The woman in the video below is on point. The whole situation would not have happened if the kids respected authority from the beginning. I am not at all condoning what the officer did to that girl (I saw a different article saying that he resigned). But there was A LOT more going on than what was being shown in that 7 minute viral video and that it seems that it did not even cover the initial reasons that cops had to show up in the first place. Right from the beginning it was recipe for disaster. A situation that never should have escalated to the point that it did.

In the videos that I have seen, it appears that it was the black kids who are arguing, talking back, and being aggressive. It does not appear that the white kids are doing those things (not saying they didn’t though). The situation probably did not start out as a race issue, but if the majority of arguing and aggressive teens are of a particular race then of course the accusations become that it was a race issue. The cop could have been more gentle with that girl but several of the neighborhood residents (black and white) (who actually live there and witnessed the events) say that the cop presence was definitely warranted and needed to control an out of control situation that the teens/party started.

On a personal note, this is why we will have strict rules for our kids when they are older so that hopefully they will never be in a situation that gets out of control like this. We do have a taste of experiencing teenager rule breaking so it isn’t like I am just wishfully planning… The past 2 years we had 2 exchange students who lived in our home for 10 months each. We had strict rules with them as well but we had some major rule breaking & lying issues with one of them and we had to confront and correct her.

We will also teach (and have been teaching) our girls respect for authority. Even when we sometimes disagree, there are proper ways of dealing with disagreements. [For example, if you feel a parking, speeding, accident, etc. ticket is unwarranted, you can go to court and dispute it]. It is the parent’s responsibility to teach children to respect authority and teach them that their actions have consequences. I hope that when my girls are that age they will have the sense to know to respect cops instead of arguing with them AND maybe have the wisdom to stay away from situations that lead to cops being called in the first place.