Cops really should have mandatory First Amendment training
Otherwise, it's their pastor versus the wiener
Greetings.
This is from The Intercept. It’s a video that if you are a Stephen Colbert fan, you might have already seen, but still, maybe stay with me so you can hear what’s wrong with this other than the obvious.
In coastal Alabama, there is a 62 year-old-woman who has been voted Alabaman of the Year after being apprehended (and tackled) for wearing a penis costume to the most recent No Kings rally in her ‘Bama town. That’s the fun part for her. The not-so-fun part is that she is facing trial later this month for her choice in apparel. But the even less-funny part for her is that her First Amendment rights were negated by a hometown boy offended by the site of a giant dick. The woman was also carrying a sign that read: “No Dick Tators”.
You can watch the video (the audio kicks in after a few seconds), which starts out kind of funny, and if the woman weren’t yelling about how much pain she is in from being pushed to the ground, hand cuffed, and then smashed into the cruiser while still wearing her penis suit, it becomes even funnier after it takes three cops to finally realize they can’t squash a massive member into the backseat of a patrol car. Eventually, one of them takes her cuffs off and helps her step out of her costume.
This interests me on a professional level. For one, when I was considering adding a crime beat to the news outlet I run, I enrolled in the local police academy so I would know what I was talking about. There is a citizens’ track at the academy, which puts regular joes like me through all the same training as the cadets, excepting fire arms training. (Yes, I even got to drive a cruiser in a car chase, and that is when I learned that under duress, I drive like Granny). The only other difference is that it’s only three months versus the cadet training averaging 6 months. Still, I did learn how to apprehend a criminal, and also learned what it was like to be apprehended.
