Why does crap like this happen?
According to an article in the Courier & Press of Evansville something possibly a bit scarier than the annual Guns & Hoses charity boxing match went down between a cop and a firefighter in Indiana's third-largest city. The incident prompted an internal affairs investigation after a photograph from the incident went viral.
George Madison Jr., who is Black and a firefighter in the city, was off-duty and on an afternoon bike ride when he said he waved at officers in a marked police car, thinking that he knew them. Unfortunately, he didn't.
What followed involved Madison's aborted phone call to the chief of police - whom he does know - handcuffs and a Taser. That is, until the police officers realised Madison was a firefighter who knew their boss.
In the official report, the police officers claimed that Madison had flipped them off and that when he tried to call the chief of police, they thought that he was attempting to call more people to the scene to back him up. They said that he reacted in an "aggressive manor" (spelling mistake is their dispatcher's) when they ordered him to put the phone down; Madison said that he hesitated to hand over the phone, but that he immediately put his hand up. Both sides agree that that is when one of the officers pulled out his Taser and threatened Madison.
Soon, Madison was on the ground and in handcuffs. A passerby who knew Madison snapped a picture. The picture, along with Madison's account of the incident ended up on Facebook,quickly went viral, and eventually it came to the attention of the police chief, Billy Bolin.
Now, the Evansville Police Department's internal affairs division is investigating, and some residents are worried that the incident wouldn't have happened at all if Madison had been White.
A local news station also posted a piece which includes video on their web site.
At the end of the video, the reporter tossed in statistics provided by the Evansville Police Department. Apparently, formal and informal complaints against its officers have nearly halved over the two years between 2010 and 2012 - even though the officers have engaged in more activity. But either the reporter didn't share any more than "formal" and "informal" about the type of complaints - or the police department share that information in the first place - so relevance was not established. Not really the sort of reporting I like to see.
I don't know the hell happened out there in Indiana, but I believe the officers shouldn't have stopped when they did (if they were going to stop, it should have been earlier). Fortunately, it seems that I'm not the only one.
George Madison Jr., who is Black and a firefighter in the city, was off-duty and on an afternoon bike ride when he said he waved at officers in a marked police car, thinking that he knew them. Unfortunately, he didn't.
What followed involved Madison's aborted phone call to the chief of police - whom he does know - handcuffs and a Taser. That is, until the police officers realised Madison was a firefighter who knew their boss.
In the official report, the police officers claimed that Madison had flipped them off and that when he tried to call the chief of police, they thought that he was attempting to call more people to the scene to back him up. They said that he reacted in an "aggressive manor" (spelling mistake is their dispatcher's) when they ordered him to put the phone down; Madison said that he hesitated to hand over the phone, but that he immediately put his hand up. Both sides agree that that is when one of the officers pulled out his Taser and threatened Madison.
Soon, Madison was on the ground and in handcuffs. A passerby who knew Madison snapped a picture. The picture, along with Madison's account of the incident ended up on Facebook,quickly went viral, and eventually it came to the attention of the police chief, Billy Bolin.
Now, the Evansville Police Department's internal affairs division is investigating, and some residents are worried that the incident wouldn't have happened at all if Madison had been White.
A local news station also posted a piece which includes video on their web site.
At the end of the video, the reporter tossed in statistics provided by the Evansville Police Department. Apparently, formal and informal complaints against its officers have nearly halved over the two years between 2010 and 2012 - even though the officers have engaged in more activity. But either the reporter didn't share any more than "formal" and "informal" about the type of complaints - or the police department share that information in the first place - so relevance was not established. Not really the sort of reporting I like to see.
I don't know the hell happened out there in Indiana, but I believe the officers shouldn't have stopped when they did (if they were going to stop, it should have been earlier). Fortunately, it seems that I'm not the only one.