Pepin Tuma, 33, was walking with two friends along Washington’s hip U Street corridor around midnight Saturday, complaining about how Gates had been rousted from his home for not showing a proper amount of deference to a cop. “We’d been talking about it all day,” said Tuma. “It seems like police have a tendency to act overly aggressively when they’re being pushed around,” Tuma recalled saying.
Then the group noticed five or six police cruisers surrounding two cars in an apparent traffic stop on the other side of the street. It seemed to Tuma that was more cops than necessary.
“That’s why I hate the police,” Tuma said. He told the Huffington Post that in a loud sing-song voice, he then chanted, “I hate the police, I hate the police.”
One officer reacted strongly to Tuma’s song. “Hey! Hey! Who do you think you’re talking to?” Tuma recalled the officer shouting as he strode across an intersection to where Tuma was standing. “Who do you think you are to think you can talk to a police officer like that?” the police officer said, according to Luke Platzer, 30, one of Tuma’s companions.
Tuma said he responded, “It is not illegal to say I hate the police. It’s not illegal to express my opinion walking down the street.”
[…]
Within minutes, the officer had cuffed Tuma. The charge: disorderly conduct — just like Gates, who was arrested after police responded to a report of a possible break-in at his home and Gates protested their ensuing behavior.
[…]
“People talk about the Gates thing in terms of race, but it’s an ongoing problem of police using disorderly conduct to shut people up,” Tuma said.
No winner in this story.
While a valid story/issue on its own, I thought the relevant issue was how this shines light on the Gates/Crowley “race” issue.
As I stated before, there were three colors involved====black, white, and BLUE.
I think it is possible to have a cop force more tuned to the fine balance between arresting dirt bags and “managing the public” BUT it would take a whole lot of training, screening, monitoring, and expertise. All that I also assume very few taxpayers would want to pay for.
So much easier and cheaper to be hypocrits.
I appreciate this post because it highlights that the Cambridge incident was not really a race issue, but a right of speech and of privacy. Freedom of speech was set up so we could criticize those in power without repercussion.
Looks like cops get to flush it down the toilet if they are insulted. I wish I had the power to put people in jail if they say they hate me. Maybe with a high school diploma and some very basic training, you too can have such power (you even get a free gun and/or taser with which to shoot them). Coooool. –now we know why we have the cops we do.
As one of those hypocrites, it’s clear Pepin Tuma was just acting like a child and wanted attention. Most of the public understands that law enforcement in needed in society. Tuma and those few who like to say “I hate the police” lack perspective. When he or his loved ones are on the receiving end of a crime, they beg for police. He just wanted to look big in front of his friends and thought he knew where the line was. He was wrong and paid the price. He was not being funny; he was being confrontational. Adults handle their concerns correctly. If he thought there was a problem, he could contact a supervisor. He chose to be stupid and reaped the rewards (an arrest).
There are bad cops as with in profession, but over reaching statements like “I hate the police” yelled in a public area for the confrontational effect just show how childish some people are.
#34, One,
You missed the whole point. He was arrested for exercising a Constitutional right.
It is not a crime to say you hate police. It is not a crime to act childish. It is not a crime to be stupid. Advocating the overthrow of Constitutional Government is though.
We hire the police to enforce the law, investigate crime, and bring to justice those who have violated the law. The police are not hired to be our overlords. They work for us, we should never be afraid of the police.
Anyone using the line “who ya gunna call when ya git a problem” is an asshole neo-con wing nut.
Mac Guy and Jbensen2 are both lower than douchebags.
Pigs make me sick.
A news story along the same lines as this cop.
A high school freshman on the cheerleading squad was ordered by her coach to hand over her Facebook password. The teacher then viewed her private page and shared the contents with other faculty and school administrators. The girl was ostracized and banned from the cheer leading squad.
Although the right wing nuts want to ban law suits like this, the school is being sued for $50 million. I wish the young lady well.
By his own admission, It seems apparent that this guy’s intent was to catch the attention of the police officers. His own actions seem a bit “douche baggy” to me. He was harassing the officers while the were working, doing their job as some would call it.
He can hate cops all he want’s, but fucking with them while they perform their job, that might be construed as disorderly conduct, interfering with the duty of a peace officer might be another.
For the record, not that anyone asked, I like cops. I hate overbearing assholes who think a badge is a license to terrorize the public at large with the cute little tasers and guns provided to them by the citizens they so enjoy to FUCK with for their own person enjoyment because MOMMA had sensitive nipples and wouldn’t breast feed your whiney little ass.
Shit!!! I forgot the link.
Here.
Fusion, your passion is making you sloppy. A coach is not a cop. I hope that is not your real thinking and you just got caught up in the moment?
All these things fall on various continuums. The pure free speech issue is our right to post right here: “I hate cops.” and not have the government retaliate.
The pure interfering with a cop performing his duites is jumping on his back and scratching his face while he is trying to arrest someone else.
Does this instant case fall at either end of this continuum or is it somewhere inbetween even if “very near” one end or the other? Should such propinquity allow arrest subject to the judgment of the arresting cop or should all cops be subject to an objective standard?
I’m ok with any rule/standard proposed. You don’t spit into the wind and you don’t tug on Superman’s cape, and you don’t mess around with cops carrying guns who have been subjected to who knows what.
Intelligent people avoid cop confrontation unless they have other motives in mind.
Gates? Professor Gates?
I’ve had occasion to call the police several times after being the victim of property theft crimes. In none of the cases did I receive what I considered an adequate response. Usually, the police officer had an attitude like “this kind of thing happens all the time. We can’t prevent or solve it, so why are you bothering us.” That was very frustrating.
The other side of police work that doesn’t get discussed much- My son drove a cab for a little while. While stopped and looking at a map, someone ran up to his cab and told him his buddy had just been struck by a train. My son called 911 and the police arrived quickly. The officers that walked over and looked at the mangled body of the poor SOB that had been struck by the Accela high speed train are going to live with that image for the rest of their lives. They regularly have to view the results of homicide and suicide and vehicular mayhem. I can see why some of them get a little twisted. Most ordinary citizens aren’t prepared or equipped to deal with what the police routinely confront.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F Kennedy
Exchange the world “revolution” with “dissent” as that is the precursor to revolution.
Is it wise to provoke the cops? No. But evidently, this person has seen enough that he can’t keep it quiet any more. A lot of people know how he feels.
# 9 smartalix said,
“We need as renewed debate about the role of law enforcement in our society.”
NO, NO WE DON’T.
Cops are GODs, and we; are just their charges to which they can do with what they please. There is nothing questionable about Tasering Grandmothers, Shooting and or Killing unarmed people in the back, slamming a teenagers head into cement and crippling him is all ok. The Supreme Court on down, Congress and Repuketons have all settled this for U.S. It’s all ok, it’s all American as apple pie.
We are the Cops and the States maidservants. Get use to it, love it and ask for more next time you vote.
How dare, someone (he must not have been born in the U.S.A) actually believe police have to respect 1st amendment rights.
The constitution is not there for U.S., it is there to protect the Cops, the politicians for which it stands, one nation under Cops with liberty and justice only for the wealthy only and well connected.
Basically if you get into trouble, it’s your own damn fault. AMERICA SHUT UP AND SUBMIT!!!!!!!!!!!
Gates was arrested for making a political point. This guy was arrested for being a jerk.
Neither is an arrestable offense. The cops in both cases are knobless, cowardly twits.
But don’t compare Gates’s legitimate, politically-inflected anger with some guy who was just trying to provoke for its own sake.
The cop’s standards are clearly slipping. In times of yore they would have taken him down an alley and really given him something to hate.
Ok, he may or may not have been breaking the law. That is his actions were neither reasonible nor prudent is beyond doubt.
This guy is the kind of guy you don’t want for a friend because he will get you into more trouble than you can get out of.
Much of the friction between the public and the police has to do with policy decisions made by politicians. If people weren’t locked up for soft drugs imagine how many more resources would be available for traditional policing.
Prosecutors looking to move up the political ladder also create incentives for the public not to be cooperative with law enforcement. The lesson of Martha Stewart, not charged with any underlying offense of insider trading, should make anyone leery of talking to anyone with a badge.
Cops, like everyone else, are mostly decent people who are just trying to get by. We should look instead at politicians who demonize non-dangerous people in order to appear tough.
If police were tasked only with stopping dangerous people they would be universally respected like firemen. I think we could all deal with fewer drunk drivers, shady businesses, petty thieves, and murderers. When police are ordered to fight culture wars it does a disservice to everyone.
I agree with #47 chris,Instead making petty stuff criminal, fight real crime like real men.
I’ll respect the police when I see law enforcement going after truly important crime (nationally important), that will make everyone’s life happier and more productive; when they stop allowing rampant oil speculators, WALL STREET insider trading, Ponzi schemes, Haliburton scamming American tax payers through defense contracts, Enron and Credit card Co robbing the American people and the list goes on.
Instead of cops taking a ~2% of an average families yearly income for going 5 miles over the speed limit, why not focus on real crime.
There’s something fundamentally wrong about the way policing is set up in this country (and not only this one). Too many lawyers in charge, too few local cops who know the people (do you actually know the name of a police officer in your community?), it’s all set up so a cop’s life is mostly confrontation. We’re so spread out, I can’t see returning to the beat as practical, but something like that is what we need.
Until quite recently, almost no British cops carried firearms, and that worked out well for them.
That was hate speech.
It probably will be illegal this time next year.
This story doesn’t sound right, I’d bet there is alot more to the story than Uncle ‘the DipCommie’ Dave has put up.
No one just walks up to “five or six police cruisers surrounding two cars”, which implies a felony stop, and starts yelling “I hate the police, I hate the police.” How many “buddies” were with him? They were able to get the officer’s attention while they were busy in traffic, with radios blaring, and attention drawn to the two cars and at least two suspects?
Uncle “the DipCommie” Dave are you really so stupid and ignorant that you couldn’t wonder about this guys description of events? I bet you’re a Demoncrat, that you’re for abortion and believe in Global Warming. Am I wrong? Go ahead lie on the blog again.
Whatever……………..
Traaxx
#52, traaxx the idiot.
Read the effen article. Here, I’ll even link it again for you.
How does someone so stupid be allowed out of their room?