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This photo shows the prank one young student does to his parents with a squad of police officers collaborating. Haw haw!
One of my occasional veteran correspondents sent me this. All I could say was,
"Day-amm, Walt!! That is not only touching, but begs all kinds of hot and current political questions!"
Point One: these two cops are on duty, and using city equipment in such a way that the public might conceivably be harmed. Suppose, for instance, that there was an actual perp at the filling station, known to the officers involved, who, seeing the cops drawn and approaching, thought they were there for him, and bolted, or, worse, drew on them.
If that had occurred-- if anything occurred that actually required immediate police attention ("Unit four-one, 10-34 on north Highland Avenue, 420 Highland...")-- what would they look like when suddenly they've left this guy they've just begun to collar there on the ground, run back to the police car and taken off? Would the two have heard the call but still taken the time to finish the ceremony before responding to the call?
Point Two: With the onslaught of shootings of non-White civilian Americans by White police officers (I do not exclude sheriffs, though the substantial majority of cases appear to involve municipal officers), such a show, a charade, with all the elements of an act that sometimes ends in tragedy-- Black men are shot and killed by White police officers almost daily-- can only have occurred because of a couple of reasons.
First either these two White cops knew the Black perp-turned-marriage-proposer so well that they were willing to go to these extreme lengths on his behalf. We cannot assume that the faux perp is a civilian citizen. If he is, one wonders what business he is the boss of to command such respect from two presumably random friends who happen to be officers.
There may be more to this story than the mere YouTube publisher knows or is saying. What if the perp-turned-proposer is himself actually a cop? We may not have heard the end of it, if the Department's Internal Affairs Division asks the same questions I've been posing.
Point Three: I will add just a few more questions about the breaches of normal police procedure: did they have their bodycams on? Did Dispatch know this was happening, and covered for the jokers by making a call? The dispatcher in the Chauvin Trial knew something wasn't right, by video. Did he or she watch the charade? Did the Supervising Officer on duty at the time know? Do internal records reveal the traffic stop, and why?
However, the more important reason such an act might have occurred might involve public relations. What a beautiful, touching act, most of the viewers of this short video-- 52 seconds-- will say. The older White cop and the Black fiance'e embrace. An extraordinary act of American Black/White unity, n'est-ce pas?
So these gun-brandishing cops are now identified as being jokers, but full of compassion at the bottom line. It's a fine piece of PR for gun-brandishing cops, when the right-wing propaganda mill (I presume Fox has put it on, as a piece of "lighter news") and social-media enhancement get into full swing. Why, see, cops have a sense of humor, too, even with their guns out!
However, it is too much of a stretch for me to consider seriously the possibility of a conspiracy by law enforcement at any level to make such an at-first-glance favorable-to-police (polizei gut benommen) piece of footage, knowing they wouldn't even have to publish it themselves, because the internet would make it grow by osmosis.
And further: the more times I watch the clip, the more I am convinced by the reaction of the gathered crowd-- all appear to be 20-30-somethings, like the perp-- that they were all gathered there on purpose, and thus the two cops are only two of a couple of dozen people in on the joke!
So one is left with the conclusion that these two officers (maybe, these three) have committed a multitude of unauthorized (fortunately, unharmful) actions, and that, regardless that they will not be fired, they will be severely reprimanded, and their career progression in rank may be curtailed. Playing a practical joke in collaboration with a crowd of civilians while on duty?
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