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Writer Peter Watts Sentenced; No Jail Time
shadowbearer writes "SF writer Peter Watts, a Canadian citizen, whose story we have read about before in these pages, was sentenced three days ago in a Port Huron, MI court. There's not a lot of detail in the story, and although he is still being treated like a terrorist (cannot enter or pass through the US, DNA samples) he was not ordered to do any time in jail, was freed, and has returned home to his family. The judge in the case was, I believe, as sympathetic as the legal system would allow him to be."
So you don't like police officers because their policies and procedures allow them to be safe.
Look at the job description between policeman and firefighter. One is to keep cities orderly. The other is to end fires. Gee, I wonder why one of them is perceived to be more dangerous (and only recently has become more dangerous).
Officers claim they have no obligation to put themselves in harm's way because they actually don't.
Its not cowardice, and crutality isn't a word.
Try again, this time reading more than just the first sentence in my post. Then, you can respond in context.
Wow, you sound like a total dick. You don't get a trophy for submitting a story, you know... and, as a side note, when people *really* don't care about things? They don't bother talking about them.
I can't believe your self-congratulatory wank-post got modded up.
Comment of the year
"Standing too close to an officer" is a crime? OK, that's about the walking definition of a bad law.
No, your statement is rather a perfect example of not thinking things through. Standing too close to an officer is clearly not by necessity a crime. However if it is done in a threatening manner...
What was Watts' crime? He asked the officers what they were doing.
That may be Watts' claim or your interpretation, but the charges for which he was convinced were assaulting/resisting/obstructing an officer, including both refusing to obey directions (get back in the car) and later choking an officer. This obviously does not jive with what Watts' claimed, though I found his original summary and the nauseating prose linked to in the article totally totally unsympathetic. I guess there was no video of the border crossing...I was hoping it would come out so the truth would be readily apparent.
Peter Watts is a geek scifi writer. Judging from his photos, he weighs about 160. My wife could smack him around. He's about as threatening as a tuna sandwich.
Irrelevant. If you are a border officer and somebody refuses to get back in their car and is acting belligerent (which it is claimed he was), nobody is going to assume that there is no knife, gun, etc present. Law enforcement officers simple don't have the luxury of letting people do whatever the heck they want in controlled environments--ie, a border crossing. This was not in a public sidewalk, a park, or your house, it was at a border crossing.
But somehow, these law enforcement officers felt they needed to beat him senseless, leave his blood all over the pavement, and then mace him for good measure when honestly, a wedgie probably would have been overkill.
Too bad I've never seen any pictures. Have you? I'm rather amazed that after Watt was beaten and left in jail that none of his friends took even a camera phone picture of him? I would have thought that would have been quite a rallying cry for online protestors.
Regardless--if Watts' version of the story is true, this story is a travesty. If the border officer's version is true, then (imho) Watts deserved it and I have no sympathy for him. The truth and appropriate reaction probably falls somewhere in between.