Georgia is the place to be if you're a law-abiding, SUV-driving, ex-fraternity boy from Podunk U. Especially Atlanta, which is so much more sophisticated than down in Claxton where they make fruit-cakes and out on the peanut farms where you can even learn to be one of the only honest presidents in recent history. It is Georgia; redolent of fresh pecans, Lester Maddox with his axe-handle and Savannah, where it will always be Midnight in The Garden Of Good and Evil.
Now Atlanta has become the place where they beat up Oxford dons for - gasp! - jaywalking.
The news has been slowly filtering out since Sunday's episode where Atlanta showed its other face to an Oxford (not Oxford, Mississippi) history professor who had been visiting Tufts U. The professor, identified by U.K.'s the Independent as "...the slight, bespectacled British historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto. . . (who is) professor of global environmental history at Queen Mary, University of London, and a member of Oxford University's modern history faculty," was wrestled to the ground by five Atlanta cops where he was pinned to the road under the boot of one.
The offense was understandably serious, at least in terms of our foreign relations with the last of our allies. He had been caught jaywalking from the Marriott (site of an academic history convention) by an off-duty Atlanta cop. Off-duty. Let us not forget that little fact.
Twenty-eight year old Officer Kevin Leonpacker had been, it turns out, hired not to guard the Hilton Hotel but to control and protect hotel guests by reminding them to use crosswalks and obey signals. He was there representing the Hilton Hotel.
He saw our Oxford don, undoubtedly looking the wrong way for traffic driving on the wrong side of the street and being academically distracted by some thought of historical trends. Our intrepid Atlanta cop blew his whistle and ordered the distinguished professor not to cross.
The cop was ignored, perhaps like history students who are obviously too dumb to finish the course. Here he is, in America, and he did not instantly obey an authority who was dressed in . . . what exactly?
Article comments
1 - Melita Teale
I'm as horrified by police brutality as the next person, but after wading through Fernandez-Armesto's "Millenium" there's a part of me that wants to have been in on that smackdown.
2 - Me
Your readers might be interested in the actual police report. Your professor needs to learn that you don't walk away from police officers, you show ID when asked, and you don't resist arrest.
It may be ok to do those things in Britain, but this is America (Est. 1776)
Here's the actual report:
3 - Howard Dratch
The Atlanta police still seem undisciplined, un-trained, violent and dangerous to visitors. I read the report in full, thank you.
The Atlanta police administrators need to learn that police in America (established under something some of us remember: The Constitution) are not authorized to be judges and juries who can decide who is physically attacked on the street for jaywalking, who is hanged for over-time parking, who is beaten by gangs of maddened cops (L.A.), who is sexually assaulted (New York) anally with a broomstick for being Haitian and who is in other ways terrorized by those whose job it is to maintain calm and tranquility even in Bubbaville.
Freedom, liberty and individual freedom may be ok, I assume you mean, in Britain, "but this is America." Well, that is your America. Mine would have police who remembered their role, their training (if they have any in Georgia) and their responsibility to the public. They are not to be allowed to vent their violence, and hostility to the public whenever they like.
You ("Me") also neglected to mention the Rambo of Jaywalkers was not on duty. His job, at that moment, was to represent the Hilton Hotel and its international chain to serve and protect the guests.
This is a wake-up call to international hotel chains, especially in obviously dangerous and violent cities like Atlanta, that they may need large staffs of private guards and lawyers to protect their guests from the police. Alternatively, the State Department should issue a warning for foreigners to avoid the city of Atlanta as too dangerous for conventions, travel or business.
Melita, who has actually read his work, gets my respect rather than the disgust reserved for violent thugs and their apologists.
4 - Mark
Its seems simple to me. If a uniformed cop tells you to use the crosswalk (which is accualy a lawfull order intended to protect pedestrians from being struck by vehicles)and you ignore it, you should be fined. Now, since the gentelman was boneheaded enough to not get that part, maybe he should have gotten the part where the officer stopped him and tried to talk to the "gentleman." Instead he refused to id himself, after breaking the law. Guess what, the next step is jail.
The "bomber" jacket is a police issued leather jacket, with badge, name plate, patches and two bright colored flaps that read "ATLANTA POLICE"
Now I dont support everything the police do, but give me a break.
5 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
This was a middle aged man walking away from what appeared to be a loud mouthed thug. And American cops often appear to be loud-mouthed thugs, especially the off duty hot dogs.
What has me puzzled is this. Did it require five of "Atlanta's finest" to tackle this man to the ground? Wouldn't writing a nasty $100 ticket and confiscating the man's British passport have sufficed? Without the passport he would have been forced to pay the fine before attempting to leave...