[Peace-discuss] interaction with Champaign police / driver didallthe wrong things

Sun Jul 18 16:22:30 CDT 2010

David,

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.

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.

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. 

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 Professional Standards Division - and the City Manager as well as to the Council.  

From: David Green 
Sent: Sunday, July 18, 2010 10:43 AM
To: Laurie Solomon 
Cc: Peace Discuss ; Community Courtwatch 
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] interaction with Champaign police / driver didallthe wrong things

Laurie,

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.

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.

DG

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From: Laurie Solomon <ls1000 at live.com>
To: Karen Medina <kmedina67 at gmail.com>; Peace-discuss List <Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Sent: Sat, July 17, 2010 3:43:23 PM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] interaction with Champaign police / driver did allthe wrong things

> I read David Green's experience with the wild car and the police not
> even feigning interest.

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.

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Karen Medina" <kmedina67 at gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2010 2:04 PM
To: "Peace-discuss List" <Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Subject: [Peace-discuss] interaction with Champaign police / driver did allthe wrong things

> Peace-discuss,
> 
> I read David Green's experience with the wild car and the police not
> even feigning interest.
> 
> I had an interesting experience this morning on my way to work the
> AWARE table at the Farmer's Market.
> 
> Windsor and S. First St., Champaign (I was going to pick up tee-shirts
> at Stuart Levy's house).
> 
> The event would have been a great scenario for the movies on what not
> to do when during a police interaction.
> 
> A car wanting to turn right whizzed by on the right of a line of
> vehicles stopped at the traffic light. The car used the bicycle lane
> as if it were a right turn lane (which it is not wide enough to do).
> The car turned right without stopping. Just as the car made it to the
> curve, the traffic light turned green and the line began to move. The
> first vehicle in the line was also turning right, but it was a fire
> truck tanker and had not seen or heard the car pulling along side it,
> nor had the fast moving car noticed that the light had changed and
> that the fire truck was going to turn right too. The fire truck and
> the car clipped each other. The car's back bumper fell to the ground.
> The car did stop briefly.
> 
> That was stupid driving, but the next part was absolutely the wrong
> thing to do.
> 
> Rather than remain stopped where traffic could still get around it,
> the car driver drove down the road and turned left into the drive for
> the apartments. It turned around in the parking lot and stopped by the
> dumpster. Then the people in the car got out and were walking around
> rearanging stuff in the car and visiting the dumpster. The police
> arrived very quickly. There were three Champaign police cars within a
> quarter mile of that corner, watching traffic. None of them were close
> enough to see event at the corner, but were close enough to come
> almost immediately.
> 
> The police did let the fire truck people that the car driver was
> driving on a suspended license. This was wrong of them to do.
> 
> There were 4 officers talking to the car driver.
> 
> I watched them handcuff the driver of the car.
> 
> One policeman took my statement, but kept trying to put words in my
> mouth. I was the car immediately behind the fire truck in the line of
> the waiting cars. I had the best view of the event, and could see that
> the fire truck and the car were going to collide before they did.
> Neither of the drivers involved even saw the other vehicle before they
> collided.
> 
> It was an interesting experience.
> 
> -karen medina
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss
> 
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