Hot Springs, AR police officer celebrates Go Skateboarding Day, by choking several non-aggressive teenagers.

I am really not much of a writer, so I am just going to post this here, but someone should write a news article about it. Seeing as how it happened a week ago, and hasn't appeared on any mainstream media, we should do our best to flood the web with it.

A group of teenagers were arrested on June, 21 in Hotsprings, AK for skateboarding. The teens were pretty uncooperative with the police officer, they were however completely non-aggressive. Several of these youths, including a 14 year old girl, were brutally choked by the arresting officer (Officer Joey Williams). The kicker is, It was photographed and video taped. I don't even really need to explain it much more, because the video does more than enough.



This whole scene has me so furious that I want to scream. Just in case you feel the same, and want to do speak up a little, here is some contact info.

Hot Springs Arkansas Police Department
Phone: (501) 321-6789
Fax: (501) 321-6708
Chief of Police, Bobby Southard
Email: bsouthard@cityhs.net
641 Malvern Avenue Hot Springs, Arkansas 71901

Mayor - Mike Bush (501) 623-6863


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Fuck, I can't post a topic without typoing something and making myself look stupid. That would be Hotsprings, AK not AZ

Is it just me or does that cop sound like Bush?

That really looks terrible. I won't make in-depth comments because I wasn't there...but it really, really looks bad.

Agreed. Watching that was disturbing.

Hot Springs, two words and the postal code of Arkansas is AR.

i wonder what caused more of a public safety hazard some kids skating or all the ruckus that cop stirred up? i don't blame them for running that dude was having a breakdown.

i really don't know what to make of this. i see kids running from the cops (bad move) and interfering with them doing their job (another bad move). i also hear the kids protesting that all they were doing is skateboarding which is coincidentally banned in that area (breaking a law and then protesting when its enforced generally isn't the best way to go about things).

there could be more to it than what is shown on the videotape provided by the oppressed skateboarders. apparently 6 people were arrested including two adults so obviously the whole picture isn't there.

did anyone get hurt?

Resisting arrest?

"Please, sir, hold on wait."

"Lie down"

"Okay..."

"YOU'RE RESISTING ARREST!"

Arsehole.

From that second link:

Still, you don't grab a teenage girl by the throat.

why not?

Well... I'll tell you why not - she's unlikely to present a physical threat large enough to warrant that kind of force. Especially when she's just standing there looking at you. If you want to grab her, assuming that you have the right to, try something else other than her breathing apparatus. Otherwise you might look like a big bald-headed bully.

Now, that's just one reason why most people don't grab teenage girls by the throat. I can think of a few more, but what you do on your time is up to you.

she wasn't just standing there looking at him. she got way too close while he was dealing with someone else so he told her to sit down. first she said "no", and then she bolted. when he apprehended her, yet another person came at him so he was tangling with two people at once.

Oh well in that case grabbing a teenage girl by the throat is fine. Textbook.

looked like a headlock to me.

do you know that they let teenage girls into the military these days?

I'd be more worried about guys like him in the military.

Sounds like another case of "I wasn't there and didn't see what happened beforehand, so I cannot judge the conduct of the police officer."

Especially considering the other eyewitness account who claims the skateboarders were tormenting the police officer prior to the video.

I find it difficult to believe a group of kids could "torment" a police officer. "Annoy", I'll buy.

Did you even watch the video? Because all the arguments you are making really sound like you didn't. These kids were in no way acting in a manner threatening enough to merrit that kind of force. I am not surprised by your response though, I was just expecting it to come from a guy in a uniform. Blame the victim. Thanks for being part of the problem.

Those kids learned a valuable lesson about respecting law enforcement officers that day.
The cop was a jerk, but the kids did pretty much every wrong thing you could possibly pull out of the text book. I bet next time they handle it a bit differently.

No one ever gets this right. Sheesh.

I'll preface this with I am in clas without sound, so this is on pure sight alone.

The lesson here is listen to the officers when you break the law. It isn't like he pulled out a baton and was beating them; its looks like he was trying his best to control a situation where kids had the intent to provoke him; they followed him, ran from him, squirmed from his grasp. Adding the fact they were doing this in front of a center with disabled people, it reeks of "teenage antics," rather than polite civil disobedience, especially if they ever touched the officer. Hell, the officer even let the camera settle down nicely and didn't turn it off; I would think if he was out of control he might "accidentally" break it or ruin the data.

Getting all worked up about this is what causes people to get desensitized to real "out of control" cops. I have no sympathy when a cop is enforcing the law and you chose not to listen because you think you are above the law; that is what gets cops, criminals and innocent people hurt more than anything.

What law, the no skateboarding on broad sidewalks and plazas in the heart of downtown law? That's the Arlington across the street in the footage, this isn't some quite suburban lane with Grandpa Simpson sitting on a rocking chair. That's the foot of bathouse row, its crawling with tourists an bikes and duck boats and occasionally horses. Perhaps the kids wouldn't have been taunting him if he wasn't trying to "enforce" something idiotic.

If that is the law,m its the law. If the place is crawling with people, think that is the best place for people to be skateboarding? Who is liable if they hit someone and knock them down?

We can't pick and chose which laws we feel are "worthy" of being followed. If you want to change the law, form a protest where you sit or picket, not intentionally break the law and taunt the officer.

And don't justify their actions because the law was stupid; if I think it's stupid that I'm not allowed the play grab ass with strangers, does that make me well within my rights to act out agaisnt offers trying to stop me?

You're assuming of course that there were in fact any laws being broken and it's not merely a case of a small town cop being an officious prick.

But hey, thanks for the civics lesson anyway. Me, I think that rather than speculate as to what I didn't see, I'll stick with what I did see which is a 250 pound cop pinning a kid to the ground by his throat.