Police Brutality

We have a lovely park near our house, for little kids. It's a genuine community ministry put on by the church that owns the land. They have a great play set and jungle gym, and also some of those Little Tykes playsets. It's very popular with the under-5s and, of course, their parents. It is also, apparently, a popular site for weekend birthday parties.

Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous here - high around 80, and very nice and clear. Mr. Mac and I decided to take Miss Baby to the park so she could run and play outside, he could read, and I could soak in some fresh air and sunlight. There was a birthday party just ending when we got there, and so there was a nice group of kids running around and playing. The only drawback was that we had to stalk someone leaving for a parking place.

We had been playing for a good half hour, when we saw a cop car drive by. Several other people also observed this, and a few went to move their cars before they got a ticket. One older woman (I think she was a grandmother of the child whose birthday party had been happening) got into her car, and was in the process of getting ready to move, when the cop starts banging on her window - "Ma'am! Open your window NOW. You open it RIGHT NOW!" he yelled. Loudly, I might add - everyone in the park stopped to stare.

He proceeded to berate her (call her stupid, among other things), and yell at her for her blatent disregard for the laws of this town. Then he threatened to arrest her. All this for being illegally parked (a $15 fine, I'll add). After all of this, two additional cars drove up. Yeah - he called for backup for a parking violation!

I was absolutely stunned - We could hear that he had added some sort of aggravating circumstance to her ticket, which undoubtedly increased the fine.

Downtown Decatur is just a sleepy little place in the middle of the big city. The community on the west side of downtown is very international, very educated, and very liberal. But we are very well behaved. Down south of downtown, well to the south, is some of the worst neighborhoods in metro Atlanta, but our part is very nice, very wealthy, and for lack of anything better - very dull in the eyes of law enforcement. Occasionally, we have mail-box bashings or some other mischievous teenage antics. For this cop to sit and threaten a child's birthday party guest with arrest over a parking violation - it's uncalled for.

So I did my civic duty - I wrote down the vehicle number for the cop's car, and I just called the precinct today to report this aggregious behavior. The woman who took my call just started laughing as soon as I started the story. She said I was at least the fifth person to call and complain about this specific incident today, and that they were putting the cop on suspension for his gross overreaction. He had apparently been on the job for about 6 months, and this was one of his first times out on patrol on his own. He felt threatened and was overwhelmed by the situation in the park.

I then laughed for this woman - "Ma'am, he may claim she was belligerant, but all she was doing was moving her car out of an illegal spot before the metermaid got there. Tell me you've not done the same thing. All the cop needed to do was write down her license plate, and I know y'all can mail her a ticket with the address information from the DMV. Why did he feel, in any way, overwhelmed or threatned?"

She said he was apparently afraid that with all the people in the park watching, someone would try to do something to prevent him from giving her a ticket.

I guess he felt he needed to prove something and show his authority. He was rather Cartman-esque now that I think of it....

I had to hang up at this point - it was just so ridiculous. To say that you were worried about a bunch of parents with toddlers is insane. To claim that you feared interference from people who are busily holding on to wee kids trying to go down the BIG! SLIDE! is just nuts.

This guy really should be fired.

So there's the excitement in our sleepy little part of the world for a Sunday. Next week - end jaywalking: cross at the lines or do the time!