Police Excesses

The day before yesterday (9/17), Massachusetts Senator and almost-President John Kerry came to the University of Florida campus to speak and answer audience questions. The speech was held in a relatively small auditorium and, according to the pictures I've seen of the event, was rather sparsely attended. Kerry's appearance went smoothly until the very end, when a UF student, Andrew Meyer, rushed to the questioner's microphone and began to rant to Kerry about various issues, including Kerry's acceptance of the 2004 Election results, his supposed membership in Yale's Skull and Bones, and the lack of any move to impeach Bush. Finally, after a couple of minutes (as I heard it told), Meyer's microphone was cut off and he was told to stop. But he wouldn't, and the University Police who were present rushed to him, grabbed him, partially handcuffed him, and Tasered him. Finally, they dragged him down the aisle in front of Kerry and the "crowd" into the lobby while the Senator tried to respectfully address Meyer's concerns and urge the audience to be calm.

From what I've seen and read about this incident, it clearly looks as if the police grossly overreacted to Meyer, even though they displayed the typical, perfunctory "politeness" at the beginning of the interaction that the police are trained for. And then, since that didn't work, attack! As a matter of fact, this bears a slight resemblance to the exaggerated portrayal of "cops gone wild" at the close of The Blues Brothers! But, unfortunately, this isn't an isolated incident. Mr. Meyer seemed disruptive and obnoxious, but not dangerous to anyone. And certainly undeserving of Tasering.

A few years ago, in Florida, a woman who obviously had been drinking, had pulled off the road in her car and had passed out (pretty sensible of her, I might say, to pull off the road first). She had a gun in her lap (that part wasn't so cool) and the car was locked up. A policeman noticed the car, looked inside, and called up for "reinforcements". The police, with guns drawn and pointed at her, then proceeded to try to break open the window to get to her (instead of just patiently waiting for her to revive). Naturally, she awoke, startled, and instinctively reached for the gun on her lap. To which our public protectors, the police, responded by shooting her to death. To the best of my recollection, those police involved in this incident were exonerated in the woman's death.

I know that it's a good thing to have police to protect us from unsavory elements in our society. But when they begin to regard everybody as a potential criminal, they become a danger unto themselves. Once, in the early 1980s, I was living in an apartment next to a big field. One night, I decided to take a pleasant walk across the field to buy some Krispy Kreme doughnuts from the shop on the other side. When I got to the middle of the field, I stopped for a few minutes and gazed up at the night sky, something that I was in the habit of doing. After I had bought my doughnuts and was crossing back through the field, I noticed a slow-cruising police car in the adjacent parking lot. As I crossed the field, this car seemed to be going awfully slow, and seemed to be interested in me. And it was, following me all the way back to my apartment and then flashing its headlights directly at me as I opened the door to my apartment. To me, this was police harassment. After getting inside, I immediately called the police and lodged a complaint over the phone, but nothing, of course, ever came of it. But I know that, even though I had done nothing wrong, if that policeman on that evening had decided to provoke something stronger against me, than it would have come down in court as his word against mine, and his spin of the events would have prevailed.

I'll be the first person to admit that the profession of law enforcement is very demanding, stressful and dangerous. It's also very necessary, and I do appreciate the sacrifices that police personnel have made for us. I just think that sometimes they go over the line and regard the people out there as criminals to be caught instead of citizens to be protected.