Cops, The Next Sad Victims of “Lived Experiences”

The cool thing about “lived experiences” is that they’re undeniable.  You see, you don’t have to prove them, with nasty stuff like facts or reason. They just are. They’re the feelings a person has about their own perceptions of their own experiences.

Only a hater would deny someone’s lived experiences. If you doubt that, ask any special snowflake on any college campus. Between sobs and calling you a hater, they’ll explain. Well, actually they won’t, because the very question is so traumatizing that they will be totally unable to speak until they’ve been comforted in a safe space. Ah yes, lived experiences.

So if it works so well for these fragile teacups, why not a cop?  Remember this protector and server?

Medford Police Officer Stephen LeBert seems like such a tough guy as he screams at a driver who made a wrong turn onto a rotary.  In case you’re not from Massachusetts or New Jersey, a rotary is a circular intersection that engineers came up with to justify their existence.

But LeBert’s angry and violent outburst is just the tears of a clown.  Really, he’s just a sensitive soul who has, sniff, “lived experiences.”

LeBert’s attorney, Kenneth Anderson, admits that his client overreacted the night of July 26.

“You have to understand his perception at the time,” Anderson said. “He sees somebody go the wrong way through the rotary …. I think the logical inference is that someone who goes the wrong way either is not from here or they’re impaired.”

Not around here?  There’s a good reason to threaten to blow someone’s head off. Stranger danger can never be underestimated.  But, counselor, why the over-reaction?

Though LeBert was not in uniform or in his marked cruiser that night, he “took it upon himself to try to stop this person to protect the public,” Anderson said.

LeBert has twice been struck by vehicles, Anderson said, fracturing his pelvis and coccyx and suffering a concussion. He feared he would be hit again.

There we are, poor Detective LeBert’s lived experiences, his fractured pelvis.  His fractured coccyx.  His concussion!  How can you describe the trauma he had to endure, and how it influenced his perception of the world, his fear, yes fear, that he would be hit again.

What? You don’t buy it?  You don’t believe that this poor, scared, traumatized, potential disability-retiree for PTSD, didn’t utter the words, “I’ll put a hole right through your fucking head” to hide the sadness and fear from his lived experience?  You hater.

If it wasn’t true that poor Detective LeBert was pushed to his profane threat of death for the good of the public and because of his personal trauma, would he have done this?

One fall evening in 2012, Paula Corbin made the mistake of pulling into a Burger King parking lot to throw away some trash.

Medford Police Officer Stephen LeBert was watching her. He came up to Corbin’s car, flashed a light and asked for her license, she later told investigators.

Corbin was a retired federal immigration officer, and told LeBert. After all, cop courtesy, right?  But no, LeBert suffered from his lived experiences.

Corbin assured LeBert that she would never be involved in drug activity—she was a retired federal immigration officer. He called her a liar.

LeBert demanded her badge. It was at home, embedded in lucite, she said. He laughed at her. She asked for his name, and he flashed the lights of his unmarked car.

“Do you believe me now? Is this proof enough?” she recalled him taunting her.

Now that’s either the actions of a madman or a person who has been traumatized by his lived experiences.  Which one? How dare you ask.  His chief says he is a wonderful cop.

According to the police chief and his colleagues, LeBert is an outstanding officer who does his job extremely well. He hustles every day like it’s his first.

But his file is littered with complaints that call him a bully.

That is so unfair, as we now know from his attorney.  He’s not a bully, but a deeply sensitive cop who wants nothing other than to protect the public.  But his lived experiences?  Don’t deny them. Don’t blame the victim. LeBert suffers from the trauma of his lived experiences, and still you would blame him?

So, does this sound sufficiently ridiculous?  Are you somehow able to get beyond the tears of a clown as his lawyer explains and look to the fact that this is a cowboy full of his authority and prone to use violence against others?

And his “lived experiences” don’t make that okay?  Because, you know, this is the real world, not the fantasy one with play doh and cute kittehs?

“Whether you say, ‘Stop I’m going to shoot,’ or say, ‘I’m going to put a hole through your f—ing head,’ it’s the same concept,” Anderson said. “Maybe it was inartful, but it got his attention and diffused this situation.”

Well, not exactly the same concept, but more importantly, it would have been absurdly wrong for an off-duty cop to threaten to kill someone without profanity for making a wrong turn in traffic.

Except for his lived experiences.  And if they save you from responsibility from facts and reality, and give you a free ride to elevate your feelz over others, than why not a cops?

Or if it seems ridiculous as applied to LeBret, perhaps it’s equally ridiculous as applied to you.

Or maybe LeBret is owed his own “lived experinces” just as you are, and we can hold hands and forgive him for screaming at a driver that he’ll blow a fucking hole in his head.  And if we can forgive him for that, then we must surely forgive him if he acts upon it. Because he has lived experiences, which is something no one can deny.

H/T Edward Wiest

12 thoughts on “Cops, The Next Sad Victims of “Lived Experiences”

  1. Brent W

    I’m not an attorney, just a daily reader of your blog. Isn’t his defense attorney just doing their job? I guess I don’t see anything outlandish here, other than another cop with a history of being a threatening asshole and a local newspaper carrying his water.

    1. SHG Post author

      First, did you read this as being a criticism of his defense lawyers, or a criticism of what his defense lawyer said? Second, what his lawyer said was kinda stupid. “Doing his job” doesn’t mean being stupid, although it sometimes plays well with people of a certain level of intelligence. QED.

  2. Hal

    There’s a glaring omission in your writing, counselor. How could you neglect to include a mention of the traumatized officer who sued, successfully, after he got in trouble for pepper spraying flex cuffed protesters in CA. In the video of the event he looked like a perverse cross between the chubby AirSofter kid w/ all the cool gear and Darth Vader. IIRC, he was awarded something like $35-40,000 for his feelings getting hurt. How could you, or your crack staff of researchers, miss that?

  3. Paul L.

    This quote from the defense attorney is just as beautiful.
    “He never actually put his hands on this gentleman,” Anderson said. “The entire incident was 27 seconds measured against a 31-year career. I understand the optics aren’t good in the video, but I’m puzzled by the visceral reaction everyone has to paint him with such a broad brush.”

    1. SHG Post author

      After all, it’s not like everybody doesn’t point a gun at a guy and tell him you’re “gonna put a fucking hole in his head” every once in a while. It happens.

      And on Tuesdays, your first murder is free.

    2. DaveL

      The entire incident was 27 seconds measured against a 31-year career

      I know, right? You kill and eat just one preschooler and everybody loses their sense of perspective.

  4. Thruston Lopes

    Saying that period is wrong. Let alone a police officer running after a man and saying that. No matter who you are.

  5. Mark

    Clearly, Detective LeBert was a model of restraint. According to his attorney, “This idiot [the driver] is revving the engine at him. He legitimately thought his life is in jeopardy.” A Lesser cop would have just shot the suspect in the head and cited Tennessee v. Garner. But LeBert only threatened to shoot him in the fucking head. LeBert is a hero.

  6. Pingback: Cop Feelz | The Sun Also Rises

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