board77

It's not really fair to pick on the US as being "geographically ignorant". I suspect Canada would be about the same. The difference would be because in Canada we are "multi-cultural" and encouraged to hang onto the old country and know all about it. In the US, I think people are expected to jump into the old melting pot.

North America is a long way from Asia and Europe. To be honest, I only know what I know about the world because I was interested enough to learn. And I went to school back in the good old days when people got a real education, doncha know? Our "official" geography was mostly about our own area, then about Canada. And never a word about the local native people, not one word.

Things are better. I think and hope.

But we can't take ourselves on B77 and HoF as being "typical" because we're not. We're a cut above the ignorant masses, eh?

vison wrote:

We're a cut above the ignorant masses, eh?

We educate each other.

Actually, I think it's more that when someone is trying to explain that while England may indeed have ruled Ireland for 700 years(or that there are loads of Native American tribes, or whatever), people actually listen... (or read or whatever)

Well its certainly true that if I were faced with a map of the US and asked to identify individual states, I'd be doing well if I managed a handful. And most of those states are larger than most European countries. I'm pretty sure any of them could swallow England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales at a single gulp.

Come to think of it, I doubt I'd do very well with eastern Europe these days, as its changed so much since I was a kid.

I could identify Texas...

Alatar wrote:

Come to think of it, I doubt I'd do very well with eastern Europe these days, as its changed so much since I was a kid.

I share your pain!!

This time someone's dead:
Long

Being irate and angry are not things that should get you put in shackles and thrown in a cell.

It changed while I was a kid, so I do just fine.

I've met some Europeans who were pretty bad at geography, so I think this "Americans suck at geography" thing is a stereotype. Sorta like the automatic assumption we don't know the metric system either.

Dave_LF wrote:

This time someone's dead:
Long

Being irate and angry are not things that should get you put in shackles and thrown in a cell.

That case is indeed tragic, but I also do not see anything else that the airport police could ahve done, since the woman seemed hysterical or so distraught she would not calm down for whatever reason. But, why the need to leave her handcuffed in a solitary locked room does sort of defy explanation. From what I can tell, she was not on meds or had a history of this or was a threat to others, so why the police always act on this suspicion of expecting the worst just shows how far things have gone wrong in our society. And something IS fishy with the official explanation, if she was being checked on every fifteen minutes or less as was claimed, how could she have worked her cuffed arms from behind her back up around her neck? Try it - hold your hands behind your back tightly clasped and see how far you can get with your arms.

Just a few days ago, I caught a story of a motorist who was pulled over for not wearing his seatbelt while on his way to work. He had been sick, and while STILL IN HIS CAR, after supplying appropriate ID and such to the officer that pulled him over, he coughed several times very harshly through the open widonw in the officer's direction. The officer yanked open the car door and ordered him out of hte car, and when the guy was still coughin at the officer, the officer wrestled him to the ground and cuffed him, and charged him with physical assault on an officer. The guy was hauled in and charged. The officer apparently thought the car driver was deliberately coughing at him, and my gut reaction says, "Well, how close were you to the car window? Unless you had your face inside the window itself, what would coughing do to threaten you, unless you were being an obnoxious jerk yourself?"

In response to the article Dave posted:
A terrible tragedy no doubt but people can't just freak out whenever they see fit without consequence. How comfortable would you have been if you saw someone freaking out in an airport? I would have wanted her taken away as well and had she not fucked around with her handcuffs she wouldn't be dead. You can't blame the cops for doing their job, this was totally the lady's fault. Further more had they tasered her she might not be dead since the taser would have subdued her. I disagree Dave this lady brought this on herself had she shown some restraint she wouldn't have been restrained.

Crucifer, sometimes there are procedures put in place for situations like Meyers. Yes, the cops fell into his ploy but you can't blame them for doing their job. The guy was a complete asshole and who knows if he really was dangerous or not? Better safe than sorry I say.

Quote:

Yes, the cops fell into his ploy but you can't blame them for doing their job.

What is their job? You seem to be saying that it is the job of the police to instill order. It isn't, and can't be, in a free society. Order is there or it's not.

The police are there to enforce laws. There are no laws against simply being a jerk, or being angry, or acting funny. There are laws against these activities leading to violent acts. Yes, sometimes the line is thin, and often involves a judgment call. I simply want the police to show the best judgment they can, as opposed to, as TW accurately calls it, always assuming the worst from the get go.

Was the woman making threats? Taking swings? Pulling a weapon she somehow smuggled through security? Throwing heavy objects? No? Then she was arrested for the crime of being angry in an airport. When did they make it a crime to be angry in airports? And how the hell can they enforce that? If you go to airports, you will eventually be angry at one, it's the nature of air travel in our time.

And unless the woman was double-jointed, I cannot for the life of me figure out how she accidentally suffocated herself from the starting position they describe. The story currently doesn't hold water.

Something sounds really fishy about someone tangling themselves up in a pair of handcuffs. I can't figure it out, myself.

Police are the "big guns". They should not be called in to deal with what is, essentially, rudeness (in both Meyer's and this woman's case). The woman should simply have been thrown out of the airport. If she wouldn't leave after being asked, then call security to physically escort her off the premises, but throwing her in a cell and leaving her there cuffed and screaming is not the proper response.

Axordil wrote:

Quote:

Yes, the cops fell into his ploy but you can't blame them for doing their job.

What is their job? You seem to be saying that it is the job of the police to instill order. It isn't, and can't be, in a free society. Order is there or it's not.

The police are there to enforce laws. There are no laws against simply being a jerk, or being angry, or acting funny. There are laws against these activities leading to violent acts. Yes, sometimes the line is thin, and often involves a judgment call. I simply want the police to show the best judgment they can, as opposed to, as TW accurately calls it, always assuming the worst from the get go.

Was the woman making threats? Taking swings? Pulling a weapon she somehow smuggled through security? Throwing heavy objects? No? Then she was arrested for the crime of being angry in an airport. When did they make it a crime to be angry in airports? And how the hell can they enforce that? If you go to airports, you will eventually be angry at one, it's the nature of air travel in our time.

And unless the woman was double-jointed, I cannot for the life of me figure out how she accidentally suffocated herself from the starting position they describe. The story currently doesn't hold water.

The article mentioned that the woman was running up and down the terminal screaming. Something needed to be done and I would image the police handled the best way they knew how. Perhaps locking her up wasn't the be solution but I don't think tossing her outside to continue to tantrum would have been much better.

Yeah her tangling herself into asphyxiation doesn't sound possible. I'm curious to know what the coroner comes up with after the autopsy.

The plot thickens.

BTW, even some blogs written by people in law enforcement are dubious about the handcuff/strangulation thing.

Ara-anna wrote:

TM,

The US sucks eggs, most horrible country ever in the entire universe.

Burma is probably worse....

Burma, China, Saudi Arabia...

At least the USA has laws that give people rights...

Estel wrote:

Ara-anna wrote:

TM,

The US sucks eggs, most horrible country ever in the entire universe.

Burma is probably worse....

Tongue in cheek.

Axordil wrote:

The plot thickens.

BTW, even some blogs written by people in law enforcement are dubious about the handcuff/strangulation thing.

I admit, this is the ONE aspect of this case that has me really now totally curious ( in a what is the crime here sort of mentality mode) in terms of what they find out. Seven airport police officers are supposedly in the room next door, and this very slight woman (5'7" and 105 lbs?) is deemed such a risk that she is left handcuffed BEHIND her back and shackled with an 18" chain to a bench in a locked room next door, but in under ten minutes, she manages to ( I am guessing here) slide the cuffs over her posterior and her legs and feet while manacled to a bench and then somehow takes her handcuffed wrists and entangles the handcuffs around her neck, all while screaming at the top of her lungs? Does ANYONE see some things so glaringly wrong with this "official statement" reasoning?

I am not debating whether the woman was disruptive and probably in a very tenuous emotional state when she was arrested, but I have serious issues with what happened after she was carted away.

Tom The Dancing Bug

Ruben Bolling is the man.