The Public Responds to the Columbus Park Arrest

While conclusive facts haven’t completely surfaced about the arrest of an older gentleman in Columbus Park this past Sunday, a multitude of residents have already voiced their opinions loud and clear (53 comments and counting). Expect the mainstream media to pick this story up any second.

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What we know for sure is that a Facebook event was created in an attempt to organize residents to attend the 5th Precinct Community Council on May 25, held at the 5th Precinct Station House.

As many have commented, the video starts roughly halfway through the incident, so it is not clear what led to this encounter. As reader Obvious noted:

if the situation was handled properly then there would be no need for ppl to complain about the situation. but for obvious reasons, the person video taping this found that the situation was not being handled properly and thus started video taping it as soon as he/she could.

So where does this story bring us? So far we’ve seen race, gentrification, excessive force, and general crowd control mentioned. Many things to (intelligently and respectfully) debate.

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Yet as reader Joanie Kwok puts it, “before we turn this into an Al Sharpton esque manhunt, we should find out all facts.”  And that’s precisely where Buhosd weighs in.  This commenter witnessed the whole thing go down:

In fact two of the officers at the park spoke the old man’s native language. The short officer with glasses calmly tried, unsuccessfully, for about 15 minutes to persuade the old man into taking his loud speakers and leave the park.

Of course if I post a 15 minutes video of two cops calmly talking to a 30+agitated group of  people in the park, no one will watch it.  As matter of fact, that’s not even worth recording.  Right or wrong?  But wait. What if I just delete the first 10 minutes of the boring cops talking, and the part where they asked the old man for identification and he refuses,  and when one cop tries to handcuff him and the old man assumes a fighting stance and then two more cops have to intervene and ultimately a fourth cop. Nah, that’s not good enough either. That just shows that the cops are doing what they suppose to do. So, let me just show the video when the old guy is on the floor with a bloody face. That’s for sure police brutality, isn’t it?

Did any other readers witness the same?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xrTD085eNI&feature=channel_video_title