Enter Sandman rang through Yankee Stadium on Wednesday night, even though Mariano was in Seattle. Metallica was in town and a few of my friends went to see the show. They grabbed a few beers for the subway and made their way uptown.
I’m opposed to boozing on the subway because booze leads to piss and you’re S.O.L. when nature calls underground. More than that, groups of drunkards can get aggressive and, at times, violent, and I’d rather not be confined in tiny box cars with them when that happens.
So I wholeheartedly support police presence down there for the big crush of ball games and concerts. When my friends got busted I had no sympathy for them when the started to tell the story. But the story didn’t end where I expected it would.
One of them had an unpaid citation (of which he has no recollection) and he got to spend the next 19 hours on a tour of the New York City correctional facilities. He spent the night in lock-up. By the time he finally got to see a judge, around the noon the next day, she took one look at the case and sent him home with time served, seemingly annoyed she even had to say that much.
I think he should have been punished. There are a limited number of cops and just maybe they could have been doing something more useful at that moment. But in the end, he didn’t even pay a dime, for either citation and how much money did he cost the system by being processed? The way this went down seems like a terrible waste of everybody’s time and money.
What should have happened?
Cops shouldn't have wasted everybody's time. Then again, mess with the Bull...
They should've called a cab, simple.
What was he arrested for? You didn't say.
IMHO, it's absurd to simply arrest people for being drunk in public. If they are causing trouble, fighting or breaking some other law, then they deserve to be arrested. If not, then there's no harm.
Perhaps this would never work in the USA, because of all the different ethnic types and root cultures mixed together, all the guns available and the ease with which people seem to become violent, however, in Japan, even in big cities like Tokyo it's perfectly OK to drink and be drunk in public.
People police themselves and their friends.
And it works. People rarely get out of hand, but fights do occasionally happen, just like they do amongst sober people. Another neat aspect of life here is that the falling down drunk is treated like a victim rather than a criminal.
Subway and rail works and even cops will take a drunk in and give him/her a can of coffee and make sure they get home and don't fall on the tracks....often so will strangers. One thing is for sure, the drunk will never (or rarely) be victimized by others or pushed around or harassed by cops.
I like that system. It's accepting.
please don't get me started on the "correctional system."
seems like your friend could have just gotten a desk appearance ticket and paid his citation and been done with it.
of course though rikers is filled with people who committed minor infractions and could afford to pay the dat.
Hey, we need some kind of pure baseball thread going soon. They'll be playing in a couple of hours.
Big Game James and Hellickson. Hate to say it, but I think we're better off if the Red Sox do make the playoffs.
Hector Noesi vs. James Shields.
Yeah, maybe I'll actually work this afternoon and just watch the second game.
Remember when people said Tampa would fall to the bottom of the division after losing so many of their best players during the off-season... Yeah I know, right?