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<DIV><FONT face=Calibri>David,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Calibri></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Calibri>Obviously if you were not interested in provoking a
conversation where you might have to read a thousand or so words stating various
opinions and viewpoints, you would not have posted your post. (Smile) But
equally obviously, no one is forcing you to read them or respond to them; that
is entirely your option.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Calibri></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Calibri>I am not going to waste my time or yours telling you why
I think you are wrong because (1) I do not think it will change your mind, (2)
on some points, I agree with you, and (3) I was merely pointing out alternative
possibilities and interpretations of what may have happened given the
information that was provided. My main point was that your interpretation
and understanding of what happened and how you were being treated is one among
many; it may be an accurate one or it may have been your
impression. Either way I can understand and accept that this was your
experience of the events. I was not speculating on your motivations or
Karen's motivations; nor was I speculating on the motivations of the personnel
at the police department. I was characterizing the nature of Karen's
articulation in her opening sentence where she says, " I read David Green's
experience with the wild car and the police not even feigning interest.", rather
than just saying, "I read David Green's experience the wild car and the
police." I then did editorialize about how some posts which contain this
sort of phrasing and spin are to be taken and treated and how they make me
question the nature of the motivations behind their posting. I think that
such speculations are fair game and have a legitimate grounding and place in the
conversation. It goes to the bases upon which one assesses the meaning,
significance, and credibility of the assertions that are being made in or about
posts and their content.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Calibri></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Calibri>As for motivations of police department personnel, I was
not attempting to ascribe motivations or intent as much as describe and
characterize possible reasons and causes for the actions taken by them or their
personnel. I do not have enough facts to say for sure that any of the
possibilities, including your interpretation of what happened, is the
actuality or if some other understanding of what took place is the
actuality. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Calibri></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Calibri>If the telephone operator did display clear disinterest
as you suggest, there may be authentic reasons - explanations that account
for this not necessarily justifications for this pattern of behavior, including
their being new and unsure of themselves and how they should handle different
interactions or tasks, being incompetent and/or untrained, or
just being unsuited for the job and a poor employee. There may also
be some very practical human reasons as well, such as the operator having a bad
day, being tired and irritable as a result of having to field questions and
enquiries about incidents that the operator has no knowledge of or information
about, being overwhelmed by the number of time sensitive internal organizational
tasks that need to be taken care of which keep getting interrupted by having to
respond to other things such as phone calls and public interactions, etc.
These are not being offered as excuses or justifications for behaviors but
as reasons explaining or accounting for behaviors. However, it is possible
that what you take as being experienced as an expression of clear
disinterest was not viewed that way from other perspectives including the
telephone operators, who did not realize that he/she was coming off to you as
being dismissive and conveying a message that nothing was being done or would be
done in the future or that complaints by members of the public were
unwelcome. In either case, you certainly have a right ands should bring
this interaction to the attention of both the police command - probably, Deputy
Chief Holly Nearing (217-403-6913) who heads the </FONT><FONT
face="Times New Roman">Professional Standards Division - and the City Manager as
well as to the Council. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt Tahoma">
<DIV><FONT size=3 face=Calibri></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #f5f5f5">
<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title="mailto:davegreen84@yahoo.com CTRL + Click to follow link"
href="mailto:davegreen84@yahoo.com">David Green</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Sunday, July 18, 2010 10:43 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A
title="mailto:ls1000@live.com CTRL + Click to follow link"
href="mailto:ls1000@live.com">Laurie Solomon</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Cc:</B> <A
title="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net CTRL + Click to follow link"
href="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net">Peace Discuss</A> ; <A
title="mailto:discuss@communitycourtwatch.org CTRL + Click to follow link"
href="mailto:discuss@communitycourtwatch.org">Community Courtwatch</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Peace-discuss] interaction with Champaign police /
driver didallthe wrong things</DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">
<DIV>Laurie,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I'm open to the possibility that the police followed up on this due to the
other complaints, and that I don't know about this. I'm not open to the
possibility that the phone operator showed clear disinterest in my concerns, and
my offer to serve as a witness. It's clear that he has not been taught to be
part of a culture in which every contact with the public is taken seriously
rather than dismissed--or when dismissed, done so with a clear explanation. I
was not thanked for my interest in protecting the well-being of Champaign
citizens. Instead, I was given a clear message that any future effort would
likely be fruitless.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I think your speculation on motives is completely baseless, and uncalled
for. I suppose now I can look forward to reading a thousand words or so on why
I'm wrong.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>DG<BR></DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><BR>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 13px"><FONT
size=2 face=Tahoma>
<HR SIZE=1>
<B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">From:</SPAN></B> Laurie Solomon
<ls1000@live.com><BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">To:</SPAN></B>
Karen Medina <kmedina67@gmail.com>; Peace-discuss List
<Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net><BR><B><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Sent:</SPAN></B> Sat, July 17, 2010 3:43:23
PM<BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Subject:</SPAN></B> Re: [Peace-discuss]
interaction with Champaign police / driver did allthe wrong
things<BR></FONT><BR>> I read David Green's experience with the wild car and
the police not<BR>> even feigning interest.<BR><BR>This is rally an unfounded
and unsupported speculative attribution on both David's part and your
part. We have no way of knowing for a fact that the police were not even
feigning interest or were not actually interested and involved in dealing with
the complaint behind the publically visible scenes. We do not even know if the
person David spoke with was a civilian mployee -full time regular employee
or part-time intern - of a sworn officer or if that person was acting
disinterested or actually disinterested, of if that was just David's impression
or interpretation. I do not think that throwing around value laden or
emotionally charged wording or generalized accusations does anything to help
matters or to resolve problems. I often have to wonder if some of the posts are
just merely rants intended to vent frustrations and emotions or are actually
intended to achieve something other than rebel rousing on a purely symbolic
verbal and theatric
level.<BR><BR>--------------------------------------------------<BR>From: "Karen
Medina" <<A href="mailto:kmedina67@gmail.com"
ymailto="mailto:kmedina67@gmail.com">kmedina67@gmail.com</A>><BR>Sent:
Saturday, July 17, 2010 2:04 PM<BR>To: "Peace-discuss List" <<A
href="mailto:Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net"
ymailto="mailto:Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net">Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net</A>><BR>Subject:
[Peace-discuss] interaction with Champaign police / driver did allthe wrong
things<BR><BR>> Peace-discuss,<BR>> <BR>> I read David Green's
experience with the wild car and the police not<BR>> even feigning
interest.<BR>> <BR>> I had an interesting experience this morning on my
way to work the<BR>> AWARE table at the Farmer's Market.<BR>> <BR>>
Windsor and S. First St., Champaign (I was going to pick up tee-shirts<BR>>
at Stuart Levy's house).<BR>> <BR>> The event would have been a great
scenario for the movies on what not<BR>> to do when during a police
interaction.<BR>> <BR>> A car wanting to turn right whizzed by on the
right of a line of<BR>> vehicles stopped at the traffic light. The car used
the bicycle lane<BR>> as if it were a right turn lane (which it is not wide
enough to do).<BR>> The car turned right without stopping. Just as the car
made it to the<BR>> curve, the traffic light turned green and the line began
to move. The<BR>> first vehicle in the line was also turning right, but it
was a fire<BR>> truck tanker and had not seen or heard the car pulling along
side it,<BR>> nor had the fast moving car noticed that the light had changed
and<BR>> that the fire truck was going to turn right too. The fire truck
and<BR>> the car clipped each other. The car's back bumper fell to the
ground.<BR>> The car did stop briefly.<BR>> <BR>> That was stupid
driving, but the next part was absolutely the wrong<BR>> thing to do.<BR>>
<BR>> Rather than remain stopped where traffic could still get around
it,<BR>> the car driver drove down the road and turned left into the drive
for<BR>> the apartments. It turned around in the parking lot and stopped by
the<BR>> dumpster. Then the people in the car got out and were walking
around<BR>> rearanging stuff in the car and visiting the dumpster. The
police<BR>> arrived very quickly. There were three Champaign police cars
within a<BR>> quarter mile of that corner, watching traffic. None of them
were close<BR>> enough to see event at the corner, but were close enough to
come<BR>> almost immediately.<BR>> <BR>> The police did let the fire
truck people that the car driver was<BR>> driving on a suspended license.
This was wrong of them to do.<BR>> <BR>> There were 4 officers talking to
the car driver.<BR>> <BR>> I watched them handcuff the driver of the
car.<BR>> <BR>> One policeman took my statement, but kept trying to put
words in my<BR>> mouth. I was the car immediately behind the fire truck in
the line of<BR>> the waiting cars. I had the best view of the event, and
could see that<BR>> the fire truck and the car were going to collide before
they did.<BR>> Neither of the drivers involved even saw the other vehicle
before they<BR>> collided.<BR>> <BR>> It was an interesting
experience.<BR>> <BR>> -karen medina<BR>>
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