What began as a routine band performance of Talkin’ Out the Side of Your Neck by Cameo at an Alabama high school football game ended in a troubling confrontation when a police officer tased the marching band director for refusing to stop the music.
The altercation occurred Thursday around 9 p.m. local time after a game at Jackson-Olin High School in Birmingham, Ala.
Minor High School band director Johnny Mims, 39, and his ensemble of 145 students were about a minute away from being done with their final song when a police officer approached the podium. According to both Mims and the Birmingham Police Department, officers asked Mims to stop the performance so they could clear out the stadium. Mims responded that the song was about to end and the performance was agreed on by both schools.
“Nothing we were doing at the time was being a danger to the community, fans or the school,” Mims told NPR on Monday. “Everyone was enjoying themselves. That’s the part I’m having a hard time grappling with.”
As the students finished their performance, officers attempted to arrest Mims for not complying. Police said the band director “refused” to place his hands behind his back and allegedly pushed an arresting officer.
This becomes suddenly far more understandable when you open the article and notice the band director isn’t white.
There’s a word for this situation. I can’t remember it, but it’s reich there, white on the tip of my tongue…
Did you actually watch the video to see that 1/2 the cops and people telling him to stop were also not white, or do you enjoy getting race-baited??
I don’t even think that they’re racist in the same way as white officers, or at least not all of them. I think for a portion it’s like a Stockholm syndrome kind of thing where they finally are working side by side with their oppressors and want to be part of the in club and will do anything to get there.
arrested not for breaking any law, but for ‘not complying’ where the office had no real reason to order anyone to do anything… and then charged with resisting.
the usa sucks.
The officer captured on his own camera that his reason for the arrest was “he was disrespectful”
Yep. Says it all.
I don’t think that was a lawful order, anyways. And police have absolutely no authority to command citizens for anything but lawful orders.
I would think this is a First Amendment violation as well. I hope this guy gets a payday.
Of course he broke the law - he hurt the officer’s feelings. That’s the worst law you can possibly break! /s
But seriously though. Cops got butthurt, and so they aggravated the situation, and used the fact that the poor man panicked when being manhandled as the reason to arrest him in the first place. What kind of circular reasoning bullshit is that??
the poor man panicked when being manhandled as the reason to arrest him in the first place
this is a primary tactic of all police in the united states. all of them.
i would assume its part of the pathetic training they receive which includes things like ‘most cops will die on the job, the public is trying to kill you 100% of the time’
I see a few jerk offs from protect and serve are here valiantly down voting anti cop sentiment. Don’t you have a dog to shoot ?
That’s only when they’re on duty. Off duty, they gravitate more towards punching their wives.
To be fair it’s only a 40% chance they’re punching their wives. Chance they have a drinking problem is much higher though.
Can someone explain to me
- why the police is at that stadium to begin with?
- why that stadium needed to be cleared out?
The bodycam footage looks like everyone was having a good time. So, I’d consider it the duty of police officers to enable everyone to continue having a good time. Asking a band director to cut off a song when there’s no emergency is completely ridiculous.
Simple, the cops job is absolutely not to enable everyone to continue having a good time. Their job is to protect capital and the ruling class, usually with impunity. Unfortunately that sort of power corrupts, and this cop probably had somewhere to go and wanted to hurry things up (with impunity)
Police were at the stadium because they were likely required to be. Very often if you have a large gathering you are required to have Police present, often paying for it. It’s largely a racket to get officers easy overtime.
Since posting that, I thought about it myself. Over here in Germany, we have similar laws, but it’s specifically securities, not police. The massive difference being that those securities don’t have guns.
And yeah, that was basically my thinking. Why would you send people with guns to such an event? It just causes everyone to feel uneasy. And unarmed securities can break apart brawls much more aggressively.
…but yeah, I forgot that everyone and their mother has a gun in the US. Unarmed securities would be on a suicide mission. So, yeah, I do understand now, why police is present…
Probably nothing. They may have just been there working security. It’s certainly very easy to assume they were just power tripping- because let’s be honest, ACAB.
But, it could also have been a bomb threat, active shooter threat or something to that effect.
Which might end with people not having a very good time.
Well, if there was an emergency, I’d have expected them to at least drop the word “emergency” when talking to the band director. That would have side-stepped that whole discussion of how, when and why the band should stop playing.
And then, yeah, them focussing entirely on the arrest rather than actually clearing the stadium when the band did stop, doesn’t speak in their favor either.
Me too. I’m assuming the cops are (yet again) assholes.
That said, they could have been wanting people out with out making too big of a scene. (With such threats, sometimes the panic is worse than the threat. Also, the person making it- it’s legitimate- could go active if they make it obviously an emergency.)
Yeah I was scratching my head at this one. Cop had better have a really good reason here because otherwise, have fun getting Section 1983’d. I am not sure qualified immunity would apply against the right to peacefully assemble, unless either there was reasonably a threat of danger, or some legal authority made the assembly or its actions illegal (e.g. no one allowed on school campuses after 9pm, a citywide noise ordinance on weekdays, etc).
- am not a licensed lawyer and this is neither advice nor guaranteed correct analysis… just in case.
allegedly pushed an arresting officer.
Liars.
