So here's a typical DC story for you....
A bunch of libertarians decide to celebrate Thomas Jefferson's birthday by showing up at his Memorial at midnight and dancing. To avoid disturbing anyone else, however, they decided to use their iPods and dance in silence. Quite clever, if you ask me. Not so much, if you ask the DC Police the National Park Police. You can read the full story here, but the short version is that because one of the dancers dared question the cop, they were arrested.
Here's McMegan's summary:
...the problem here is not that one of my friends, an educated white girl, had to spend five hours or so being harassed by the police. It is that the police think that questioning orders constitutes disorderly conduct. And that the result of questioning them is probably a lot more than moderate harassment when the questioner is not an educated white girl with a lot of camera toting friends.
Now imagine what would have happened had this been a moderately educated African American girl in an impoverished neighborhood whose friends had neither toted cameras nor had access to constitutional lawyers who "sue the government for fun." If you think the police overreacted here, just imagine how they react to challenges to their authority in neighborhoods where they can be virtually certain that the citizens have no legal recourse. And we wonder why people in poor and minority neighborhoods often do not trust the police?
In America, we have all learned to be afraid of the police. If you re pulled over in your car, you must be exceedingly polite and watch absolutely everything you say. If they ask you questions on the street, you must be careful not to be disrespectful in any way. I'm all for people having respect and demonstrating manners, but in the case of the police this has really all gone to far. To get arrested simply because you dared question their actions? That's the new definition of disorderly conduct?
Other countries aren't all like this, you know. This is once again a choice we as a society have made - to allow our police forced to develop the sense that their power and authority are far more extensive than the laws actually allow. It shouldn't be this way. It doesn't have to be this way.
UPDATE: BTW, this isn't anything new. Back in the early 1990s, DC raver kids used to gather regularly at the Jefferson Memorial to dance, and far too often the Park Police responded in precisely the same way. The only difference then, I guess, was that we were playing our music out loud, meaning that we really were disturbing the peace. We didn't have iPods back then, so what they did here just wasn't an option for us. That said, I have to imagine based on the way they treated us back then that if we actually had iPods, they probably would have just left us alone.
Maybe 9/11 really did change everything. Sorry TJ. You left us an enormous gift, and we went and f'ed it up.
Much more here for those interested
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