Opus 2015-395: Headlines: Here We Go Again.

Another teen is assaulted by the police.  Sound familiar.  The LA Times has the usual distortions in place.

The opening paragraph and headline are all that most people will read and they are a designed to incite the community.  From the headline:
    Police tackle teen for jaywalking.

From the first paragraph:
    Four policemen tackle a 16 year old boy.
    They take him to the ground.
    The “alleged” offense is jaywalking.

Even I might get upset if that were all the facts, but consider, when I was 16 years old I was over 6' 1" and weighed over 215.  I know that because those were my numbers when I was 14. 

As we keep reading we see a growing picture.
    Unnecessary force
    Minor violation
    Defenseless child
    An offense never enforced

Only in the sixth paragraph do we begin to be enlightened about what actually happened.  There are 17 paragraphs, some short but still 17.  In paragraph 5 it says he had just got off his bus and in 6 the witness says he was going to his bus.  Which was it.  The policeman asks him to sit down.  So far all is normal.  Based on what I read toward the end the kid was walking in the street where the bus needed to go, so he was impeding traffic.  Of course this is not mentioned until paragraph 13.  In that paragraph we also get the information that the officer was assigned to the traffic center which gives us a little more context.  Walking in the bus lane in a busy terminal is a little different from jaywalking on a country road.

As you read you put together this story.  A kid gets off a bus and starts walking in the traffic lane of a busy bus terminal.  A policeman asks him to get out of the street.  He ignores the policeman.  The cop tries to get him to sit down.  He ignores the cop.  The policeman puts his hand on the kid, he shakes it off.  The officer takes out his baton, not to hit the kid but use as a tool to restrain him.  A struggle ensues.  The kid is induced to sit but continues to resist.  The cop hits him with the baton.  A large crowd gathers.  The cop tells him to stop resisting and the quote from the kid is “get off”.  Somehow I don’t think that was an accurate quote.  At this point people in the crowd start screaming at the policeman.  Somewhere in here he called for backup.  He told the kid to turn around, I assume so he could put on handcuffs.  He refused.  It is at this point, after an extended confrontation and surrounded by a hostile crowd that three other officers showed up and they tackled the boy.  In here we also find that the kid pushed the cop away and tried to take away his baton.

Nowhere is there any description of the teen.  Was he a little 90 pound weakling dressed in a coat and tie on his way to Sunday School?  Was he a 250 bruiser with his underwear showing and his hat on backwards? 

Was this police brutality?  Sorry, I don’t see it.  But I am afraid I am just an old white guy of reasonable intelligence who is concerned for truth.  I am not qualified to say.  I wonder if Barak Obama will invite him to the White House for a photo-op. 

Feel free to read it yourself.

homo unius libri