History Professor Thrown to the Ground, Arrested for Asking Cop for ID
January 10th, 2007Via: HNN:
On Thursday, just after noon, the Tufts historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto was arrested by Atlanta police as he crossed the middle of the street between the Hilton and Hyatt hotels. After being thrown on the ground and handcuffed, the former Oxford don was formally arrested, his hands cuffed behind his back. Several policemen pressed hard on his neck and chest, leaving the mild-mannered scholar, who’s never gotten so much as a parking ticket, bruised and in pain. He was then taken to the city detention center along with other accused felons and thrown into a filthy jail cell filled with prisoners. He remained incarcerated for eight hours. Officials demanded bail of over a thousand dollars. To come up up with the money Fernandez-Armesto, the author of nineteen books, had to make an arrangement with a bail bondsman. In court even the prosecutors seemed embarrassed by the incident, which got out of hand when Fernandez-Armesto requested to see the policeman’s identification (the policeman was wearing a bomber jacket; to Fernandez-Armesto, a foreigner unfamiliar with American culture, the officer did not look like an officer). The prosecutors asked the professor to plead nolo contendere. He refused, concerned that the stain on his record might put his green card status in jeopardy. Officials finally agreed to drop all charges.
With highly publicized incidents of people posing as law enforcement personnel (a now-common home invasion tactic here in the US), and the growing numbers of ‘private’ law enforcement methods in use, asking for actual identification should be a matter of course. I could construe failure to do so by any purported law enforcement official as a reason to suspect their legitimacy.
What? I can barely believe you’d say such a thing.
I will not succumb to these bootlicking thugs that demand our “identity” at every whim.
That will solve the “illegitimate” concerns of law enforcement – don’t give ID to anybody.
You missed my point. Ask the cop for HIS ID, as the professor did.
Turnabout is fair play.
Don’t produce it, and your a law enforcement impersonator at best, and asking for me to exercise my constitutional right to defend myself at worst.