Arrested Development!
 

Yesterday outside a suburban school, a mother double parked her car while waiting to pick up her children. When asked to move along by police officers, she refused and was then arrested and handcuffed right there in front of the school.

The debate now is about whether the police acted impulsively and/or in an overly heavy handed manner.

It's easy to see both sides of the story, but if you bring the law back to the basic reason for its existance, people are not supposed to double park because it endangers lives. Is it unreasonable to think that, on a street outside a school ground would be the place where most parents would be particularly concerned about the lives of their children and their safety? Is it so difficult for a mother to understand that if she parks there in order to aid her children, she might be placing someone else's child at risk?

I believe that in this modern society where everyone seems to be 'in it for themselves', the police acted appropriately and I think there's a lesson here for all those 'car pool cowgirls'!

(Shakes head, takes mental note never to behave this way.)

I'm glad they arrested the dingbat. She needs to find a parking spot and walk to where her child can meet her and walk her back to the car.

When people do that it forces everyone behind them to swerve into the oncoming lane. They usually drive a little faster when they do this for several reasons - they are upset with the double parker, they want to hurry up and get back onto their own lane, etc. If a kid is walking in front of the DP car, there is a good chance that a car swerving around can't see them - an accident waiting to happen.

Stopping for a moment when your kid is six feet away and getting in the car and buckling up is one thing. Parking in the middle of the road because someone is too lazy and too selfish to park and walk is something else. An example has been set and everyone will be safer and calmer as a result.

I don't see anything unjust about addressing an injustice. Take the soccer mom downtown, run her through the mill and let her go. Chances are she won't do it again and neither will anyone else.

Mom must have flipped out as part of her refusal to move the vehicle.

Without any further information, it's tough to say if the officer did the right thing, but he was certainly within procedure to take her into custody.

Especially if it involved impounding her car.

Seems a bit over the top to me. Mostly for the reason of how disturbing it would be for the kid walking out of school and seeing his mum being cuffed and manhandled by the police. As the police WERE present anyway it seems they arent very organised in controlling the environment directly outside the school.

Schools in my area have a few volunteer parents, they wear officila little bright green TRAFFIC WARDEN jackets, place temporary barriers within a radius of the school gates and another volunteers oversees the out of radius traffic.. Seems to work well even though they have no official police related power.

She is of course an idiot, there are a lot of them around, they also operate outside of school boundries on a 24/7 basis. Another excellent reason to teach kids to be responsible pedestrians and NOT run out of anywhere when cars are around. Lesson one should be there wont ALWAYS be a policeman around to protect them.

Right, he should have shot her in the knee and called for backup. :lol:

In Philadelphia, the crazed soccer moms drive their minivans straight through the doors of the school. There's a reason to be careful around them.

7-11s and WaWas too. :eek:

NotAn...we have those ladies (and sometimes gentlemen here too). We call them lollipop ladies/blokes. They're usually at the crossings though, and not directly outside the school.

I agree that it would have been traumatic for the child to see his mother handcuffed, and as I'm not a psychologist, I can't really say what the repercussions of that trauma might be, however, his mother might be the sort that always disregards the rules, in which case, it may have been a good lesson in consequences. On the other hand, maybe she was just stupid, in which case, maybe the child can benefit from knowing that too.

That's why they have those hitching post looking things in front of the entrances nowadays.

We're not close enough to Lancaster to need anything to tie the horses to.

Well I'll be damned.........I've been using them for hitching posts. :blush:

Wolf, maybe the Long Range Amish. :cool: They do have to scout far and far afield to find arable land these days... (Kinda like the Close-Order Amish, but not so well drilled. :rolleyes: )

Though seriously, the Amish are moving more and more to mercantile and light manufacture and out of agriculture. That's just economics.

Certainly it doesn't apply in EVERY city, but people have to realize that this business of double parking, or even leaving your car in the street while you run to the curbside to complete an errand, is no longer above suspicion after 9-11. You cannot double park at the airport loading zones anywhere now, and if you give the officer some lip when you are asked to move on, you WILL be subject to forceful handling or arrest. We have known for some time that a public school with several thousand students is every bit a target of opportunity as any government installation, so are hospitals, theaters, and theme parks.

I'm not saying that this incident had anything to do with terrorist-prevention instructions given to the cops on duty at this particular school, but it's time for people to get off this ego trip of having THEIR convenience every time they go anywhere or do anything. If the traffic is that bad at the school, you KNOW it is going to be bad by now so figure out how to deal with it another way. Every single kid in the school does not have to have to be delivered right to the front door and picked up the same, they will not suffer from having to walk around the corner to help mom or dad out. It's really unfortunate that the world has changed so much that kids aren't safe walking or biking to school by themselves anymore like we geezers did (even in the pouring rain and with six feet of snow on the ground, uphill both ways), but I really do understand that is not an option nowdays. Neither are paper routes or selling Girl Scout Cookies door to door :(

Every day I see people double parked with nobody parked at the curb. Yes, an open spot at the curb and they're still too lazy to pull into that spot, so they stop in the street. Some of them leave the drivers door open too. :rar:

Here's a bit more info for those of you who are interested. :)

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117....html?from=rss

It seems the 'lady' in question was a bit put out about being arrested for breaking the law.

I know you're right, because how many time have we seen news stories about kids or babies in the back seat being hijacked right along with the car? After all the publicity, why in the world would somebody STILL leave the doors open and the car running instead of just parking the car? Braindead. Our gene pool is in trouble.

Wow. Australia is becoming more and more like America, but with funny (and charming) accents, every day (That kind of thing happens so often here that it doesn't make news).

Hmmmm...I'm not too happy about Australia becomming more Americanized than it already is, so although your post was funny Wolf, it's also concerning to me.

I have actually had this discussion on many occasions in relation to globalisation vs americanisation. Which is it really?

Anyway, I still think the woman was a complete drip and is being treated as she deserves to be treated. Coppers have a hard enough time as it is without morons acting like they have a right to disregard the law.

Actually it's homogenization and I don't like it much either. You'd be surprised how much Aussie stuff has invaded the US, as stuff from other parts of the globe.

People also need to realize that Australia, not the United States, is the prime target of Islamic extremists in the Far East. Their citizens took the brunt of that attack in Bali a few years ago and Australia itself is located just below the island chains where terrorists operating out of Indonesia and the Philippines are based. They are constantly having to repel attempts at people smuggling from China and Moslem countries of Africa and Asia, very similar to the US problem preventing illegal immigration from the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America. Although they possess sophisticated detection capabilities, their country has such a massive coastline that is impossible to patrol every inch of it so they have 10 times the potential for illegal entry. If Australia is becoming more like the US in the way they handle law and order, they have a very good reason for it - and it's not because they admire our style in civil services :neutral:

Speaking of Australia's beautiful coastline; have a look at this article in todays paper. It's about a US carrier dumping garbage just a few miles off our coast after our city had kindly welcomed them. Not happy Jan!

http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/c...5E3102,00.html

To add to the article, I had no idea that it was policy to dump rubbish into our oceans (I mean the oceans we all enjoy regardless of what country we come from). It's come to my attention because it happened in my back yard, but I think the practice of dumping rubbish over the side of a ship is disgraceful. Particularly as it appears the rubbish is not just green waste, but items such as plastic.

Am I the only person who thinks this practice should be halted?

A carrier has so many thousands of people on board that the thought of how much garbage they have the potential for boggles the mind :mg: Somebody's butt is going to get kicked for that. I've no idea what the captain of that vessel was thinking, maybe no knowledge of the local currents or thinking that they wouldn't get caught, but here in the US it has taken us more than 10 years to stop the cruise ships from dumping their sewage while in our harbors. Apparently these companies felt we were being unnecessarily fastidous or ungrateful for their business or who knows if they even cared how it affected us.

I'm not sure what they were thinking Tonchi. They hadn't even left Australian waters yet, so all the garbage has been collected by local fisherman and has had to be quaratined for obvious reasons. Ecologically, this issue could cause major problems not just for Australia, but for any other countries who happen to be lucky enough to host another country's rubbish.

I'm sure the US is not the only country who uses this practice for rubbish disposal, so this isn't so much a comment on the US navy as much as a comment on how stupid our legislators are world wide. How can they claim to care for the environment and such things as whale harvesting when they're using these waters as a toilet?

At one time the US navy did oil changes at sea and told the EPA to take a hike. Maybe still?

So many powerful countries/companies thumb their noses at institutions who have been appointed to act as our collective moral conscience. When we see evidence of these sorts of actions, it's no wonder oppositional countries refuse to be horsewhipped into line. Why would they when it's quite obvious there is no unity or sense of common purpose?

US navy submarines jettison all garbage overboard. It gets compacted into perforated cannisters weighted to sink to the bottom. Unless we're going to be at see for less than two weeks or won't make it out past 50 miles then we keep it onboard for disposal in port.

What sucks is cannisters that have to be disassembled because we got called back to port on short notice. Then we get to disassemble them and then seperate the garbage for recycling.

What do you think about your rubbish going straight into the water? I do understand that there are space issues etc onboard any vessel at sea for any length of time, so what I'm wondering is if you think there should be more of an effort to find a better way to do things or do you think you have the best way already?

Hey, with Alito in the Supreme Court, and a couple more of his type, we may lose the EPA altogether, and nobody will have to thumb their nose at tham anymore.

Lucky thumbs? (deliberately not pointing out the typo in that sentence) :)

What everyone seems to forget is that ultimately, we all breathe the same air, drink the same water, and drown in the same sewage. A flip of the bird to those who dumped the garbage in Aussie waters which are ultimately EVERYONE's waters (ever hear of currents, folks?)

marichiko (where does that word come from btw), that was the point I was making pretty much. Glad someone else feels the same way. :)

I was reading today in the latest issue of National Geographic that an albatross chick had a plastic identifier tag in its stomach that originated on a US Navy vessel in WWII. They went on to explain that debris may circulate in the ocean currents for half a century, easily :(

Making love with you

Is like drinking sea water.
The more I drink
The thirstier I become,
Until nothing can slake my thirst
But to drink the entire sea.


from "Love Poems of Marichiko" trans by Kenneth Rexroth (and baby albatross :headshake )

Morning drinker? Or full-time <s>pathological narcissist</s> overaged brat?

Considering the need for secrecy and the limited space I can't really think of another option. Since our refuse is going to sink to the bottom I'm less concerned with it becoming flotsam, and I don't recall there being much in the way of non-degradable material going overboard.

Apparently the stuff here wasn't on the bottom but rather floating around in the water. Perhaps you have different systems on a sub.

I had actually wondered if it would be a security risk dropping rubbish in the water. As we all know, people are telling us to beware of identity theft resulting from people going through our rubbish. Maybe there's secrets in the rubbish of a warship too.

Obviously, somebody fucked up. Those "hessian sacks"(whatever they are?) should have not contained plastic. I'm sure the Captain didn't know it happened until his ass was in a sling. Anyone on board that did know, was making sure the Captain didn't, to cover their ass.

Personally, I think it was ironic that it was the Reagan. :lol:

The real irony is that while the Captain of the Reagan gets off with a letter of apology to the people of Australia, if one of our fisherman was caught throwing his rubbish in Australian waters he'd be fined thousands of dollars.

I'm sure the Regan left more than a few thousands dollars behind. :lol:

thread drift/WHO? Me, Rexroth, or "Marichiko"? You will note that the time of my post was 9:30 PM - a suitable hour to be drinking anything I damn well please. I defer to your superior knowledge in the pathological narcissist department./thread drift

We now return you to the wide sargasso sea (and I dare ANYONE to catch that literary allusion ;) )

That's probably true Bruce...and it'll undoubtedly have a 'trickle down' effect. ;) The only problem is, the fishermen have to foot the bill themselves rather than split it between the masses. Probably not quite a fair comparison I'd suggest, although I doubt there'd be too many fishermen here who would deliberately try to destroy the environment on which their livelihood relies, so maybe it's a moot point. :)

Sargasso sea refers to a term to do with algae and stuff floating in a body of warm water which drifts all over the place.

I'll admit that I did have to search to find out the details though due to a poor memory for detail. :( Interesting stuff though and it was worth the effort. :)

Here's a link for anyone who's interested.