San Francisco is My Home

12
Mar

When it’s not a good idea to raise your hand

Author: kris, Category: News

Those of you who are enjoying my newly implemented Monday weekend roundups and Tuesday business reviews will be disappointed today. No structure on Wednesdays. Wednesdays are a free-for-all.

Today I want to talk about Kelly Medora. The SF Board of Supes just approved a $235,000 settlement for her after a policeman broke her arm. What was Medora doing? Selling drugs? Exposing herself in public? Nope, she was hailing a cab with a friend in North Beach (which is as far from a crime-centric ‘hood as you can get without going to uber-ritzy Sea Cliff) and a cop started yelling at her with no provocation. When she complained to a different cop, the first cop grabbed and twisted her arm until it broke.

If this isn’t enough for you, Medora is a preschool teacher. Way to help out your PR department, there, copper.

Here’s the thing: you can’t say that one incident of police brutality equals a pattern of police brutality. You can talk about other incidents, of course. A friend of mine attended a peaceful protest, sparsely attended. When the cops showed up and demanded the crowd disburse, they did so. Then the cops shot them in the back with rubber bullets, which not only hurt like a sonofagun, they can also kill you if they hit you in the wrong place. This wasn’t her only experience with cops brutalizing protesters, just the most recent.

Cops can get violent, we all know this. Just like we all know that when you’re out there in the stuff, lines can get confusing. A big crowd yelling at you can be scary and maybe you react with the wrong level of force. A panicking suspect can look like a violent suspect if you’re feeling panicky yourself. But there are levels of violence we can understand, though not condone, and then there’s breaking a preschool teacher’s arm for no reason.

I know it gets tough out there. But guys, let’s step up our peaceful negotiations classes or something. Because it’s tough out there for us un-armed folks too.