Alabama band director tased by police for not stopping his students' performance
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.
and it'll also explain why nothing will come of it too.
The police will investigate themselves and find no wrongdoing.
There's a word for this situation. I can't remember it, but it's reich there, white on the tip of my tongue...
But he couldn't be racist, his wife's best eye is black.
That's tremendous. If you came up with that, good job.
Absolutely beauty of a joke right there. Thank you.
Lmao, I'm going to use that, you magnificent bastard!
I opened the article just to see and wasn't at all surprised.
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??
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.
Hey now, at least he didn't say uppity. Because you know that's what he wanted to say.
I don't think that was a lawful order, anyways. And police have absolutely no authority to command citizens for anything but lawful orders.
Except in the sense that they have weapons and are rarely punished for using them. There's what the law says and then there's the reality that if some cop gives you an order you have to choose between obeying and betting your life he's not going to escalate.
I would think this is a First Amendment violation as well. I hope this guy gets a payday.
I hope it comes from the police pension fund!
It always comes from the city. Police budgets are not effected by payouts.
I guess I mean I wish it would come from the pension.
Me too friend. I feel like the only way to make them reform without disbanding and rebuilding them would be to hit them in the capitalism. Right now they don't risk anything. The absolute worst case is getting fired and then just getting a new job in the next suburb over, but usually they just get a paid vacation.
He was black, in public, and not licking a pigs boot. In Alabama.
Racist cop tazes black teacher. Would have been my pick for a headline.
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??
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'
Yeah, cops are trained that they are at war with the public. We need to fix that shit
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.
Only 40% will admit to it, likely more actually do.
Can someone explain to me
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.
The cop probably wanted to get home so he could beat his wife.
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...
It's not really about guns. They are already illegal on school property and large event venues. Unarmed security is also common in the US, but it's growing to require police specifically.
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).
burn the fucking pigs already
Smoke more pork
I'll just wait here while you organize burning down a police department without the FBI kicking down your door and shooting your dog. The guillotines should have been rolled out a long time ago, but it's impossible to organize in this day and age.
Every time I see "eat the rich" and something about guillotines I just laugh, and then sigh because I know it will literally never happen. Social media is a relief valve, we all bitch about it here and then go on doing absolutely nothing about it.
Not everyone is doing nothing. Some people are doing something. You can do something today, too, even if it's small.
Don't bother responding, this is a form of propaganda meant to cause non action .
For example, calling out propaganda is doing something. :) Thanks, @JoJoGAH.
I wish I was getting paid.
When the fuck did exasperation become propaganda meant to dissuade people from taking action?
This is like the third time I've seen someone comment about my comment being intentional propaganda.... We've really become a paranoid bunch haven't we?
If you're not creating the propaganda then you're sharing it. Unless you think "might as well not do anything because it's pointless" is an original thought you had.
I never said "might as well not do anything." I was expressing exasperation with the fact that no one ever does anything but talk, "laughing" at the guillotines and eat the rich talk because thats all it ever is, and stating my opinion that when we bitch about it on social media we are letting off steam that would have possibly been the motivation that moved us in years past.
I want us to do something, but most people realistically won't go and start a bloody revolution because I think deep down we do all want a peaceful way to fix our problems.
Louis and Marie thought the same thing.
Bodycam footage is disturbing. https://youtube.com/watch?v=8nvbnvjutGA
Literally by the time they went to arrest him the band had finished their set and were ready to go. All they had to do was wait 2 minutes and they would've got what they wanted.
Sure, a majority of the initial conversation is unintelligible because of the band, but I seriously doubt the director said anything that provocative... if anything the officers are the ones trying to provoke a reaction out of him, and he's just asking them to stay out of his face.
I remember back when it was just a "couple" of rotten apples, but just like in the phrase, it seems they've ruined the whole damn batch. Remember kids, A.C.A.B.
Even if he did, not illegal.
ACAB indeed..
Of course, but the fact he wasn't even being aggressive/provocative towards them makes it all the more worse
We have given the police decades to reform themselves and they have refused. It doesn't matter at this point if any are good, the entire concept needs to be rebuilt
On the bright side, all these highschool kids are learning early that ACAB.
Holy crap I've never seen such an unnecessarily escalated situation in my life. Just look at all the chaos going on by the end of that video, and for what, because the band needed 2 extra minutes to finish their set?
This is outrageous. They better be putting this officer on paid leave for two weeks to think about what he's done.
Based on the video looks like they were the away school I bet these cops walked over when they started playing neck because "that song is disgusting and disrespectful" or some shit. Bet the cops were home fans and mad their team just lost so they "had to" shut that down.
The cop gave exactly his reason to arrest the band director: he didn't respect his [unintelligible]. That was disrespectful.
You can't go around being disrespectful to cops! They're people, too. People with tasers, handcuffs, guns, and have used straight-up corruption to get the rights to stomp all over your constitutional rights or just murder you.
C'mon you guys, we need to have more compassion for these poor cops. They were disrespected by a not-yet-tased high school band director: the most dangerous of all band directors.
Yeah. Nobody expects alabamians to be above this kind of high school drama behavior.
They really haven't grown up as a society.
Does anyone know who these pigs are?
Yes, they're police. You can tell by the uniforms and the blatant human and civil rights violations that they will receive no repercussions over.
Cops gotta cop.
Many have commented on why police were there. In events that I have hosted in the past, security is demanded for safety reasons, AND often, it is spelled out that people trained in handling emergency situations (police) are required. It is in the contract, and if they are not there, you do not get the keys to open it.
The band director's best response would have been to tell the police that he was responsible for the entire group of students and had the responsibility to get each and every single student safely home. If the police take control, they are taking that responsibility upon themselves. And remind them that that action would be without consent of the parents.
I dont think that this complex thought can be argued with someone who thinks one minute is too long.
Also in the US police has shown many times that they neither care, nor face repercussions for failing to take responsibility for the life of their fellow citizens including children.
This presumes the cops think logically
No, they flexed nuts because one of "Those People" said no. Can't have that.
Big Director Energy
I'm never surprised at the lengths people are willing to go to stop listening to music they don't like.
Just wanted to electrify the performance.
Hmmm... let's see how many people don't watch the video and jump into some race-baited tirade and didn't see that the people telling him to stop, as well as like 1/2 the officers were also black.
Or people could just be upset that cops of any color feel justified in using tasers when civilians don't comply with unusual, unnecessary requests. I don't care what color the band director is or what color the cops are. I'm continually disgusted at how many videos there are of cops losing their shit when a civilian doesn't immediately respond "how high?".
Then I'm right there with you!
Cops definitely escalated this issue beyond what it should have been.... BUT instead of saying that, seemingly 1/2 the folks jump conclusions that it was because of race when race rather clearly had nothing to do with this. We have idiots calling the black cops racist against the black band director just to save face because I called them out on not watching the damn video.
I wouldn't be surprised if the race of the band director did place a part, but I'm pissed at what happened either way.
By some more nuances definitions I've heard it may be technically true that the black cops weren't racist. However, it is possible to treat someone poorly because of the color of their skin even if it matches your own. Maybe the cops consider themselves "one of the good ones", maybe they just believe that they are able to power trip a little harder against certain races because it's more socially acceptable, or maybe they don't want to stand out against their white peers and just do what they do.
I honestly didn't watch the video either though - maybe a black cop was the first to escalate it so the last hypothetical isn't a strong one. I've just seen enough videos like that this week and don't want to get more upset by watching one more.
Technically a black man can be racist against another black man. Its not logical, but that never stopped anyone. But in this case, I will bet tgere is some prior history that isn't being shared.
and there have been plenty of black officers being caught on video being hella racist against black citizens and cracking racist bullshit with their white cohorts.