What began as a routine band performance of Talkin’ Out the Side of Your Neck by Cameo at an Alabama high school football game ended in a troubling confrontation when a police officer tased the marching band director for refusing to stop the music.
The altercation occurred Thursday around 9 p.m. local time after a game at Jackson-Olin High School in Birmingham, Ala.
Minor High School band director Johnny Mims, 39, and his ensemble of 145 students were about a minute away from being done with their final song when a police officer approached the podium. According to both Mims and the Birmingham Police Department, officers asked Mims to stop the performance so they could clear out the stadium. Mims responded that the song was about to end and the performance was agreed on by both schools.
“Nothing we were doing at the time was being a danger to the community, fans or the school,” Mims told NPR on Monday. “Everyone was enjoying themselves. That’s the part I’m having a hard time grappling with.”
As the students finished their performance, officers attempted to arrest Mims for not complying. Police said the band director “refused” to place his hands behind his back and allegedly pushed an arresting officer.
I see a few jerk offs from protect and serve are here valiantly down voting anti cop sentiment. Don’t you have a dog to shoot ?
Based on the video looks like they were the away school I bet these cops walked over when they started playing neck because “that song is disgusting and disrespectful” or some shit. Bet the cops were home fans and mad their team just lost so they “had to” shut that down.
This is outrageous. They better be putting this officer on paid leave for two weeks to think about what he’s done.
Cops gotta cop.
Many have commented on why police were there. In events that I have hosted in the past, security is demanded for safety reasons, AND often, it is spelled out that people trained in handling emergency situations (police) are required. It is in the contract, and if they are not there, you do not get the keys to open it.
The band director’s best response would have been to tell the police that he was responsible for the entire group of students and had the responsibility to get each and every single student safely home. If the police take control, they are taking that responsibility upon themselves. And remind them that that action would be without consent of the parents.
This presumes the cops think logically
No, they flexed nuts because one of “Those People” said no. Can’t have that.
Just wanted to electrify the performance.
Hmmm… let’s see how many people don’t watch the video and jump into some race-baited tirade and didn’t see that the people telling him to stop, as well as like 1/2 the officers were also black.
Or people could just be upset that cops of any color feel justified in using tasers when civilians don’t comply with unusual, unnecessary requests. I don’t care what color the band director is or what color the cops are. I’m continually disgusted at how many videos there are of cops losing their shit when a civilian doesn’t immediately respond “how high?”.
Then I’m right there with you!
Cops definitely escalated this issue beyond what it should have been… BUT instead of saying that, seemingly 1/2 the folks jump conclusions that it was because of race when race rather clearly had nothing to do with this. We have idiots calling the black cops racist against the black band director just to save face because I called them out on not watching the damn video.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the race of the band director did place a part, but I’m pissed at what happened either way.
By some more nuances definitions I’ve heard it may be technically true that the black cops weren’t racist. However, it is possible to treat someone poorly because of the color of their skin even if it matches your own. Maybe the cops consider themselves “one of the good ones”, maybe they just believe that they are able to power trip a little harder against certain races because it’s more socially acceptable, or maybe they don’t want to stand out against their white peers and just do what they do.
I honestly didn’t watch the video either though - maybe a black cop was the first to escalate it so the last hypothetical isn’t a strong one. I’ve just seen enough videos like that this week and don’t want to get more upset by watching one more.
Technically a black man can be racist against another black man. Its not logical, but that never stopped anyone. But in this case, I will bet tgere is some prior history that isn’t being shared.
and there have been plenty of black officers being caught on video being hella racist against black citizens and cracking racist bullshit with their white cohorts.
