This is ridiculous. Police arrests about 500 kids in Kmart parking lot on Westheimer.

my school was about 90% white....most of the kids I saw in the coverage on the news (even when they did wide angle shots) where hispanic...i mean like probably 90%....maybe I don't mean race so much as socio-economic stuff...I don't think the police would have done this in the suburbs.

it's a huge overreaction, in my view, to arrest these kids....break up the party?? no problem...tell them if they come back again and congregate like this you're taking them to jail?? absolutely....but just marching in and arresting the whole lot of them (and some who weren't involved) is overstepping, in my opinion.

 

They have been warning these kids for weeks...and they kept coming back.

And they would do it in the suburbs. They did in 1991 when many members of my high school class wound up in jail and on City Under Seige for congregating in public and drinking.

 

i guess...i still see it as a huge overreaction...

 

Another classic example of what happens when commu, er democrats take over...think about it. Vote young people...seriously. Let's hold people accountable...Who presides over the Houston police force, hmmm? You are either a citizen or a spectator...

 

If it were your apartment complex rather than KMart...would it still be an overreaction?

 

Refman, it's not that I'd disband the cops given the choice. It's that I'd demand they treat people differently -- especially non-violent offenders. I also think we should still have jails -- but I think that prisoners (especially ones who haven't even been convicted of anything) should be treated humanely.

The difference between you and me is that I've been to jail. I've had my car searched and torn apart for no good reason, except that I "fit the profile." I've also been held up at gunpoint by a mugger and had both my home and my business robbed.

But after all my personal experiences, nobody evokes as much fear in me as a police officer. Different experiences, different opinions.

If people were truly treated like they were innocent until proven guilty, if holding tanks were humane, and if the cops who worked the jails weren't (almost universally) incredibly verbally (and sometimes physically) abusive, I wouldn't have as big a problem with innocent people sometimes going to jail, due to honest mistakes. As it is, it is unacceptable behavior from our public servants. When you've been subjected to a strip search, been forced to **** in a toilet covered with feces in front of a room full of strangers (or hold it in for 24 hours) and told that if you talked they'd "beat the **** out of you," all for a non-violent offense, you'll be qualified to talk to me about this. When you've been forced to do all those things when you haven't EVEN committed an offense of any sort, you'll be qualified to talk to some of these kids.

That said, the ones who were truly warned (if any were -- no one's said they ever were) of arrest who returned deserved to be arrested. The others deserve to cash in on a wrongful imprisonment lawsuit.

 

Interesting point. A Dem is mayor...he chose the police chief...and Dems are the majority of city counsel. And note that it is the left wing that is the most upset about it (with the exception of MadMax).

 

certainly you see how entirely different that is...hell, the cops couldn't even differentiate between who was there for the party and who was there as a customer of the businesses. yes...if a huge party breaks out in my complex, i'm calling the cops...but i bet you they don't arrest them...i bet you they send them running...but i don't know that arrests are necessary.

 

the hypocrisy of the right is that they scream for recognition of rights and freedoms, but will allow the police to trample quickly over the rights of those who don't look like them. that's a tragedy in my opinion. we see it happen all too frequently. republicans like to say they're close to libertarians...but when they argue for police arrests and life imprisionment for non-violent crime, they tend to lose that flavor.

the hypocrisy of the left is that they scream for recognition of rights and freedom, but are quickly willing to sell private property rights down the river....they'd give the govt the power to do just about anything to redistribute wealth or save the whales, private property rights be damned.

the left wing and the right wing should be upset when teenagers are arrested for hanging out in a parking lot....i'd rather see city resources used more effectively....

 

We agree there. Even after conviction people should be treated in a humane manner.

Won't happen for reasons that would fill an entire thread all its own.

OK...now what if they keep coming back all summer long despite calling the cops over and over. I'm not saying that the cops should have arrested legitimate customers...but those who were the source of the disturbance or underage drinking....yes. There is no way that I would feel better about sending a couple hundred drunk teens on their way home.

 

Refman: Please stop delineating the two choices as:

1. Arrest 500 kids, or
2. Send 200 drunk kids off to drive around town

1. Nowhere in this article or anywhere else was it said that these kids were drinking.

2. If some of them were drinking, arrest them for that. Offer breathalyzers to the ones who say they weren't drinking. If they pass, let them go.

You don't need to list the reasons a lawsuit wouldn't hold up. I know all about this particular injustice.

And, where I'm concerned, you needn't bring left and right wing philosophy into it. Both parties' blind support of law enforcement, unless they are literally caught on videotape beating someone up, makes me want to vomit.

 

Wow....I agree with...ummmm...Batman??? yeah...ummm...yeah


seriously, you're putting these kids through a helluva lot for hanging out in a parking lot....how much was bail?? how much was it to get their car back after it was towed?? and you're putting kids in freaking jail!!! i just don't get it....

 

Awesome, Max. Hang around this board long enough, you can find some area of agreement with anyone. Well... Anyone cept GrandeQueso...

 

When I was growing up, a local strip mall back where I grew up got tired of having teens crusing through and hanging around, so they got the police to crack down. While they didn't arrest anyone for loitering, they did, at one point, start requiring a $5 deposit to drive onto the lot (you were given a receipt when you paid and were given $5 back upon leaving).

As it turns out, the teens were apparently the only thing keeping those stores afloat. Once the kids stopped coming, the place went downhill fast. The entire group of stores was out of business within six months. (The strip mall has since been renovated and new stores have opened, though it took a while for it to recover despite being in one of the busiest parts of town).

If I lived in Houston, I would just be glad that serious crime is so rare that the police can become hall monitors for bankrupt corporations.

What is the legality of enforcing the loitering laws these days anyway? I remember a couple of years back, the Supreme Court struck down the Chicago loitering law saying that the pesky Constitution gave people a right to peacably assemble. And even the Chicago law said the police had to first ask the offenders to disperse then and there before making an arrest.

Of course loitering is defined as hanging around with no apparent purpose. It would seem to me that these teens had a purpose. If that purpose doesn't qualify, then one could make a case that if I go to a public park just to hang out and breathe what passes for fresh air in Houston, I'm also in violation and should be arrested.

A lot of questions. And if I had the answers to everything, I'd be teaching theology in Paris.

 

Hey ******* my brother was one of the people arrested who went inside K-mart and bought a VIDEO GAME and still got arrested, so screw your cops and your neighborhood...my parents are filing a lawsuit on those pigs and this city who employs them....THIS WAS STUPID
Cops heads are gonna roll and so are the people who gave the go ahead......
ANARCHY TO ALL HPD COPS if you see one on the road flip him off!

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
They are gonna pay
Thank god Sonic told the wrecker drivers to get off their property
PEOPLE they arrested kids eating at SONIC!
THIS IS AN OUTRAGE

 

MadMax, I used to hang at the same stupid K-Mart....they kept telling us to leave....we'd avoid it for a week or so but always go back.

But back then all the subdivisions in West Houston werent built yet, so you could just motorcade into a house-less cul-de-sac and party there.

 

MovieManiac, you may want to try some anger management.

Jeeez.

 

No one is going to like MovieManiac's post or the way he expressed himself. But none of the people judging it had a brother handcuffed, mistreated and held against their will yesterday. I'd say he's got a reason to be pissed.

 

"ANARCHY TO ALL HPD COPS"?

Yeah, thats great, man.

HPD cop once saved my brother's life.

So excuse me if I stand behind them, this stupid scenario or not.
(but arresting a bunch of innocent people WAS wrong)

 

Hey at least nobody got shot in the back out there. Any time the HDP doesn't mistake a slurpee for a gun and cap off a few rounds that's a pretty successful arrest nowadays.