Brickbat: Rules Are Rules

Roanoke police arrested Larry Wayne Dodson, threw him to the ground, handcuffed him and hauled him off to jail, all for riding his mobility scooter against traffic on the side of the road. Dodson, who is paralyzed from the chest down, had gone to get groceries at the local Kroger as he has done hundreds of times. He began going home riding down the side of Electric Road. A police officer stopped him and told him he had to ride in the same direction as traffic.

Dodson said he felt safer facing traffic and to ride with traffic he'd have to cross five lanes on a busy street. That didn't impress cops, who insisted state law said he had to ride with traffic and arrested him.

Comments

[Rev-Match]

Dodson said he felt safer facing traffic

It has been my understanding that, when you cannot travel even remotely as fast as traffic on a roadway (such as when walking/scooting), it is recommended that you go against traffic so you can see what is comming toward you.

[waffles]

Common sense is no match for the law.

[db]

From the fact pattern as presented, it seems likely this man was also using painkillers and other drugs and presented a hazard to traffic and pedestrians by OWI. These heroes in blue are out there saving lives every day and you have no right to tell them they have to do one thing that might jeopardize them coming home safe at the end of their shift. Good arrest, IMO, and this man's attempt to resist arrest at the side of a busy road put our boys in blue in significant danger.

[Libertarian]

I didn't read the article. How many cops did it take to subdue a guy who's paralyzed from the chest down?

[Robert]

It started with 1, then she called for "backup", and I don't know how many total that came to.

[Atanarjuat]

Good thing they cuffed him. Otherwise, he could have run for it!

Nice to see that all murder, rape, and property damage has ended in the city of Roanoke and police can pick that last fruit on the tree, all the way down at arm's reach.

[pan fried wylie]

tree? this is more like picking strawberries.

[Atanarjuat]

There is some great stuff in the article.

He acknowledged he "might have" called the first officer a word that refers to a female dog, and that he might have uttered an expletive that begins with the term "dumb mother" toward the second. Dodson said that second officer grabbed him and threw him face down on the ground.

Later...

By then, "the word was getting around in the regional jail," Dodson said. "They had locked up a paralyzed man for no reason. The big dogs came by, the captains at the jail. They were real nice. They said, 'How can we assist you to get back home? You've been released on your own recognizance.'?"

[some guy]

Ah. So the real crime was Contempt of Cop.

[Bones]

Isn't it always?

[sarcasmic]

That or failure to obey.

[Bean Counter]

Maybe I'm revealing my basic wussiness, but it's always been my practice to treat heavily armed people with handcuffs with much more respect than they deserve.

[sarcasmic]

Self preservation is not wussiness.

[Steve G]

Roll that beautiful dash cam footage!

'cause after reading the article, it seems like he could have at least avoided a significant portion of the drama by not calling one cop a 'bitch' and another a 'motherfucker'. I still think he's right however, just may have been a little more convincing in his case to the cop(s) by not getting all fired up

[wef]

Contempt of cop - only the servile aren't guilty of the crime.

[Steve G]

True, but in a debate, good luck trying to sway your opponent with logic after tossing out a few pointed profanities. He didn't have to suck her proverbial dick, but he might have actually won the argument with her or her "supervisor" with a different approach.
...but, judging by the way the police leadership sucked his proverbial dick after he got locked up, I'd say they recognize that the 'bitch' and 'dumb motherfucker' got it wrong.

[Greg F]

judging by the way the police leadership sucked his proverbial dick after he got locked up, I'd say they recognize that the 'bitch' and 'dumb motherfucker' got it wrong.

Confirming that Mr. Wayne's description of the two cops was indeed accurate.

[All-Seeing Monocle]

No, I don't give a shit how many hurtful names he called them. The cops started the confrontation, and they have the absolute responsibility to keep it from escalating. If they lose their shit because some cranky old guy confined to a scooter uses a few four-letter words, they aren't qualified to do the job, full stop. His failure to respect their authoritah doesn't excuse or mitigate their actions, not one iota.

[Steve G]

yeah, you're getting towards the heart of it. This day and age, cops (and the public they come from) don't have the emotional ability (or training) to remain calm in hightened situations, or even de-escalate. This is why instead of subduing women, children and elderly who they should be physically able to do, they go into full beating mode more and more--at least on camera and in the news more and more.

[AlmightyJB]

They want escalation. Of course only when there is no actual threat to their safety.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Yeah, no way he deserved it, but come on dude, it's the fucking cops, of course they are going to beat on you if you give them a reason to.

[Invisible Finger]

Show me where in the police training manual that name-calling is properly and legally countered by physical violence.

[Steve G]

It's not in the manual, but I'm guessing it goes something like this:
"Sir, I'm going to ask you to go with the flow of traffic or cross the street"
"Fuck you, bitch"
"Okay, sir, please place your hands behind your back"
Now, if the kindly old man would have substituted calm arguments for the profanity they may have been more receptive. Just speculation on my part, so take it for what it's worth.

[Fist of Etiquette]

"You know what I want to see?" Dodson told me. "The video on the dashcam from the lady police officer's cruiser. The whole thing that went down is on that."

Whittaker declined to release the video, "because this is an active case."

Active case of bullshit.

[Ted S.]

They always release mug shots of arrested non-cops.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Those prison officers threw that lady cop under the bus. So did that second magistrate do to the first magistrate.

[Bones]

Is a dumb mother fucker someone who is a motherfucker and is dumb, or is it a person who fucks dumb mothers? Maybe both since, you know, cops.

[Bean Counter]

Well, if cops were restricted to fucking smart mothers, where would baby cops come from?

[pogi]

The same place they come from now, the left end of the curve.