They Just Stood There and Watched

I saw a video posted on YouTube showing policemen breaking up a teenage party like it was a meeting of Al Qaeda. I was at a loss because there didn't seem to have been any crime committed by anyone unless swimming while black really is a criminal offense now. So my first question was 'why are the police even present?'

The next thing I see is that there are kids of all races present but only the black ones are being harassed. We see some perfectly polite boys being told to sit down or lie down on the ground while one actually lays flat on the sidewalk- you can tell that that one has been watching the news, he's taking no chances of being arbitrarily shot by moving. Some girls dressed in bikinis who obviously feel quite entitled to question these events are told to leave forthwith and when one talks back that's it. The policeman grabs her, throws her down and puts his knee in her back. She cries, she says he's hurting her. He is unmoved.

Policemen behaving badly is apparently par for the course in the United States. Its pretty ironic because they call themselves the 'World's Policeman' yet they can't protect their own children. Watching the video, you can see at least three adults who just look on while the fourteen year old girl is manhandled. They just stand there, watching. I guess they're trying to make sure no-one gets shot? What is a cause for concern is that they clearly see that what this policeman is doing is wrong, but they don't call him on it. Putting myself in their shoes, I know I would have felt obliged to ask the cop to remove his knee from this girl's back; its not like she's a flight risk or has a weapon. And then I would feel obliged to ask him why exactly he's holding a child down like that and would he be kind enough to state her crime. I would then inquire whether there are any female officers who would be better suited to be putting their hands all over a female minor and when does the situation cross over into sexual assault? I would be outraged. I know if this had happened in my backward, underdeveloped country; the whole country would be outraged - parents would want blood...what upsets me the most about this situation is the LACK of OUTRAGE by adults watching. What the hell is the matter with them?

Of course we note with absolute lack of any surprise that the focus of reporting of the incident goes straight to 'Oh she was resisting arrest' or 'she's no saint either'....so now its only saints who should not be manhandled by police? I don't get it. I think that the United States of America is irretrievably broken and it can't be fixed. This is a curse on a country that began with the extermination of an entire race of people and then the enslavement of another. The descendants of the people who did that are the ones who are now finding no fault with how people are treated today. That is the only explanation I can find for the lack of outrage. I am outraged; I want to throw myself between that cop and that child and say "No. You cannot touch her. You will not harm her. Get away." Instead I have to watch YouTube videos of other adults just standing and watching and not feeling a thing.

So in my little third world underdeveloped country which has been called a police state on occasion, an incident occurred in which protesting children were tear gassed by police. The children were protesting land grabbing at their school and trying to stop the bulldozers from coming in. And they were tear gassed.

The outrage was immediate, it was widespread, people were suspended, others were fired, the president read everyone the riot act from the teachers who put the students in harm's way to the policemen who carried out the incident to the minister in charge of internal security.

What is my point? It is that nobody cared whether the children went to church every Sunday or were getting bad grades or whatever. The point was that children were attacked, and they needed to be defended. Everyone saw that. It was uniform. Nobody even thought to blame the kids. That is how normal humans react....