley or Michael Pleasance "consider the matter closed".

I KNOW that Levar Jones and Charles Kinsey don't. Jones appears to be PERMANENTLY impaired and his assailant STILL hasn't been sentenced. Kinsey's assailant hasn't even been brought to trial yet after a ludicrously long "investigation".

Organized campaigns of vilification against the VICTIMS of crimes committed by police are SOP. Karolina Obrycka was REPEATEDLY described [without ANY evidence] by defenders of the Chicago PD as an "illegal alien". Strangely, these accusations were always so similar that they all appeared to be boilerplate crafted in ONE place.

I guess if the taxpayers lose in civil court, the consolation prize for the perpetrators and their supporters is to permanently blacken the reputations of the victims.

I get it, you don't like cops, but it seems to me that one layer below the rhetoric (on both sides) the redress process basically works.

What I don't like is the pattern of cops treating the victims of blatant police misconduct as the villains and the perpetrators as the "victims". What I like even less is criminal conspiracies to intimidate the victim(s) and witnesses, such as was directed against Obrycka by Tony Abbate's friends in the Chicago PD.