October 31, 2007

"Felony mouth"

From the Iowa Independent:

Law Students' Goal: Teaching Youths a New Kind of Street Smarts


Helping minority adolescents learn more effective ways to deal with law enforcement and criminal justice officials is the subject of an upcoming forum hosted by a group of African-American law students at Drake University.

"We felt a lot of minority people in general, not just youth, don't know how to interact with the police when they get confronted on the street," said Lauren Yates, 23, a second-year law student. "We want to show them how to de-escalate the situation so you don't go to jail for mouthing off to an officer..."


Reminds me of my stints as a guest lecturer for Magic Valley Alternative High School; good times, good times...

1 Comment:

jdgalt said...

Granted that some (not all) people who mouth off at cops have bad attitudes -- it seems to me that that's beside the point.

The real problem here is that cops have the ability to jail you for mouthing off to them -- a fact that violates both freedom of speech and the Rule of Law.

Granted that cops are human beings and can't always be expected to refrain from this, or extralegal beatings, or the like; therefore, only constitutional change can ensure that cops who do this lose their badges for life, and have to compensate their victims personally. This is morally imperative.