A little hinky… perhaps? But it certainly does not rise to the level of clear hanky panky !!
As former journalist, I don’t find it hard to believe at all. Newsrooms have been gutted over the past two decades, and it’s not uncommon for a reporter to be responsible for covering several communities like this. Also, while police logs are public records that must be made available to any citizen upon request, the cops are usually not all that forthcoming about letting reporters have a look and newspapers are not willing to spend the time and money - or to risk souring their relationship with the police - in order to push the issue in the courts. Call me cynical but I’ve thought for a while now that the inability of newspapers to fulfill their oversight role is a feature and not a bug.
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What veracity? Saying “has recently been the target of criminal activity” is all but meaningless. Some kids spray painted a mailbox? Criminal activity.
No need to compare week-to-week–he didn’t say anything about an unusual amount of criminal activity, just that the neighborhood has recently been the target of criminal activity. What does recently mean? Are we talking Twitter or geology recently?
There’s nothing to verify because nothing was really said. All he said was that at some point in history there was some criminal activity in that neighborhood.
Hannity: For further insight on this issue let’s go to our resident neighborhood relations expert, George Zimmerman.
George: Hi, Sean. Glad to be here.
Hannity: George, it’s clear this kid had it coming. Am I wrong?
George: You are absolutely correct, Sean.
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So what if the neighborhood has recently been the target of criminal activity.
Does that mean that every person going in and out of their house is thus under suspicion?
Or just the black kid? Because black equals criminal, right?
That statement makes it WORSE. They’re excusing this because they’re essentially saying “of COURSE we suspected the black kid, there have been CRIMINALS around!”
I disagree. The cops responded to the home, not the neighbor. The cops entered the home uninvited, not the neighbor. The cops didn’t accept the truthful statements from the young man, not the neighbor. The cops did the pepper spraying, not the neighbor. The cops are to blame, not the neighbor.
Things that happened in the recent past are scarcely exigent circumstances. And hot pursuit wouldn’t work here either since there was no pursuit to begin with.
Yep, that’s what happens when they all become just another profit/loss center.
I’m wondering if the intensifying of gun-culture paranoia has had an effect on the sense of personal danger LEOs feel. In fact, the rhetoric and tone of gun-culture and anti-government supporters has always worried me with respect to the ways that they view civil order and law enforcement. Repeatedly, their message is “Arm yourselves to the teeth and be prepared to carry and use your guns everywhere you go, because they’re out to get you and police aren’t going to protect you.” They really don’t believe in putting faith in assigning civil order and security to trained professionals – they advocate for DIY civil “security” instead.
Strange thing is that the widespread systematic trouble you speak of, @NCSteve, something perhaps amiss in fundamental law enforcement philosophy across the nation, only adds credence to the generalized mistrust of police. This may explain the sort of bizarre convergence between right-wing authoritarian extremists and left-wing-anarchist extremists we occasionally see.
This country need systematic and widespread reform of and restoration of faith in community civil order through competent and effective public law enforcement policy and personnel.
I don’t know. The racism – only in this case, mind you – I lay mostly at the feet of the neighbors. The police were called because the neighbor saw a “stranger breaking in” at a house. If the kid was protesting that he lived there, yet his face was absent from family photos, I can’t fault the cops for thinking that was suspicious.
Anyway. There is no way this thing should have escalated to the point that they pepper-sprayed the kid. But I’m incredibly grateful they didn’t end up shooting him, because we see way too many cases of extreme escalation ending in death from LEOs when they’re dealing with people of color.
Racism could be a huge part of this case. But even when racism isn’t a factor in some cases, it seems like a lot of cops can’t competently manage encounters with the public, and they really don’t care because if they screw up and cause the situation to escalate, they always have their trusty weapons to recover “control” of the situation – even if it means somebody has to die. Over and over again, we see police responding to relatively low-level incidents and causing an escalation of conflict because of their incompetent communication and lack of social skills. An encounter over jaywalking ends in shooting a teenager to death. Or a suicidal teen, unarmed and pacing alone in a parking lot, surrounded by over a dozen cops, fails to comply with orders to “get down on the ground,” so they open fire and shoot him to death. We cannot afford to keep putting weapons and authorization to use lethal force in the hands of such socially inept people.
Fair enough on it being a high crime area. However, the article also only says that he was “arguing with the police that he was in his own home” without going into details of what was said. He may have said that he was a foster kid during that argument and he may not have said it.
Furthermore, I doubt there were signs of forced entry since it was this kid’s home. Moreover, I would bet that he was chilling in the house doing what most 18-year-olds do after school, either lounging, eating a snack, watching tv, laying on their bed, or even doing homework. What I’m saying is that I doubt his behavior fit the profile of a criminal.
So, given all that it’s reasonable to assume (as a southerner, myself) that police overreacted to an already overreactive neighbor. I guess one bright spot to come out is that I bet the family goes out real soon to get new family photos made with DeShawn in them (or at least gets portraits of just him made).
Slowly, slowly the great and beautiful state of North Carolina is being dragged into the 21st century. Mrs. Dearest has a place there she owns with her sisters and we’ve spent time in several different parts of the state over the years, interacting with people in all walks. There are huge pockets of progressive, tolerant, and engaged citizens throughout the state, contrasting starkly with a minority who are bigoted, backward, cloistered, and hateful toward any but their own kind. This minority has managed to control a disproportionate segment of the state and local governments and has led to a lot of misery. It is a dying gasp of a dying breed and it won’t last. I welcome the day when the gasp is over.
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How fucking hard would it be for the local cops to simply say, “Sorry, we fucked up. Seriously, let us buy you lunch.”
Instead, it is lie, deny, and make excuses. Fucking cops.
How pathetic it is when we must be grateful that the cops didn’t murder this kid in his own home.
Fucking cops.
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I thought they only killed all the Copy Editors. 
I do think that’s an important part of it. By and large, and with notable exceptions, cops are among the most pro-gun control people you’ll find.
But I think a lot of it also stems from the fact that all of the cops who came of age before the Burger and Rehnquist courts systematically destroyed the Fourth Amendment have aged out and the culture is transmitted by guys who came up during the confluence of the “take the handcuffs off the police” demagoguery and also during the peak of the increase in violent crime that began in the fifties and crested in the early 90s (see Kevin Drum lead theory of return of violent crime rates to 1950s levels).
Take a look at Robocop, made in 1987. That really does convey a sense of how people saw the future unfolding based on what had been happening for years. And the watch commanders and chiefs and LE instructors of today are guys (and they mostly are guys) who were rookies then.
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Fascinating. I am not aware of the crime trends you mention. I’ll check out Kevin Drum’s work and learn more. Thanks for the tip.
There was a time, not so very long ago, when scouring the police logs on a daily basis was considered an entry level assignment in the journalism biz and something every paper in a decent sized town had one or more cubs doing. I suspect back when it was a normal, every day occurrence, it didn’t even occur to the cops not to cooperate.