Sunday, September 23, 2007
* Mayhem on Morse Avenue
2007 Sullivan High School Homecoming will go down in the history books as one of the most unruly bunch of home-comers as the neighborhood has ever seen. Somewhere along the way, say the last 10 years or so, parenting has become a lost art. This weekend was a prime example of the breakdown.
Homecoming use to be a family event. But for Sullivan High School students in 2007, it's turned into the World Wrestling Federation. The police were out-numbered and near-riots were the results. No parents were around making sure their little darlings were going to have fun and get home safe. We'll forget the on-time bit, heck, that never happened when even I was a kid. And worst of all, no dad's were checking out the dates to make sure they had the right intentions with their little girls.
Basically what happened is - the teens went totally berserk and the parents couldn't be found.
So, it was up to the police. In this video, from the Rogers Park Bench, Mannis captures some of Friday nights madness. I'll say, from the looks of the situation, I'm a bit sad to see the way Mannis and the officer go back and forth with each other. We had two wrongs in this case.
One, the officer(s) should just leave the camera crew(s) alone and go about their business. No matter which media outlet they're with. Period.
Two, the cameraman shouldn't be wasting the officers time playing word-play games- while kids are whipping bottles, rocks, feet and fists at each other. Think of this as war. Would a soldier stop his fighting with the enemy and ask the reporter what station or newspaper he was writing for? I doubt it. He should be trying to do his job of catching the kids fighting, or at least, make sure they're fighting each other fair & square.
In this whole ugly episode, I'm told Morse Avenue had to be shut down for a short time. On a lighter note, that mural sure looks nice. Hope the kids enjoyed acting the fools under it on Sullivan High School Homcoming night?
BLOGNOTES: Even though he tied up a pair of officers for a time, Tom Mannis has the guts to inform us what's going down. Unlike Joe Moore and his cowardly bunch of anonymous puppets. Thanks Tom.
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18 comments:
If the officers had not wasted THEIR OWN TIME with bothering Mannis, a good citizen probably known to them in any case, for videotaping the action, they could have done their work of quelling the disturbance.
I mean, why were they even asking Mannis what he was taping when a melee between a bunch of teens was developing? He was, after all, wielding a vidcam, not a weapon. A citizen has the right to videotape anything he sees on the street, so how was Mannis wasting the time of the police?
They were wasting their own damn time, doing what was easy, rather than unpleasant.
As for the parenting these kids are getting, yeah, maybe it's not perfect, but even in my time as a teen, in a well-groomed white nabe among very well-supervised kids, we had problems with local teens going on rampages when they were allowed to gather into big crowds.
It looked pretty barren around there. I think it makes sense to stop and talk to the one person who is standing his ground. Maybe Mannis could have said "I've seen everything that has been happening. What information would you officers like so that you may respond to this disturbance in the most effective way?"
Instead, he acted like a jerk.
That was one of the most assine videos I've ever seen. According to Mr. Mannis's own blog, he claims he has one of the "5" most influential blogs in the state. Well the only thing I've been influenced to think is that he's nuts. Flaming nuts.
Cutting and editing a five minute report using the same footage over and over again hardly defines the situation on Morse. The Mannis petty tirade with the police (who stayed professional throughout) was bizarre.
He truly wasted police time. What will these two officers think the next time they see him on Morse and are responding to an emergency? They will classify him with all the other nutjobs in the area and not bother with him.
If no one was hurt and the youth were dispersed from the area, the cops did their job. Obviously Mannis has no understanding as to the nature of police reports. Mannis could have helped the police if he could have provided decent information to the cops on what he had taped or witnessed. Descriptions of the perpetrators, direction of their flight, clothes or gang colors. But Mannis wasn't interested in offering that kind of information. He only wanted to make an ego-centric grandstand appearance on his on video.
I for one don't buy it.
Officer Everett was clearly offering to make out a police report - what the subject of the report is the citizen's choice, in this case either specifics regarding the melee, perhaps with identifiers regarding the participants, OR the fact that police took "30 minutes to respond," which he clearly complains about on the video. He was not offering to provide a report of the event, as Mr. Mannis seems to think. Officer Everett is not the department's Media Relations Officer, he's a cop responding to a public disturbance. How could Mr. Mannis have gotten that so confused?
Additionally, why was Mr. Mannis so verbally combative? Although I do think Officer Everett probably could have used his time more wisely that night than to engage a videographer in the first place, the fact is he did offer to write a report. Mr. Mannis responded with borderline belligerence. This is not a shining moment in the history of Rogers Park Bench.
- PEACE -
Glad the event was called in and videotaped, but I do believe that Mannis could of been more cooperative with the police, also giving the officer an explicit description of who and what he witnessed would of been more helpful to the community, also the police report would of just been a record to indicate what has happened in the event of any court case against those responsible for the unruly behavior of those involved with the sulivan high school incident.
This Tom Mannis fellow seems like an absolute jerk. Having said that,
the Officer doesn't seem to be much better. Why he would waste one second with this guy after it became apparent that he wasn't a victim and didn't need a report, is beyond me. Me thinks that this is case of two goofs who need to grow up a little, engaged in a goading contest. Sad thing about it is Officer Everettt is a FTO which means Officer Zapada is a recruit. I hope Zapada doesn't pickup Everetts bad habits.
The cops should take that video and show it to every new recruit in the academy as an example of deference to the public and grace under fire.
Officer Everett had no choice but to handle the situation the way he did. If he had not waited for Mannis to walk away, he would have been accused of not being responsive to the public. If Mannis had anything to offer the police why did he not do it? Frankly, I don't believe anything this Mannis guy says on his blog or on this tape.
I guess most of you think that it is alright for the police to stop question someone who is videotaping in public way? Forget about the dialogue between Mannis and the police.To me it boils down to this--the fuzz were most interested in Mannis and his camera and not the ruckus on the street.
http://rogersparkbench.blogspot.com/2007/09/reaction-to-near-riots-there-were-two.html
Ok, this was an embarrassing attempt to showcase our constitutional rights.....I think you meant well but it became this game of civil liberties versus police authority. Yes, you had a right to tape in public as long as you were not interfering with an investigation however you should never try to get belligerent with the police.
It's World Wrestling Entertainment now, not World Wrestling Federation.
USA Network every Monday at 8 pm CST, and The CW on Fridays at 7 pm.
Perhaps if the school had scheduled Homecoming in October rather than the third week of September, it would have been easier to keep things under control. It tould have given school officials a couple extra weeks to identify the most likely instigators of trouble and be better prepared to react accordingly.
The weather is also more likely to be lousy in October than in September, which would actually would be of help. I suspect gangbangers have no more desire to get sick from being out too long in rainy 40-degree weather (or worse) than the rest of us!
ok, the only reason they sat on mannis was hat they didn't feel like going after the teens, which are obviously a lot scarier than mannis.
and probably the only reason they sat on him was because he was taping them, which meant that they would actually have to DO something for once.
I didn't see where I could post my comment on Tom's blog so, if it's O.K. with Craig, I'll post it here.
Tom, two things:
1. I really do think you were, and still are, mistaken to think the officer was offering to give you a report of the incident when he offered to give you a "police report." I believe he was offering to take your report, i.e. your grievance or your witness account of the event. You are correct to say the police do not provide reports to the media while events are still underway. His choice of words caused the confusion. It would have been much clearer if he had said something to the effect of, "Do you wish to file a police report?"
2. None of the people who posted their comments on this blog, myself included, are "stupid." At best we are open to debating issues as they arise - at worst, we are opinionated. The fact is we have opinions and we enjoy giving those opinions in public forums such as blogs and community meetings and in our local coffee houses and restaurants. Just because we may not agree with each other or take exception to a particular incident, etc., should not call into question our intelligence quotient. It does mean, however, that we must be prepared to hold our own in the world-wide-conversation on the matter because assenting and dissenting opinions are bound to arise.
Your responses to our comments are obviously well thought out, particularly the argument that Officer Everett initially approached you with the obvious intent to intimidate as evidenced by the fact that he asked you for press credentials. After reading that, I reviewed your tape again and realized I'd missed that very important element of the exchange. It doesn't change the fact that I think you were talking apples while he was talking oranges about the "police report" but it certainly affects my opinion of what I referred to originally as "borderline belligerence" in you response to his request for identification. Now I am inclined to view your response as being much more understandable given the nature of the way you were initially approached.
I would encourage you to continue the conversation but without stooping to calling people names or impugning their IQ’s. It diminishes the effect of your argument and demeans your public personae.
I would close by saying that I appreciate the work you are trying to do in our neighborhood. I cannot claim the courage it took to go out on Morse Ave. in the middle of a near-riot with a video camera running. I'm not even sure I would have stood my ground in the face of such obvious police intimidation. The fact is, you did and I commend you for it.
- PEACE -
V & J- The average Police Officer does more to improve society in one day than most people do in their entire lifetime. To suggest that they do not "DO" anything is completely disingenious and shows a lack of knowlege of the facts.
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