SF Writer Peter Watts Arrested, Beaten At US-Canadian Border

[Trent Roman]

Non-compliance--what a fucking joke. Prosecutors should be ashamed of themselves for bringing such a bullshit charge against someone; the jury should be ashamed for their slavish adherence to legalisms over logic. Attacking an officer is resisting. Trying to flee is resisting. Having the sheer gall to ask what officers are doing rummaging around in your trunk is not resisting, it is demanding accountability. I hope he counter-sues.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Myasishchev]

Yes, the not-even-mildly "famous" writer can't possibly be guilty. Did he deserve the full brunt of what he received? Probably not, but he probably deserved a good deal of it. I've seen assholes like this flip out and treat law enforcement types like utter shit. And, speaking solely for myself, I wish it were completely legal to beat the shit out of people who can't show even a modicum of respect to them.

How screaming and yelling and swearing profusely at a peace officer, as long as actual violence isn't used, is remotely a crime, is beyond me. I guess sticks and stones aren't all that are hurtful for the poor feelings of our weenie policemen and women.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

My guess? His first mistake was getting out of the car without being told to. That right there escalated the situation. If he then moved towards the guards or refused to reenter his vehicle, while starting an argument that might be interpreted as a possible distraction from, say, the passenger pulling a gun or any number of things, it would be completely correct to subdue and restrain him.

And macing someone is about as non-lethal as you can get before beating on someone with your fists, breaking out the nightstick or shooting them. He's then handcuffed for his and the officers' safety.

Gods forbid a man do something without being told to, move towards someone or question what people are doing. Why, this might well be a distraction for someone pulling a gun! I mean, why else would someone move a muscle without permission? Quick! Subdue him with our weapons!

I mean, law enforcement should be there to serve, aid and protect the people, not engage in paranoid criminalizing of citizens and unwarrented violence. It sounds to me that these officers- like far too many- see their position as an excuse to intimidate others.

Are you honestly telling me the guards are considered in the right to respond to someone whose car they are checking at the border getting out or moving towards them as if that is a distraction for a passenger to pull a gun or something similar? Why in the hells are they so paranoid? Do they assume citizens are dangerous animals ready to lunge for an officer's throat at the slightest opportunity, unless they're strictly controlled and kept in place?

 

[tharpdevenport]

Are our guards really on that kind of fucking edge when dealing with Canadians?

If only this had this kind of chutzpah when dealing with "Snow birds"...

 

[Jimmy Bob]

...who just assumes that someone's an asshole just because he is a writer.

I'm not assuming anymore. He's been judged to be one by a jury of his peers. Based on real evidence. Unlike, you know, some bumbling boobs on a message board who think they're cool because they hate cops and the government.

I mean, he's a two-bit sci-fi writer that hardly anyone's ever even heard of. OF COURSE HE'S INNOCENT AND A SAINT! OMFG! THERE'S NO WAY HE DID ANYTHING TO WARRANT THIS! WRITER'S ARE TOO PEACEFUL AND LOVING OMG OMG OMG!

What are you somekinda fascist? Or a christian?

You're a small sick person, you know that?

 

[barnaclelapse]

Non-compliance--what a fucking joke. Prosecutors should be ashamed of themselves for bringing such a bullshit charge against someone; the jury should be ashamed for their slavish adherence to legalisms over logic. Attacking an officer is resisting. Trying to flee is resisting. Having the sheer gall to ask what officers are doing rummaging around in your trunk is not resisting, it is demanding accountability. I hope he counter-sues.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

I hope so, too. I've been reading through this over the course of work this morning, and I have to confess that it just doesn't make sense to me. I don't see where the reaction given by the boarder guards had to come into play. I realize what their job entails, and I'm aware that they are entitled to a certain amount of respect, but I just don't understand how it could have escalated the way it did and then wind up that only sunk Watts deeper.

I really don't get it.

 

[The Comedian]

Those guards were lucky.

Robert Heinlein would have gunned them all down and then run off with a hot redhead.

 

[Psion]

I just hope Harlan Ellison never gets stopped.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Here's why people trust Watts over the cops involved: because there are witnesses, because Watts has provided a lot of detail, and because the only official police statements have included at least one big mistake, claiming he was trying to go from Canada into the USA instead of the opposite.

Really? All I see are a bunch of sycophants crying and clamoring in order to get free publicity for some obscure sci-fi writer most people haven't even heard of. They're also parading around his 'celebrity' status as a writer because, somehow, that's relevant to anything at all. Oh wait, no it's not.

Watts and his supporters wouldn't be hoping the situation was videotaped by security cameras if he was the one misrepresenting the situation.

Yeah, because knowing there isn't any videotape of the situation sure makes it easier to spin the encounter their way. And hey, they're "hoping" that it was filmed (even though they know it wasn't), so clearly they're in the right! And whoever-this-random-guy-is really is a saint of saints and did nothing to provoke the situation.

Damn those black-hearted law enforcement officers! Ooh, they're so evil! Burn them! BURN THEM ALL! AMG!!!

No one on this site is nearly as hyperbolic as you are pretending we're being.

Been in the Zone lately? Plenty of them to be found...

 

[Dusty Ayres]

I just hope Harlan Ellison never gets stopped.

Who gives a flying fuck about Harlan Ellison? AFAIK, he should be banned from even going to any conventions, anyway, for doing what he did at the 2006 Hugo Awards, plus a ton of other related incidents over the years. The actual topic is Peter Watts and what he's going through, not a blowhard like Harlan Ellison and what he does. Besides, Ellison can't travel that much anymore owing to his age.

As for the incident in question: Now my fellow posters at this board who are white know what it's like when those of us who are of color get pulled over for things (Driving While Black, Flying While Arab, etc.) and not be discounting it.

 

[Checkmate]

But Harlan Ellison is a sci-fi writer. That makes him innocent of everything ever by default!

 

[Dusty Ayres]

But Harlan Ellison is a sci-fi writer. That makes him innocent of everything ever by default!

That does not give border cops or any other type of cop the right to beat the shit out of somebody for just asking a question. The police are out of control, to the point of their being more of a threat to the populace as a whole than the crooks they're protecting us from. Plus, they're also acting like dicks where photography is concerned (Photography Is Not A Crime). I don't give a flying fuck about Harlan Ellison, as I said, but at the same time, I won't countenance him being clubbed by a cop, either.

 

[Sci]

I don't know who this Watts person is nor do I know if his accounts are true.

What I DO know is this:

People who are inclined to side with the border guards in this instance, and people who work in uniformed security services, need to pause and ask themselves why such a large segment of the populace has such a fundamental distrust of uniformed security personnel such as police officers, border guards, and the like. Because whatever might be true about suspects, and however many uniformed personnel are good and honest folk, you have to start wondering what responsibility uniformed security services have for the extreme distrust they provoke from many law-abiding citizens.

 

[Checkmate]

That does not give border cops or any other type of cop the right to beat the shit out of somebody for just asking a question. The police are out of control, to the point of their being more of a threat to the populace as a whole than the crooks they're protecting us from.

Thanks for proving my point for me, even though I'm sure you'll sit there scratching your head as to how or why.

(I'll give you a hint: It's apparently okay to assume the worst about people in uniform. But God Fucking Forbid they be the real victims in a situation. Instead, they ALL -- every last one of them -- apparently sits in the shadows, twirling their moustaches as they wait to visit evil upon all of mankind. Because, you know, if they were so evil and vulgar, I have NO doubt whatsoever that they'd wait to perform their evil deeds on a guy with fucking witnesses in the car. Who's testimony, as an aside, was apparently not even close to good enough to get the asshole -- I'm sorry, the ever-so-innocent sci-fi writer nobody's ever heard of -- off.)

 

[StarshipDefiant]

You know...you're the one that keeps bringing up that he's a sci-fi writer, everyone else seems to be indicating that doesn't matter. Whatever, the guy may have been a dick, the cops may have been a dick, it's about who can prove what at this point. Moving on, if he was found guilty, it seems to be the border patrol were able to prove their case and that he as in the wrong. That's not to say this is necessarily true, I mean if there's several people who's accounts matches Mr. Watts, and the police report has some odds with the (apparently) true facts of the situation, I can agree that's odd.

Of course, getting out of a car without being told to isn't to smart, either. Even if he felt they were in the wrong...also, maybe I am behind the times, but I thought border agents could search?

 

[Checkmate]

No, he's the one who keeps bringing it up. Just like his sycophants. It's so painfully obvious that he's trying to spin it into free advertising. Because (and if you read my first few posts in the thread, you'd realize this), just like you said, it doesn't matter that he's a sci-fi writer. At all. That was my entire point to begin with. But apparently, because he was, that somehow translates into him clearly being an innocent soul, wrongfully persecuted by the evil machinations of "the Man." As opposed to an ultra dick who not only resisted, but acted out enough to warrant being treated the way he was. Which is even more obvious since, despite whatever his little sycophants in the car claimed on the Internet, the judge and jury (who I'm sure are every bit as evil as the cops; zomgz) both agreed that he got what he deserved.

 

[Peak]

I'm sorry, but when uniformed men beats the "shit" out of civilians, it's wrong whoever they are. Still don't see the border guards reactions as anything than an overreaction, and something to condemn.

They should be working for us, not expect every "civilian" to be a threat or a criminal not yet found out.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

They should be working for us, not expect every "civilian" to be a threat or a criminal not yet found out.

You obviously don't know much about the work environment of LEOs then...the day they follow your advice and turn out to be wrong about said "non-threatening" civilian may well the day a father doesn't go home to his wife and kids at the end of his shift.

 

[Neroon]

Yeah, this thread's off the rails and since it's no longer anything to do with science fiction/fantasy, is therefore closed.

Infractions might be forthcoming.

 

[Neroon]

Yes, I wish it was legal too to beat the shit out of assholes like Checkmate, who just assumes that someone's an asshole just because he is a writer.

Two years! American laws are fucked up. In Europe he would have just gotten a warning at worst.

At best, the government would have gotten a warning.

What are you somekinda fascist? Or a christian?

You're a small sick person, you know that?

Infraction for trolling to Jimmy Bob for the above posts.

I'm not assuming anymore. He's been judged to be one by a jury of his peers. Based on real evidence. Unlike, you know, some bumbling boobs on a message board who think they're cool because they hate cops and the government.

Infraction for flaming to Checkmate for the above post.



Apologies to Professor Zoom for having to close this thread. There is clearly material to be discussed and debated. My advice is to bring it up in TNZ or in Misc to continue it.


Comments for all of the above actions needs to be conducted through PM