Late this afternoon, the Washington Blade reported on another disorderly conduct arrest based on a less-than-clear rationale. This time, however, it involved a gay man and his friends on 17th Street and an allegation that the police called the man who was arrested a “faggot.”
The arrest was made after midnight on Saturday night/Sunday morning, and unlike the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., it was made made on the street. But the allegations are similar — and this new arrest has at its genesis the Gates arrest:
District resident Pepin Tuma, 33, an attorney in private practice, said the arrest took place at 17th and U streets, N.W., shortly after midnight July 26, seconds after a police officer overheard him telling two friends “jokingly” and in a loud voice, “I hate the police.”
Tuma said he made the comment in jest as he and two friends, who also are lawyers, were walking to Dupont Circle gay bar Cobalt while talking among themselves about the controversial arrest of Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates in Cambridge, Mass., for disorderly conduct.
The distinction this time is that there is an allegation of some pretty specific police wrongdoing:
He said the officer, later identified as Second District Officer J. Culp, pushed him against a transformer box, placed him under arrest and handcuffed him without immediately informing him of the charge.
“As Officer Culp moved me toward a police cruiser, he told me to ‘just shut up, faggot,’” Tuma told Lanier in his e-mail.
The facts that Tuma isn’t a Harvard professor and that he is a gay man make me think we’re not likely to see quite the same shitstorm over this incident, but I hope the Blade and Washington Post do follow this story as it develops.
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Chris Geidner is a lawyer in Washington, D.C., who writes at Law Dork, contributes regularly to Metro Weekly and has written for The Atlantic Online, Advocate.com, Salon and other publications. An extended biography can be found
Small world… I looked him up on Facebook and three (only two of whom are attorneys) of the five gay male friends I have in DC are his friends. So if you want an interview, I apparently am connected, but I’m betting you probably are as well
He should definitely start thinking about which beer he’s going to have at the White House.
While I am completely against the police abusing their power and authority, as well as discriminating or throwing out slurs of any kind…I have to say that I am frankly sick of this idea that somehow because a thing is not against the law that it is perfectly wise or even reasonable to do.
One of the defenses in the Gates incident over and over was “its not illegal to yell at a cop.”
Again we have the same sort of rallying cry.But this is NOT the Gates case all over again. Gates/Crowley was more grey area as Gates was in his own home and Crowley rightly responded to a call and at no time was accussed of making any slurs.
In this case, Tuma did not need to get involved but on the same hand the cop exceded his authority by walking across the street and using slurs as he arrested Tuma.
This is not a First Amendment issue.This is not a case of protestors being silenced during a peaceful march.
It may not be against the law to tell a cop to kiss your ass, but is it really a wise thing to do?
The often repeated response is, “well its their job to restrain themselves”. Really? And so that’s an excuse to heap abuse on them?
I wonder if I could walk into Mr. Tuma’s place of work while he is on the job and yell “I hate lawyers”. Would he show restraint?
Just because the police are our public servants does not mean we should go out of our way to demean them anymore than you’d yell at a hotel maid “I hate maids”.
If being rude to a waiter makes most of us think of ending up with spit in our food, then what would you imagine being rude to a cop would get us?
Now that’s all just common sense.
Do we need reform in police departments? Yes indeed. There are far too many racists and homophobes in departments.There are far too many ego driven rage machines who abuse their power.
Perhaps instead of mandating change in their behavior, we do our part and model the correct behavior and not add to an already stressful job.