Well of course she felt unsafe, because, you know, you never know what those people will do. Plus, didn’t you see that mad black woman lunge across the desk at that poor, frightened, clerk? Ah—wait… 8-|
Why couldn’t they have let the child change into the approved swimwear the mother returned with, and allowed the families to carry on with their day at the water park like everyone else? Their admission had been paid. Clearly, they only wanted to cool off on a summer’s day like every other patron. Was there was no other stated injunction against them being allowed to swim except for the one child’s lack of approved swimwear, a problem which was apparently quickly remedied? So why did there have to be all the hoopla? Why did the police have to be involved? Why was the woman not allowed in the pool area to at least retrieve the other members of her party? And why could they not have been issued a refund if they were no longer being allowed to swim? All this just seems to have been so unnecessary.
The people at fault were the staff members denying re-entry into the pool. The cops were aggressive only because the kids were obviously resisting arrest. I was waiting for a taser or something to go off when I saw the 3-4 officers on the girl hanging onto the cage. The only part that annoys me is the white teenager playing cop and the officer right next to him letting him do it.
I think it is a good thing that people are resisting the police to that extent, they do not deserve instant craven submission when they are behaving like bullies. Unfortunately, the cost to be paid is the risk of being shot.
OP,
You ask what the heck is wrong with people? I’ll tell. A lack of common sense. You 100% right the problem could have been solved by giving the mom a refund or letting her son change into the new swim pants. No big deal. Great summary by the way, much appreciated for us busy people, but the desk lady wasn’t using common sense. The desk lady was following orders and probably didn’t think it through. She was just a soldier following orders and thus common sense gets tossed out the window.
This is a board about college and education. There you go. K-12 education in this country, is scary, and I’m not sure “higher” education is much better in many cases when it comes to common sense and critical thinking. I think a lot of people are good at jumping through the hoops and getting degrees but not so good at real problem solving and critical thinking. This “problem” could have been avoided if the desk lady had used some common sense.
Or even an ounce of kindness. Who hasn’t been somewhere and forgotten something? It was a hot day, let the people cool off!
The attitude of the ranger doesn’t help - he looks and acts like a send up from a tv show or something.
One can say, “just do what the officer says and nobody gets hurt.” Aside from the recorded fact that it often doesn’t work out that way, the more insidious thing to me is the cascade of events that escalated this encounter to the point that there were officers in the first place. I remember a pages long thread here several years ago about how inappropriate it was for a teenager to wear a hoodie on a rainy evening. Whether it’s overt racism or just an “innocent” feeling of being unsafe, African American kids seem to be perceived as threatening in the most regular of circumstances. I can’t imagine what the clerk thought might happen if she let the mom either hand over the trunks or collect the kids to leave.
On another note - the mom ran in from the car to deliver the trunks. According to the video she asked that someone tell her daughter he was waiting in the car to turn off the engine. The officer starts grabbing at her and physically detaining her because she doesn’t produce an ID. So where would she have it while wearing a bathing suit and a cover up? A true “peace officer” wouldn’t allow a situation like this to devolve in less than 2 minutes.
I think the mom went as far as she needed to go when she offered the two options of either swim with the right swimwear or leave and get her money back. It was probably a fair amount of money, too. I find it very hard to believe the clerk couldn’t return the money. That doesn’t sound right.
As far as the mom causing a ruckus when she wasn’t allowed to be with her son and was kept separate by the police - I’m sorry, but with everything the police have been doing lately, if I were a black mom and my son were kept separate from me by the police, I’d probably go a little frantic. In fact, a lot frantic.
Here’s an antidote to the above situation . . . a bunch of kids of all types getting along and nobody calls the police. I love that there’s even a young woman in a headscarf. People really can just get along and act “normal”. I do have hope that our kids are better at it than our generation.
In no world was what the mom did a reason to even call the cops. I would have made a scene too if it happened to me.
“You ask what the heck is wrong with people? I’ll tell. A lack of common sense.”
There is no excuse for the police to lack common sense. Do these police departments not do any training anymore? It sure seems like it to me.
They also need to be told, over and over it seems, that they work for us.
“I find it very hard to believe the clerk couldn’t return the money. That doesn’t sound right.”
I agree.
I know I’m opening a can of worms here, but I’m a little sick of people, black or white, failing to follow rules, mouthing off to people in authority, refusing to comply with the police, then screaming that their civil rights are being violated.
http://www.wlwt.com/news/pool-fight-911-call-everything-s-going-crazy/33526786
According to the family’s rep,
It sounds to me like the kid was kicked out of the pool for mouthing off to security and refusing to leave when asked to because of his inappropriate swimwear. According to the police report and the 911 call made by staff the kids were asked to leave because of their behavior. The kids had been dropped off, so it sounds like perhaps no adult was present with them. By the time the mother returned the kids had already been playing in the pool. There’s no timeline to indicate whether she was gone for 10 minutes or an hour. According to the article,
Should they have been rewarded with free swim time for their poor behavior?
This situation may not have been handled as well as it should have, but frankly there’s no way to tell if it was from the video. From the videos it appears the officer attempted to talk to the parent but she repeatedly brushed by him, refusing to talk to him or produce ID. Eventually there were multiple officers on individuals from the group because people were wrapping themselves around the bars of the pool fence and refusing to let go. The police were trying to pry their hands off the bars. One of the officers is heard saying, “You’re not being arrested. You’re being detained. You’re making this whole thing harder than it has to be.” as the person continues to refuse to comply with the officer(s). From the linked news story,
and
On one of the 911 calls an employee is heard crying and responds in the negative when asked if she feels safe. You can see multiple kids and adults going after an officer in the surveillance tape.
A personal story from many years ago. As a child of about 10 I visited the Science Museum with my family. There was one particular station (computer games) that was very popular and thus had a 10 minute time limit. I waited for 20 minutes then asked the girl at the station for a turn. She refused, so I waited another 10 minutes before politely asking again. The girl whipped around, started screaming at me and grabbed my hair, pulling out a huge chunk by the roots. My mother spotted the fracas, pulled the girl off of me and found the person in charge of the girl. The girl tried to claim that I had used racial slurs and attacked her, despite the word of the other people present. Today I can imagine a video of the whole thing ending up on YouTube with the title, “White mother and child attack black child and call her ‘n*****.’”
The problem with these instances of manufactured racism is that they hurt the cause of combatting real racism. When evidence arises of genuine racism among a police force or other types of systemic racism come to light it allows people to say “We’ve seen this before. It’s a Tawana Brawley.” (For those who don’t remember Tawana Brawley, she was the AA child who falsely accused 6 white men of rape. Her case, like the Duke lacrosse team rape claims, set back the cause of combatting real rape immeasurably.)
And she had to have ID if she was legally driving the car.
@30,
Great post.
I didn’t watch the video or read all the articles about this incident so I’m not taking sides one way or the other besides what I already posted which was based on my initial reaction the desk lady could have, and should have, simply refunded the customer’s money but you raise some good points about the customer’s behavior before and after the refund was refused. I’ve got to tell you … you are making me rethink my position.
If the customer lady, and he kids, weren’t able to follow reasonable rules and requests then that changes everything.
@Sue22 - the kids called mom and mom said, I imagine, something like don’t leave - I’ll bring a suit. After a game of telephone that gets translated into “kid said their mom told them they didn’t have to leave”. We can see that the mom is trying to either give the kid the suit or retrieve all the kids and their personals.
Yes - she would need valid ID to drive but from the video of them taking her out on the walkway we can see that either she didn’t drive the car or she left here purse in the car while she ran in. The calls out for someone to tell her daughter who is waiting in the car. Would you expect her to have her ID tucked in her suit ready to “produce”?
The case of yet another control freak (desk lady) trying to exercise excessive control.
I would never step into this pool again and forget the money, there is never official policy when these few dollars may be refunded. Without having official policy, in places like this that hire ineligible people who do not fit for the position, you cannot have your money back. What are you going to do - hire lawyer to get $10 back?
@saintfan, The problem is that we weren’t there so it’s tough to know what happened. According to the family the entire family was kicked out because one kid didn’t have swim trunks and the unreasonable pool staff wouldn’t let him back in when his mom brought his suit.
According to pool staff the kids were kicked out because of their poor behavior after the boy without swim trunks swam in his clothes was asked to get out. From this perspective the kids would have been rewarded with a free swim for behaving badly.
What did the reported “poor behavior” consist of? Politely debating with the security guard? Swearing loudly? Doing cannonballs into groups of small children and diving in the shallow end? Again, we have no idea so it’s hard to judge who was right.
I’m terrible about having my ID on me so I probably wouldn’t have been able to produce one either, but the officer didn’t ask her for her ID until she had repeatedly tried to brush past him and refused to give her name. A more appropriate response would have been along the lines of “I’m sorry officer, I don’t have an ID on me. My name is Sue22 and I live at 123 Elm Street. I just need to get my children from the pool. Would that be okay?”
@MiamiDAP, what evidence do you have from the video or the story that the staffer was a control freak?
Nothing but the staffer unreasonable behavior that does not go with the idea of treating the customer well.
What was the staffer’s unreasonable behavior? Can you see that it’s possible the staff’s response was, "Pool policy is that we don’t give a refund for kids who are kicked out of the pool for cause after swimming for an hour?
Perhaps the staff was inflexible and unreasonable, but have you heard the story from the point of view of the woman at the desk?
He who screams loudest is not always rightest.
When he grabbed her arm she was “brushing past him” to exit the pool deck
He asked for ID and she said she didn’t have to, according to my admittedly-faulty hearing. And if so she was quite right, as has been repeatedly established. He seemed to grab her when she was leaving. Why was that white guy in a bathing suit involved?
I really cannot believe that people would start talking about how she “must have had ID” to drive. So you’ve never left your purse in the car when running into a place to drop something off?
I really cannot imagine that anything that happened, included black people failing to drop their gaze and shuffle suffficiently for The Man, warranted physically overpowering and handcuffing yet more little teenaged girls in bathing suits.
Have these people just gone insane?