Tuesday, July 10, 2007

system still against skaters...

Hot Springs cop Joey Williams in the great skateboarding bust made world-famous by YouTube. It was noted that he made a mistake by leaving a handcuffed suspect on the sidewalk while he chased down another miscreant.

Here's the full report.

Hot Springs City Manager Kent Myers said that he agrees with the findings of the police investigation into the incident, and doesn't think excessive force was used by bike patrol officer Joey Williams, "considering the environment he was dealing with." Myers said that an additional viewpoint provided by a store security camera shows more than the YouTube.com video of the incident. For instance, Myers said the still image from the beginning YouTube.com video — which appears to show Officer Williams choking a 13 year old skateboarder with one hand while the boy lays on his back on the sidewalk — was in fact Officer Williams' attempt to restrain the suspect before handcuffing him.

There's no sign that the city intends to ease off charging kids with a stack of violations in the Williams throw-down. A reasonable city official might take into consideration that it was precipitated by a rash decision by a cop on foot to chase down a bunch of kids for a minor offense and horse-collar them. But kids have no advocates. Merchants along Central Avenue think these anarchists got what they deserved and that's good enough.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

those punk skaters deserved it. The copper should have raped them with his night stick. Go kick push the fuck somewhere else.

SWITCH™ said...

don't be mad cause you never got kickflips dawgy.