Austin Police Chief Would Have Been More Thuggish

I saw this piece from a link on David Codrea's War On Guns blog. I originally saw this Story on The Blaze yesterday. Honestly, commenting on Thugs acting thuggishly is getting boring. It is hard to be outraged anymore because the thuggery is getting so blatant and so common.

 

image from The Daily Texan

 So a young woman, 24-year-old Amanda Jo Stephen, decides to go out for a run in Austin. Austin is a beautiful city and a nice place to go for a run if you are so inclined. The weather is warm. The people are friendly. You might stop in route and get a snow cone or take a dip in Barton Springs while you're out. The police... well, they are getting a reputation and it ain't a good one. It looks like several officer happened to be writing jay-walking citations at 24th and San Antonio Streets (slow month guys?) when Amanda happened by. She apparently was wearing her headphones and listening to something motivational while running. The cops saw Amanda cross the street and said stop. Amanda, being in her "zone" naturally didn't hear them. The next thing she knows she is grabbed by the arm and has no idea why. The rest is predictable. She behaved like a woman outraged at being abused by a stranger in a State Employee's costume. She was arrested and charged with “failure to identify”, and “failure to obey a pedestrian control device”.

Think about the term "Pedestrian Control Device" and imagine what that could mean.


Now, though, it seems the chief of police in Austin where the original incident occurred says he would have been harder on the woman. Chief Acevedo is quoted in the Daily Texan as saying,

“I don’t buy that you can’t hear an officer yelling at you to stop,”...  “I’ll give the benefit of the doubt initially, but when the officer is right by you and can see the hat and he’s looking at your face, you should be able to know what’s going on.” (emphasis mine) You know, the officer's word is golden. His word is to be taken at face value because he wears a Super Hero Costume and bears the Magic Shield. He can't be wrong.

and,

“All that young lady had to do when she was asked for her information was to provide it by law, “...  “Instead of doing that, she decided to throw [herself] to the ground – officers didn’t sit her down – and she did the limp routine.”

First, no one is required by law to produce any form of State issued identification just because another person demands it. A person violates the law when he refuses to identify himself AFTER he has been formally placed under arrest. If a  cop says, "Why don't you show me some I.D., your response should be, "Am I under arrest?"

Second, the officer's word is golden. It is Gospel. Acevedo cannot fathom that there is another version of "the truth" because his officers all told thew same story. Imagine that!

and,

“Quite frankly, she wasn’t charged with resisting, and she was lucky I wasn’t the arresting officer because I wouldn’t have been quite as generous.”

Apparently, Acevedo would have taken the opportunity to stack on as many charges as he could think up. Amanda was "lucky" you see. She was lucky that she was snatched up by the police without warning. She was lucky that a stranger put his hands on her. She was lucky that her day was ruined and she will now have to go to court and justify her freedom to go out for a run. She was lucky that Austin Policemen are such super-duper good guys who would never do such a thing, because Chief Acevedo would.