3/19/13 AFD loads ETOH female after dealing with combative crowd (note PD not wearing riot gear)
So yeah, I suppose you have to take a pro-police statement coming from firefighters, those other highly trained public servants, with a grain of salt.
After all, let's look at what happened last year at the Blarney Blowout, which was localized to Townhouse Apartments quad area.
When AFD was called to the scene for a young woman who had passed out from too much alcohol, she was dead in the center of a boisterous drunken crowd of well over 1,000. And as they tried to negotiate their way through that undulating maze of humanity the unarmed firefighters, who do not wear riot gear, came under fire.
At first just snowballs, but quickly escalating to cans and bottles -- some of them full.
APD waded into the crowd (without riot gear) to escort the firefighters out of a dangerous situation. And not long after they marched back into that crowd to disperse them (while wearing riot gear helmets) resulting in six arrests and no injuries.
3/9/13 Police in riot gear helmets break up Blarney Blowout at Townhouse Apartments
The key points to remember about this year's disastrous Blarney Blowout -- which shows a pattern -- are 1) police were overwhelmingly outnumbered and 2) they only used force after the largest drunken crowd anyone has ever seen in our little college town started to hurl ice, rocks, bottles and cans.
Yes, police made 58 arrests -- a LOT more than last year. But still no injuries.
26 comments:
It would be rather poor form -- if not outright misconduct -- for the AFD not to claim that the APD acted appropriately during the Blowout.
You don't publicly criticize your co-workers -- it isn't done. It's like one of Team Maria's minions actually telling the truth -- and did we ever find out why the budget guy got fired?
I know of a police department elsewhere in the Commonwealth that, some years back, burnt down the fire department's training house. As I understand it -- and I was told by a firefighter -- the police had left a tear gas round "burning" in a sofa and in the middle of the night, well, you know.
Publicly, the FD didn't say anything. Privately, they were PISSED.... That's how it goes.
Bottom line -- the report says what it says. And it wasn't this "Ed" who wrote it -- some folk with serious police management credentials wrote it, and while I don't agree with it completely either, you can't get around the fact that Real Cops Said APD Acted Inappropriately!
if each and every APD and AFD member did not support and defend each other after the results of the davis report we'd have a far worse situation on our hands: like the schools and so many private enterprises, if morale breaks down we're screwed. the flip side is that why it's so important to have many voices with varied perspectives weighing in, we're all in this together.
Move on already, deal with the next one. What's done is done. Everybody's still got a job and nobody died. Start working for the future and forget your feelings, sheeeesh...
Nobody died.
Not yet.
As I recall, one of our past Hobart Hoedowns involved at least one tree being set ablaze.
Despite Anon 10:09 AM's admonition that "tomorrow is another day", there is a drip, drip, drip effect here involving the erosion of confidence that we can do anything about this problem except watch it happen and get unsuspecting people out of the way.
"...important to have many voices with varied perspectives weighing in, we're all in this together.
The students are part of the "we" and the students' "morale" broke down long ago, which is why you are having these problems.
Firefighters used to be loved & respected -- cops, not so much -- but the college kids used to appreciate (more than even respect) the AFD. What do you suppose happened to change that?
If the cops just let things go, what would happen?
Well there was somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000 exuberant college aged youth, most of them under the influence of alcohol, and only a stone's throw from the outskirts of Amherst town center at 2:00 PM in the afternoon with the temperature above 50 degrees.
I'm not sure I want to know what would have happened in town center if the police had not turned them back at Fearing and North Pleasant towards campus.
So Larry, do you suggest the crowd was on the way to pillage downtown?
I would not have taken the chance of thinking otherwise.
People might be interested in this story from Marketplace:
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/education/there-goes-neighborhood-college-students-next-door
It's certainly an issue in lots of places, not just Amherst.
"If the cops just let things go, what would happen?"
____
They would have been accused of not doing their job. Can't win when you are a cop especially in a left-wing nut area like Amherst where police and most normally accepted procedures of police are looked at as militaristic engagements.
What would have happened if the HOLYOKE Police had dealt with a Puerto Rician celebration in a similar manner? That'd have been a Federal Hate Crime and Eric Holder would be in town looking for scalps.
Think about that for a while...
can't win if you work for the schools in this town either. or if you're a government leader. maybe this is the lesson we need to take away from this: the cops and firefighters and teachers and town and school leaders will diminish the overall morale in town if we don't all do what the AFD did for the cops, which is offer support all around, stop making fun of the town manager's and superintendents every decision, while noting that there are difficult jobs to be done by EVERYONE.
enough lol'ing at the town and school leaders, (some of you) AFD members!
Which never seems to happen.
how many lol's affect does it take to affect morale?
i've seen lol's for hires, lol's for non-hires, lol's for lockdowns, lol's for raises, lol's for formations of committees, lol's for student discipline decisions, so on and so on. it's a near constant critique of town governance and school officiating, which affects morale more than a single report from elsewhere. true, sometimes the firefighters doing the lol's are from other towns, sometimes (often) it's the spouses and friends of our firefighters, but i've seen some of ours do it, too, and plenty.
my only point being that we should support each other more and lol each other less, see how that works for a while.
I dont recall ever seeing a "lol" from any in the group mentioned by anon 8:35.
I'm willing to try anything in the face of the hopelessness that seems to be setting in.
This place seems to be a firing range for public employees, whether they be in the Planning Department, in our schools, or in law enforcement.
Accountability is one thing; this kind of sniping is another.
Dr Ed: Davis is no REAL COP. Boston PD hated that man as he was a political plant..AND if you had 1/2 a brain you would see that the after report from the Marathon Bombing and the Blowout read eerily familiar…the dude uses google as a fact finder (I do too at times). The difference? He grabbed 160K. He was never a boots on the ground do the dirty work type of cop. Ask those who are..especially those at BPD. The one thing David did have? Resources. The one thing AFD and APD don't have? Resources. AFD and APD are forced to lean on one another to get the job done. Sit behind the safety of your keyboard and let those who are in harms way do the "big boy" jobs. The internet gives everyone a voice…I know I know, even me.
i'll collate some examples of comments by AFD members, and their friends and family members, here on larry's blog and on his facebook blog, that reflect disrespect, resentment, and an attitude that suggests that AFD and APD can do wrong because their jobs are so much harder and more dangerous than people who work in the schools or town hall, and that the latter group are incompetent in their decision making and abilities compared to AFD and APD, whose mistakes must be allowed because they work harder at more demanding jobs. it's nearly constant and cuts into morale for the whole town big time. (and some of the negative commentators don't even pay taxes in our town.)
i'll post them here soon here for you, anon 9:24.
anon 10:33 am is a perfect example of the attitude which says how everyone else is not professional, has no integrity, no experience, incompetent at the jobs they do, make too much money, while those who "put themselves in harm way" deserve no criticism, because their job is SO much harder and more important than everyone else's. And 10:33 is obviously in the categories mentioned at post 8:35. How their criticisms affect morale outside their little myopic world does not matter.
Move on babies. Move on... Whine, Whine, Whine.
Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh...
Saying that 10:33 is obviously AFD is like saying 11:15, etc. is obviously Kurt G.
LOL 10:33 am. The "big boys" are the men and women who take huge personal risks in private business, who put everything on the line everyday, not the boys who played with trucks when they were little and wanted to be a fireman when they grow up and now are supported by our tax dollars and who have unions protecting them and pensions waiting for them when they retire nice and early.
Come on out and take some risks in the private sector if you're such a "big boy". Or don't, and stay and play with your "big boy" toys on our dime.
I smell a troll
You mean 10:33 am? definitely a troll.
Let's start NOW and see if we can stop sniping at everyone else and the jobs they do and focus on the necessary improvements (especially behaving professionsally) in our OWN houses.
If you mean like the sniping done at 12:19, then I agree,
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