• Rob Spectre
  • 29
  • Sep
  • 09

Of all the places one would not expect to find this video filmed, skaters in San Francisco filmed this exchange between a young skater and SFPD Officer Schwab, 2099.  Thanks to Mission Mission for the find.

The exchange is pure skater harassment, the kind anyone who has picked up a deck knows. Some kids are skating and fucking with a city fence while trying to record a video. Neighbor calls the cops, cop show up and busts up the show. It isn’t long before the officer takes a poke, which a punk is always happy to reciprocate.

Moments later, Schwab delivers this Emmy-winning performance instead of his Miranda rights:

Resist again and I’m going to break your arm like a twig. And then you can treat me like the asshole you think I am.

Undoubtedly many of you have taken that trip to the back of the squad car, where the officer slaps the cuffs on and makes a big show about a night in the clink only to relent a few blocks away from the alpha male from the pack and turn him loose.   Having possessed in my whole life maybe a quarter of the restraint of tongue the arrested skater demonstrated in the short exchange that got him apprehended, I have a special affinity for his situation.  Having made that trip a time or three myself, I learned something each time.

The first time I thought the guy was giving me a break.  That what I had done really did merit incarceration and that the officer was bending the rules to let me out of something that might haunt me for the rest of my life.  The second time I started to get wise to the ruse.  I’d seen people get arrested for real; they were read rights with plenty witnesses on hand in front of cameras.  The third time I got handcuffed but escaped arrest, I recognized it for what it was: a douchebag with a hurt ego making himself feel tough in front of a bunch of kids.

The way they turn your shoulder to tear your ligament just a little, the pull on the cuffs to bruise your wrists for a wee, the way they slam the door onto your other shoulder to give you a lasting knot – it is not law enforcement.  It is purile bullying.

When kids are shooting each other in the gut at public pizza joints in broad daylight, we need less Officer Schwabs.  Police officers need to be serious men and women of even tempers, passionately committed to helping their communities.  It is a hard and unpopular job, made all the more insufferable by dicks like me.  But they chose their life, and in so choosing agree to suffer our ire as we agree to suffer their abuse.

Only now, these criminals called skateboarders can share their everyday with the rest of the world.  And people are learning just how ridiculous these public servants can be.

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  • TDub
    Who's right, exactly, when there seems to be so little respect on either side of the table? Nobody, I'd argue. Nothing is gained when any side pushes just to see how far they can push, before the other side feels forced to respond in kind. Being an "insufferable dick" ruins it as much for the rest of us who seem to be so often caught in the middle, as much as being an iron-fisted bully on the other side does.

    Total fail all around. No progress is made, and worse, any steps forward have likely been lost.

    There's nothing 'noble' or righteous anywhere in that video. The skaters were breaking the law and, if tampering with city property, likely knowingly so. Blondy there would also have been well advised to choose, perhaps, a more productive way of expressing his frustration (I have a difficult time agreeing that his comments demonstrated 'restraint'). The officer certainly crossed a line himself, in response to, but certainly not justified or appropriate. And the onlookers? Not really helping either(e.g. the whole 'gun thing').

    Your general points aren't invalid in the slightest and are quite good, but basing them on the actions of any of the participants in the video weakens them a great deal I think.

    Besides. Don't think I've forgotten how you were one traffic violation away from getting my soup-holding, just-along-for-the-ride ass, hauled in along with you because -somebody- couldn't be bothered to reregister his damn car. Still think you should've gone along with us getting a ride back to work in the back of the patrol car though.
  • I'm not sure the timbre or the substance of that article suggests anyone was noble or righteous. I don't think any more than you do that the video was heroic, but it - and the growing volume of videos like it - is telling the story of the long standing animosity between punkass skaters and purile cops that up until now has been more anecdote than documented fact. I don't think my language glamorized the disrespectful behavior of those kids. But, as punkass as it was, when weighing their sins objectively I don't think any one could credibly defend threatening to break an arm over it.

    And before we air too much dirty laundry about the responsibilities of automobile registration on the Internet, maybe we can talk to your wife about the time she had to pick you up from the impound lot. ;)
  • TDub
    Fair enough! I think your last response to saysaysaysaywhatyouwantosay there, clarified your position perfectly (i.e. initially, it seems it was a little muddy for him/her too - maybe).

    And pfft. When I hooked up with Patrick Kennedy at McCoy Stadium, I totally lobbied that driving around with the hobo you bagged tied to the hood of your car, be legalized. Those bastards are quicker then they look. We should be allowed to display the results of our ability to stalk the most dangerous game, fairly! You've been in SF too long. You've gotten too used to the hippies just sort of milling about aimlessly. No real challenge there.
  • saywhatneedbesaid
    You pretty much summed it up in your summary. You're an insufferable dick. And you excuse yourself for choosing that because well someone else in the world decided to choose a profession to deal with insufferable dicks like you. That's some screwed up priorities you got right there that requires professional assistance.

    I completely agree with you that compassionately committed, even tempered cops we need. But insufferable dicks we do not. Your excuses are as pathetic as your pride over them.
  • I don't follow - where was I trying to excuse mouthing off to cops?
  • saywhatneedbesaid
    "...But they chose their life, and in so choosing agree to suffer our ire as we agree to suffer their abuse..."

    By some odd chance do you have an unconventional definition of the word "ire?" Actually, no you probably don't because you likely had to rewrite that sentence, looking up alternatives so that you could describe the behavior of each party without using 'abuse' twice.

    It's plain English, the sum of the post in one sentence. But I'm betting you'll dazzle us with some unexpectedly and clever perspective to argue.
  • I don't think the perspective is particularly dazzling and cannot at all see how it would be unexpected. To put the sentence another way, cops should expect the animosity of snot-nosed skatepunks just as snot-nosed skatepunks should expect to get harassed by the cops. Skaters are engaging willfully in a sport that has been declared illegal in this city. If they don't want to be abused by douchebag cops, they can choose to do something else. They can take up badminton or throw a frisbee in the park.

    For some, the bullshit hassles aren't worth it. They choose to comply with the law, buy a fixed axle bicycle and make spectacularly poor fashion, facial hair and personal hygiene choices.

    For others, the abuse from police is insufficient to deter them from doing what they enjoy. They choose to skate. Choosing to skate is signing up for grief; it is implicitly agreeing to suffer the abuse of folks like Officer Schwab.

    Of the set making that choice, there are some who choose not to eat Officer Schwab's shit with a smile. They choose to resist. They choose to use plain language to describe how they feel they are being treated. And, obviously, with that choice comes more grief.

    I'm not sure how that observation can be construed as an excuse or rationalization. It's not even news - this kind of exchange has become part of the skating culture.

    What *is* news is that these exchanges can be documented and reach mass audiences, exposing jackass punk and jackhole cop for what they both are. Even five years ago, the cop would have done whatever it was he intended to do with the kid with no one but him, the kid and the half-dozen odd other folks standing around to know that he had lost his temper and threatened to break a kid's arm for being insulting.

    This observation is about the power relationship between cop and skater - one hopelessly tilted in the former's favor - got evened by an inch.
  • saywhatneedbesaid
    Your defense, aside from being longer than your actual post, takes the form precisely as I predicted. It makes no sense, travels in circles trying to randomly defend some unclear point yet not addressing the points of the post you're replying too. For the second time you're still not following.

    In short, your response offers says nothing about nothing trying to defend a ridiculous position that you're not able to follow. And this ain't rocket science.

    Congratulations. You made par. Dazzling!
  • All in a day's work around here.

    Thanks for stopping by.
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