Mississippi Cops: We Totally Arrested That Black Doctor For Being Uppity, Ayup!
Dr. Marcia Bowden and her husband, Ira Marche. (pic via The New Tri-State Defender)
In case you played hooky from Wonkette on Monday, we had the very weird story of a prominent black doctor from Memphis, Dr. Marcia Bowden, who was arrested along with her husband during a routine traffic stop in Southaven, Mississippi. Her husband, Ira Marche, admitted he was speeding -- to rush his wife to a patient emergency at her clinic. At the time, we only had Bowden's account, but now the paper Bowden sent her account to has the arrest reports, and surprise, it sounds like it went down just about the way she said it did. Huh!
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There's a minor detail here and there that she left out or said a bit differently from the way the cops, Sgt. Brett Logazino and Officer Jeremy Delaney, reported it. Like for instance, she says her husband told her, "Honey, be quiet, these people are redneck, they will hurt you." WHEREAS, Logazino's account claims Marche said, "Just calm down, this is a bunch of shit from some redneck Mississippi cops." Uppity cusses! Of course, we already knew from the original story that Marche had cussed once or twice during the altercation.
While Marche was looking for his driver's license in the glovebox, Bowden said the cops told her to stay in the car, at which point she explained that she was not getting out, just sticking her legs out so her husband had room to rifle around. However, she failed to report that she was SASSY. As per Officer Delaney's report:
“I stood back and behind to observe what was inside the glove box for officer safety,” Delaney reported. “Ms. Bowden became angry and attempted to get out of the vehicle as well. I ordered Ms. Bowden to remain inside the vehicle.”
And then, due to all the obvious black people anger happening, Delaney did what he had to do:
“I sensed that the verbal altercation was escalating so I took Mr. Marche into custody,” Delaney reported. Logazino’s account reflected the arrest: “Delaney then moved Ira to the passenger side rear of the vehicle and placed him in handcuffs.”
Cusses and general uppityness, and who do these people think they are anyway? It's not like she was a doctor rushing to a patient, oh wait, she WAS a doctor rushing to a patient.
Read the whole report if you want to, please, be our guest. Because from what we can tell, these good old boys didn't even feel the need to make up a bullshit story about how they were completely justified, and definitely did NOT arrest these people for Existing While Black. Hell, when that white guy heading home after a Widespread Panic concert was arrested and died in custody of the Southaven Police Department -- thevery samepolice department -- at least the cops tried to make bullshit excuses about an "LSD overdose."
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When you're black, it's different. Remember the pool party incident in McKinney, Texas? That cop vaguely tried to pretend he was terrified of being charged by a 15-year-old girl in a bikini, though few were convinced. And remember the time those black kids were arrested for waiting for the bus? They were pretty scary too, you betcha. And the time Florida cops arrested that guy 62 TIMES for air-quotes "trespassing" at the place where he works, due to how he was black? He was probably up to no good.
And now we have Dr. Marcia Bowden and Ira Marche arrested because black people are scary when they say cusses, we guess. Good police work, dudes!
Either we speak different languages, or I just wasn't clear enough.
First, I have no idea what you mean by "co-opted." I can only assume you mean "applied."
Second, no, the term "bureaucrat" is only an insult to the anti-government crowd. To put it briefly, a bureaucrat is someone who works within an hierarchical organization, which marks out clear lines of authority for it employees; and whose behavior is directed by rules and regulations. By that definition, nearly all of us are bureaucrats, whether we work for private or for public organizations. By that definition, police officers are certainly bureaucrats.
Third, given that definition, the meaning of the term "street-level bureaucrat" becomes fairly plain. Cops are street-level. Postal delivery people are street-level. And so forth.
Finally, because rules can't cover every possible situation, bureaucrats nearly always have some discretion in applying them. That's what I mean by "making policy."
Now if I understand your last comment, you're saying that bureaucrats should have "flexibility." And I'm saying that they do have flexibility, because they have discretion in the application of rules and regulations. I hope that's a little more clear.
My apologies - I did consider before posting, but it wasn't clear to me if you were using bureaucrat in the correct way (you were), instead of the way it's normally thrown at me. (Best response a Tax Collector has is in reply to "You can't talk to me that way, I pay your wages!" - "That's the point, sir, you don't.")
I didn't realise 'co-opt' was not American English
http://www.oxforddictionari...
Meaning 2 - to use for a purpose other than the original. (PS please don't call it British English - its just 'English' or, if you must, 'Queen's English' ;) ! )
Discretion has to be allowed, because, contrary to what the Right seems to believe, you can't write a rule book that covers everything. One of the most upsetting things I had to professionally was enforce Head Office's ruling on a Tax Credit repayment. They were legally right. However they could have written off the debt, legally, using EXACTLY the same clause in the law (which is what my office tried to get them to do, multiple times.)
It was only a debt because the woman tried to comply with the rules, but filled in the wrong (very similar) form; the one for new claims rather than renewal. mostly the same info, but form letter 'A' rather than form 'B'. Meanwhile people were abusing a loophole to claim money that they shouldn't have had. The loophole was then made 10 times bigger by Head Office. I've been a civil servant 24 years, and those 2 were the only time I didn't feel on the side of the good guys.