I can see both sides of this. On the one hand, we have a black person who is exercising his rights and using the tactics pioneered by libertarian activist groups like copwatch.org. For those not familiar with these libertarian groups, they are organizations that promote that you stand up for your constitutional rights by videotaping your interactions with police, refusing to show ID when you are not legally required to do so (as was the case here), and answering only those questions that you are legally required to answer. They also promote things like open carry, and openly recording police while open carrying in order to elicit a response from them, etc. In this case, a black man was using the tactics pioneered by the libertarian groups. It doesn't work out as well for him as it usually does for the (typically white) libertarians who usually use these tactics.
But on the other hand, we have a police officer responding to a call. If you've been in any position of authority, then you know how important it is to be firm and assert your authority early on. If you act timid then you will quickly lose respect and authority over the situation and it will get out of hand and spiral out of control very quickly. So, how do you respond to someone who breaks your rythm, who challenges your authority and threatens to put you into a chaotic situation where no one is clearly in control? Obviously, this cop acted incorrectly and irresponsibly...but are you sure you would react appropriately when put on the spot like that and having only a moment to decide how to react to this and how to take control over the situation again? I really can't blame the officers for what they did. Yet, if you've spent any time in libertarian circles, viewing their youtube videos of interaction with police and the like, then you know that in the vast majority of cases, things do not escalate like this. Which makes you wonder what role race had in it. Not that the cops are knowingly racist, but that perhaps the fact it was a black person who was challenging them and not the typical white libertarian kid, may have affected how they reacted on a more subconscious level.
It's unfortunate that there isn't a clear black or white here. The man clearly was asserting his first and fifth amendment rights. But the cop was in a really bad situation where he had to decide whether to escalate the situation by being even more authoritative (and thus violating the suspect's rights, which he clearly did), or backing down and losing control over the incident. I'm sure people who haven't been in such situations mistakenly believe that the consequence of the cop losing control is losing face, thus the real reason he is reacting the way he is has to do with pride. But that's not it at all, losing authority over the situation means you lose control over it. If you don't lose control, it's a routine investigation; you look at the guy's id, you ask him a few questions, ask him not to lounge around the bench anymore, and go about your day. Once you have lost control though, there is no telling how this ends, now it's a chaotic situation where no one is in control. I can see how the cops lost control of this one and freaked out, leading to the tasing. Yet....shouldn't it be acceptable for you to assert your 1st and 5th amendment rights without cops going nuts?
On a meta-analytical level, I find this thread fascinating. These kinds of activities are typically carried out by white right wing extremists who belong to the libertarian wing of the right. In other forums where videos like this one are shown and the person being tased was a white libertarian activist acting exacltly like this guy did, the kinds of people attacking him are the opposite of the kinds of people attacking the individual on this forum. Likewise, the kinds of people who typically defend these copwatch types are the same kind who are in this forum attacking the black guy who uses the exact same tactics. I wonder how many people will be honest enough to examine their own motivations and think about how they would treat this story if the guy was white and was an activist from a white libertarian forum instead of a black guy. I understand the above doesn't apply to everyone; the person who opened this thread is obviously a (presumably white, based on his avatar) libertarian who buys into the copwatch/copblock mentality and staunchly defends this person, as he should (in order to remain consistent), but it does seem apply to a lot of others.
