Just despicable conduct by the San Diego police in arresting a Jets fan, apparently for the crime of rooting for the wrong team. Kudos to the San Diego Chargers fans who stood up for the Jets fan, one to his personal detriment as he was forced to leave by a cop who, to his credit, didn’t taze the guy for the audacity of being noncompliant.
Hope the police apologists show up to “explain” why the cops were right. And without a video, would you believe this happened? Would it have the same impact?
Of course, it’s possible that something happened off-camera which we aren’t aware of, but the fact that Chargers fans are arguing and yelling at the cops that he didn’t do anything seems about as strong a basis as possible to believe that he didn’t do anything. And I’m a Giants fan. Unbelievable.
H/T Radley Balko
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Scott,
This video isn’t a complete shock. What did people think was going to happen when the NFL teams adopted the fan code of conduct? At Texans games, you have a text number you can send a message to reporting abusive and unruly fans. Then once the staff comes down and says, “hey buddy, let’s go have a chat” and the fan says “forget it,” then they have you for non-compliant behavior, which gets you an automatic ejection. I put my money on the Jets fan being a dope. He probably had season tickets in Section D too.
Jason
There is no one less charitable than a home team fan in a losing playoff game. If the San Diego fans are chanting “Attica, Attica,” I will not stand against them.
I’m no police apologist, but this video doesn’t appear to show any despicable conduct be the police. What I saw was:
1. Guy cheering for the Jets
2. Camera cuts off
3. Camera cuts on with the police in the middle of arresting the man.
This video implies a connection between the two, by showing one before the other. But it only implies, it doesn’t show.
We are showed a guy cheering, a camera cut, and a guy getting arrested. For all we know, he could be getting arrested on an unrelated warrant.
If I had to guess, I’d guess that someone from the stadium came over (maybe the cops themselves), asked the guy to leave, the guy refused (making him a trespasser). I’d guess the guy refused to leave when ordered to by the cops. I’d guess that the guy was probably drunk, and probably belligerent.
At that point, the cops decide to arrest him. He doesn’t cooperate with verbal instructions, so they grab him and he struggles to get away. More of them squeeze in to help grab him, and then the camera gets turned on, and we watch the rest.
Yeah, that’s possible. And those could be zebras chanting “Attica, Attica.” It’s possible.
People need to pay me to make arguments this bad.
How much?
I’m no lawyer but could the charge be ‘intent to incite a riot’ or something similar?
Reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where Elaine was asked to remove the Baltimore cap at the Yankee’s home game.
Absolutely. After all, what other reason would a Jets fan have for rooting for his team at an away game? Talk about dangerous conduct.
As a lifelong Chargers fan who has attended probably 20 home games, I can tell you that the lack of pro-cop Charger fan reaction is conclusive evidence that this guy did not do squat. Love the gangsta hearcuts on the cops. Glad I didn’t bet on the Chargers. I was despondent after that one, but wonder how many fat bulges we can count on the lead cop and whether we could place bets on that one.