Georgia Teacher of the Year Arrested, Woman Tased, In Middle School Parking Lot Altercation

I'm taking a little time to look at America's mental state, the world our children live in.  It's time to look away from the teachers and police who are actively sexually exploiting them, and focus on the ones who appear to be doing a great job, like the teacher of the year in this video.  No, really.

I love the show Parking Wars for this exact reason.  It's a great cross-section of how insane everyone in America is, how entitled they feel to do whatever the hell they want with their cars.  "There wasn't any parking available, that's why I'm parked on the sidewalk!"  Everybody in America believes if they only need to do one quick thing, wherever they want to park is fine.

The incident in this video happens in the parking lot of a Georgia middle school.  There's a transcript provided from the local news station, WMAZ, that you can follow right along with.

Per that transcript, a lady is going the wrong way through a middle-school parking lot.  A crossing guard tells her to go around the other way.  She declines, saying she needs to pick up her nephew, and keeps going.  The crossing guard calls for an actual police officer to go and deal with her as a traffic infracion, and he does.  Mayhem ensues.

But there are things I hear in body cam videos all the time now that shock my ears every time.  I can't imagine saying this to the police, as if dealing with them was optional, or somehow a negotiation.  And people do it constantly:

• You're doing too much
• No, I'm not (in response to "you're under arrest")
• I'm not comfortable right now
• We're not doing this
  
• Don't touch me
  
• This is my house
  

Maybe it's because I grew up with the old school Chicago Police, who wore black leather motorcyle jackets like the Hell's Angels.  But none of that would ever have come out of my mouth.  I avoided the shit out of them, complied when they spoke to me, and remained silent, to good effect.  The cops never had to tell me anything twice, even when it was total bullshit. 

Yes, I get that I am also white and female.  And yet I ask you to consider how using that strategy might have changed this entire situation.  In fact, had this woman complied with the original guard who told her to drive around -- which is exactly what I would have done -- none of this would have happened at all.  When you blow the first one off, they call other ones.  When they tell you to stay there and wait for them, if you walk away, you get arrested.

Similarly, on Parking Wars, people often call the police on the parking authority, as if they aren't coworkers on the payroll, fingers on the same hand.  It's the childlike nature of Americans, to stamp their feet and make demands, with no idea how their public safety actually works.

"You're doing too much" is a mind-blower to me, the concept that every citizen gets to direct their interactions with the police.  I hear that all the time on body cams, including this one.  The lady who insists that they can't physically control her en route to the car has that same issue, that she gets to pick and choose which protocols will be employed with her.  And if not, the entire conversation will be about why not.  Many people think they can direct which officers will or won't work with them.  Fascinating.  As if the city has unlimited personnel resources to devote to their every whim and preference, like waitstaff.

That is simply not how public safety works.  Police, fire, and paramedics intervene when the basic parameters of society have gone off the rails, and order needs to be restored, like when someone is driving the wrong way in a middle-school parking lot where someone could easily be run over.  The fact that she's picking up her nephew is irrelevant to everyone but her -- the only important person on Earth. 

If you want them to "don't touch me," I suggest staying off their radar by obeying traffic laws.  That's the method I use.  And when I mess that up, I comply with whatever they tell me the first time.  I've also never been tazed.  I've had my civil rights violated by the police many times.  I'm grateful they've never raped or robbed me. 

For me as someone who has run some 911 calls, this incident again shows America as a tantruming toddler who has no idea where its food and shelter come from, how that safety net gets there, nor does it care.  It just wants what it wants, NOW. 

These ladies won't hesitate, won't blink an eye, to call these same officers when they need help, if someone is breaking in, if one of their kids goes missing.  She will expect them to be Johnny-on-the-spot if she gets in a wreck.  But she can't be expected to give them the time of day if they ask her to go around, simply go around and follow the marked flow of traffic.  If they want to talk to her about her driving, they can fuck off.  She's walking away because she's picking up her nephew right now.  I feel like that would be rude to walk away from pretty much anyone who was speaking to you like that, much less an authority figure.  Second one in 90 seconds.

It's her world.  The rest of us are living in it.  This is the same pandemic the shoplifter I just wrote about from Kroger has.  Manifest Destiny and American Exceptionalism have metastasized into this Main Character Syndrome where you can't tell anybody anything.  We're a nation of Sovereign Citizens, where everyone is their own ultimate authority figure.  How many times do you imagine that shoplifter has been told not to come back to Kroger?  She's been caught enough times that all the employees know her.  And she's "being harassed by the cops."  Just ask her.

America is a nation of victims whose freedom is constantly being curtailed.

What's so troubling about this scenario:

• It happened at the school where this "teacher of the year" works.  Great example for the kids
• Nice grammar for an elementary teaching professional
• A person who reflexively, repeatedly replies, "No, I'm not" to "You're under arrest," may not be the best one to teach such impressionable children the emotional skills they're learning at that age.  She has to actually be convinced that she's going to jail, that it's not an illusion.  No really, how does she run her classroom?  If she's this difficult for the police to redirect in this scenario, what happens when a child doesn't follow her rules in class?
  
• Specifically the rant about her feelings being hurt, and that's why she was behaving that way, should call her teaching credentials into question.  She can't throw her teaching credential out as the reason she's allowed to stick her nose into a traffic stop and not move away when she's told to.
  
  No, seriously.  That's a failure to grasp a core, essential concept that we need her to be relaying to the children, that the world isn't here to kiss your ass.  You don't get to freak out and have the police work around you because you feel like driving the wrong way today.  Kiss Mr. Zappy on the dick now, then go look for your new job when you get out of jail.  Her coworkers standing around making excuses for her filled me with a feeling of doom.  Plenty of black people aren't idiots.  There's no reason to lower the bar for her.
  

Both of these women behaved like complete asses.  Their feelings are irrelevant.  The question is, ma'am, will you please follow the marked flow of traffic with your vehicle.  If not, you will have to deal with a traffic stop by the police.  That's something a lot of adults can't do in America without losing their shit.  She has an obligation to behave like an adult on school grounds even if her sister can't.

I watch a lot of bodycam videos where the person ends up getting tazed and/or arrested, where nothing would have happened to me.  Know how I know?  Because again, when the crossing guard redirected me to go around, I would have apologized and gone the fuck around.  And when a cop yelled, "Ma'am, I need you to wait right there," I would've waited right the fuck there.  D'OH