I woke up this morning, to reports of police and skaters facing off in the Mission Dolores Park area of San Francisco. At first I thought, "Well that's not so uncommon. Police and skaters have a long a sordid history of facing off." As it turns out, a skateboarding event had been planned in which skaters would take part in a "hill bomb" competition to see who could get the fastest time down the hill. It's generally understood that skateboarders assume the risks of going high speeds on a tiny thing with little to no protection, and if someone wants to do extremely dangerous things with their body well... that's on them.
— Kerith Burke (@KerithBurke) July 12, 2017
More than a hundred skateboarders took over Dolores tonight to fly down one of the biggest hills in San Francisco (this is the bottom). pic.twitter.com/nkghFf9aZS
(video courtesy of The Mint Skateboarding)
The atmosphere of the event soon changed as local police began directing traffic through the area and blocking the street with patrol cars. Determined to continue the event despite the interference, some skaters continued down the hill between cars. The knee-jerk reaction here (even for me) is to comment on how dangerous that is, but who is really in danger here? The car or the skater? My money is on the skater, and as previously mentioned; skaters assume all risks associated with skateboarding. This includes any damage caused to others and their property.
But what about when someone purposefully moves into the path of someone else that is skating down hill at high speed, and body checks them as they try to skirt past? Who is in the wrong then?
(video by @j_oelhamill )
(video by @jimmyalto )
In the second video, it's made clear that the officer stepped into the path of the oncoming skater with the intentions of either forcing him to turn in order to avoid him (a task not so easily accomplished, and one that has caused many vehicles to roll in similar circumstances) or to collide with him resulting in the injury of one or both of them. Given that the officer technically never laid a hand on the boy would you say this still constitutes police brutality? Who do you believe is in the wrong here? Let me know in the comments.
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.
Muh, roads! They gotta protect their revenue source.
I saw this video earlier today and it is just disgusting. As someone that worked in law enforcement and trained a lot of people I'd like to give my view. Far too many people are given the pass to meet quotas and are within the most basic of standards. I can't tell you how many people I'd put through scenarios where they had to make life or death decisions in the moment and most were really bad. For example, we'd run shoot house scenarios with paintball guns and cameras. In more times than I could count there was friendly fire and people shooting one another out of fear.
Most of the people doing this ridiculous crap are insecure in themselves and emotionally damaged.
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