Great Moments in Law Enforcement
September 9th, 2014




NYC edition.

As always, the problem isn’t (just) the mistake–it’s that (1) The mistake seems to have been made in bad faith; and (2) There seems to be no institutional corrective applied to the officers who made the mistake. Most workers would expect to get fired if they made a really bad on-the-job mistake like this one.

Also, as Conor Friedersdorf notes, this is another case where the public disorder seems to have been created by the police. In situations like this one, it’s helpful to think about whether or not there were ways the police officers could have acted which would have obtained their objectives without a beating and arrest. If there were such courses of actions–and in this case, it certainly seems so–then the course of action they did take is not acceptable. The use of force by a state agent should be the last resort, not just one option among many, depending on how the agent of the state is feeling at the given moment.



  1. Nedward September 9, 2014 at 10:17 pm

    I appreciated how Friedersdorf described the arcane technical process of noise complaints tied to protests and loud parties (the latter usually occurring around 10 or 11 PM, he reports). He has been present, as a member of the press, at several protests and/or late-nite benders, so it’s within his expertise parameters for explanatory journalism

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