The Youtube video is really more important than the article itself (though the article is also important). I don't really see this as one-sidedly as the author and the commenters seem to. Here's how I break it down:
1. The initial issue is that there was apparently a space that may or may not have been private property but certainly appeared to be public property. I'm not going to assume that the security guard was lying about the space. Taking the security guard at his word, Lollie was trespassing, but even if the security guard was lying, the police officer only knows that there was an accusation of trespassing, and it seems like a reasonably safe operating assumption, especially if the complaint is coming from a representative of the building (e.g. the security guard).
2. When the first female police officer arrives, Lollie seems to be walking away from her while she sounds as if she's trying to get to the bottom of the situation. If the police officer has reasonable suspicion that a law has been broken, it seems more than reasonable to want to ascertain what was going on and identify any possible suspects, even for something as minor as nonviolent trespassing. That's what it seemed like she was doing.
3. I can't for the life of me understand why Lollie didn't just stop and talk to the officer. I understand the rights argument, but the rights argument doesn't strike me as a winner. The police could technically arrest me for driving 1 mph over the speed limit, and they would be well within their rights to do so based on Supreme Court precedent. If the police had probable cause that Lollie was trespassing, they had the right to arrest him - and they did, even though such a decision was pretty terrible policing. So instead of a rights-based approach, maybe a more practical approach would have been to stop, talk to the officer, and resolve the situation in a calm, friendly manner before moving on.
4. To be sure, this isn't me saying that Lollie is 100% at fault. I do think that the police wildly overreacted to the situation and should view this situation as a good example of what not to do. Community policing involves using only as much force is necessary and diffusing situaitons before they come to a head. The police officer at the end of the video did absolutely nothing to achieve this result, and he would do well to consider the highly negative ramifications of tasing a father in front of his child, much less arresting him for what amounts to a misunderstanding. If I'm the police chief of their precinct, I'm yelling at them and probably punishing the second guy.
5. At bottom, though, the issue seems to be why Lollie can't simply walk away from the situation and exercise his rights fully. But it strikes me that the complete lack of trust that Lollie has for the police (at least the first one) is the same lack of trust that the police have for him. Some people argue that, because the police have all the power, they should unilaterally show the community (and minorities) that they can be trusted before people like Lollie should be asked to be more cooperative. But then I think about the guy who collects KKK robes. I think the police should strive to do much better than they did here. But I think Lollie had a choice to do better here. Perhaps he was vindicating his right not to show his ID or not to be detained except in the event of reasonable suspicion of a crime, but the cost of his vindicating his rights was that the police exercised theirs - and that his kid didn't have anyone to take him home after school.
This, more than anything else, probably demonstrates the difference in how I view the police and how many black people, especially black males, view the police. Many of my libertarian friends would also be shaking their heads at me in dismay.
B
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