Slashdot Mirror
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."
Apparently you accept whatever garbage you read as the truth? The man was CONVICTED.
Cops do have to explain their use of taser just as much as their use of a baton or chemical weapon (pepper spray). It is less than that of a gun because it is not to be used in situations requiring lethal force. The decision to use a taser is dependent on the actions of the threat facing the officers, explicitly as a defensive weapon. For example, if the officer says "stay in your car" and you get out of your car, the officer is correct to use a taser. Always.
Here's the policy:
http://www.mtas.tennessee.edu/KnowledgeBase.nsf/vwebauthor/B1771739182D96E085256D550047F938
Well, standing too close to an officer could very easily be a crime, for example if by doing so you are interefering with an investigation, or with an arrest, or stopping a police officer from otherwise completing their official duties. You obviously aren't going to get arrested for being in the next over at the doughnut shop.
For all you know, the officers in question may have reasonably believed that he had a weapon. Or that he was fighting back and needed to be restrained and that beating him senseless was the only safe solution. Or they may have been assholes. I wasn't there, I don't know. A jury found him guilty of felony non-compliance, so he must have done more than just stepped out of his car (in fact we know that he did so at border patrol, which by definition carries a higher risk for officers, so a higher reaction would be expected than in, for example, Canada).
Its not just a gun.
He could have a knife, a baseball bat in the passenger seat, he could be on drugs, he could be a terrorist, he could just be some civil rights jackass who will make a routine stop take two hours instead of two minutes (plus everyone else gets to wait). I assure you, if he has a bazooka in the back seat, one way or another, he is not getting across the border.
Meanwhile, having everyone get out of their vehicle and following a procedure to be searched (because once out of a vehicle, you must be searched) at a border is absurd. You would have to have everyone waiting in line watch a video regarding procedure (in 20 different languages), take an exam on it, and then make it a felony to do other than procedure, which, while not just ludicrously expensive, would also not make it any safer for officers or travelers.
If you are border patrol and you think someone might have gun, the phrase is "hand where I can see em while you have yours drawn and the vehicle surrounded.
You would think with all the news about police beatings of people with curiosity that people wouldn't be curious anymore. Really, the common sense that is taught in pretty much all education is don't do things to give police a reason to wonder whether or not they should beat you, because they are within their rights to beat you well before that, as they should be, because what if you have a gun?
I recently took a defensive driving course (because my insurance offered me a sizeable discount for doing so) and they pointed out that in the little book given for drivers for the written test, it explicitly states that should you be pulled over, at no time should you exit your vehicle unless instructed to do so by the officer. There really is no excuse.
Check Peter's history. He has a previous conviction for being belligerent to a cop. He's a punk who thinks the 'Man' is trying to repress privileged white guys. I feel no sympathy, and I'm surprised the judge let him off so easy. Money talks, I suppose.
Hello little retard.
Thanks :)
He stepped out of his car and refused to return to it when ordered to do so in an area where it was posted that one should not leave their vehicle unless instructed to do so. I'm not trolling.
You have no basis for assuming that just because Peters appears to just have been an asshole at border patrol that those guards had no reason to assume otherwise at the time. Hindsight is 50/50; you either learn from it or you don't. Peters hopefully has learned not to give police officers a reason to beat him.
The fact that the Candadien border is not the Mexican border has absolutely nothing to do with the perception of a threat. It simply means that since the criminal (he was convicted, remember) was being a criminal in english, that he probably wasn't trying to smuggle anything over the mexican border at that time.
Wow, you quoted me out of context and made it say something completely different. Shame on you.
Try again, this time without lying about what I said or how it makes you feel about me.
For the second point, police officers do not need to wait until someone takes action against them. Quit being an idiot.
Appears I missed the 'it is sad' part, but read all else, my mistake, makes you not like it but yet you still endorse it, odd.
For the second point, police officers do not need to wait until someone takes action against them.
So it is acceptable then to use force/pepper spray/taser on otherwise peaceful people? This is what I had issue with. If a person is calm, non violent and not running away, how can force be justified?
It promotes the mindset of 'beat up first, oh shit, sorry guy' which seems fine and dandy to you, oh well, perhaps some day you will be subjected to it yourself.
Getting beaten up for stepping out of your car comes under this same guise, if he was running away restraint could be justified, but a beating for stepping out of a car? come on.
That is a completely different situation from staying in your car. Police aren't walking around gas stations beating people for being there. The law is that police officers get to defend themselves when they find a perceivable threat. Going about your business is the opposite of that.
I meant that you should respond to the entire post, not just a random sentence in my post. Then again, you can't respond in context unless you respond to the entire post.
I started today by having an experiment; to see what would happen if I just responded to every half thought dumbass response to any insight I might give. As it turns out, the dumber the respondent, the more they would continue with a back and forth. You and Jeko are king moron. Meanwhile, people who disagree with me mod me down while posting in response as AC. Other people defend me because I make valid points. In under an hour, my original post went from (2) to +5 insightful to -1 troll back to +2 insightful. The very next response was modded offtopic when it was direct response to a personal attack, yet that attack was not modded at all. Clearly metamoderation isn't all its cracked up to be. Luckily, like everyone with good or better karma, I don't care about it.
I'm not going to bother reading any other responses, but trust, they are pretty much all just as stupid as yours.
Are you drunk? Other places being bad doesn't mean we can be better, geez