Three cyclists arrest black people in Starbucks for loitering

Leviathan wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

...a bloke in Walmart who couldn't understand the word "battery".

Perhaps if you had aksd for some 'badderies.'

After a minute or two of describing removable electric power in little cylinders, he eventually realised "oh, badderies!" and showed us where they were. Two nations torn asunder by a common language.

hawkinspeter wrote:

I'll second Davel's experience.

We were on holiday in Arizona and wanted to walk about 150m to a restaurant from our motel. No sidewalks and we ended up having to climb through bushes to do it. Americans just don't seem to understand why people would want to walk and think that you must be retarded.

Unfortunately, we didn't meet the "most intelligent people" that Davel did. Instead we met people who thought that the reason why we didn't find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was because they sneakily destroyed them (without any records whatsoever) just to discredit the U.S. and also a bloke in Walmart who couldn't understand the word "battery".

I asked for butter in an IHOP five times to no avail, before I gave up and asked for baeddar. I did then see a hummingbird outside the window and all was good with the world.

ktache wrote:

Walking whilst black.

https://features.propublica.org/walking-while-black/jacksonville-pedestr...

and

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/black-man-arrested-wal...

I cannot find the original story that made me do a search.

That ProPublica article covers an impressive number of issues. Great read.

ktache wrote:

Walking whilst black.

https://features.propublica.org/walking-while-black/jacksonville-pedestr...

and

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/black-man-arrested-wal...

I cannot find the original story that made me do a search.

That propublica article is pretty horrendous: US pedestrian laws/jaywalking laws are just ludicrous.

brooksby wrote:

ktache wrote:

Walking whilst black.

https://features.propublica.org/walking-while-black/jacksonville-pedestr...

and

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/black-man-arrested-wal...

I cannot find the original story that made me do a search.

That propublica article is pretty horrendous: US pedestrian laws/jaywalking laws are just ludicrous.

I've spent quite a bit of time in the US through work and been 'trapped' (seemingly not been able to avoid jaywalking) a few times. Horrible infrastructure for anything other than cars, in places, and horrible laws regarding jaywalking, and application.

I stayed in a hotel once in Houston, a city I know fairly well, got a cab from the airport, decided to head out to Westheimer Rd, one of the main 'roads' (as opposed to Highways) into the city from the West, and full of strip malls and sports bars and the like. I headed out, got to the edge of the car park, and... seemingly couldn't get anywhere without jaywalking. No pavement. Is that jaywalking? I'm sure there are very few people who would know the exact jaywalking laws if they were dropped in a random but local neighbourhood, and even fewer who would know how the police would apply them. Knowing it was going to be busy (Sat night), and there were more police around and it was all a bit twitchy (was the summer after Hurricane Katrina and thousands of displaced New Orleanians had settled in local neighborhoods) I thought I'd pop back and see what reception thought.

After a cordial but incredulous chat (seemingly I couldn't get anywhere without a car, unless I wanted to chance jaywalking, and seemingly I was the first person to ask the receptionist about walking somewhere in all her years at the hotel), she said she thought it would be jaywalking even though there was no pavement, and, yes, there would certainly be cops and they might be twitchy... and called a cab. So I got a cab to go half a mile (would have been even less distance to walk). Sure enough, in that time, we passed a parked-up cop car, and three black people pushing belongings in shopping trolleys, which prompted the taxi driver to launch into a 'black people are lazy' rant, which then prompted me to question whether a Latino taxi driver launching into racism in a half-mile cab ride was just a shit attempt to earn a quick tip from a white Limey, which then prompted him to kick me out early, suggesting I didn't understand America (probably right there) and that I'd get robbed, which prompted me to say that I was already being robbed by him as I handed over whatever it was... $5? My boss arrived later that night, in a car, and met me, so I didn't have to jaywalk or get more robbed

Great country in many aspects: a continent in its own right, with some of the warmest and most intelligent people that I've ever met, and the source of some of the most amazing inventions of the past century. The pit of the world in others, and full of examples of How Not To Do Things in order to be a civilised country, that I wish we'd take more notice of here.

hirsute wrote:

Constable Savage !

Walking on the cracks on the pavement

Loitering with intent to use a pedestrian crossing

Walking in a built up area with a loud shirt during the hours of darkness

Walking around with an offensive wife

In possession of thick lips and curly black hair

Smelling of foreign food

Coughing without due care and attention

Not the Nine O'clock News?

Mel Smith?

don simon wrote:

Not the Nine O'clock News?

Mel Smith?

Winner !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO8EpfyCG2Y

hirsute wrote:

don simon wrote:

Not the Nine O'clock News?

Mel Smith?

Winner !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO8EpfyCG2Y

Isn't the memory an odd old thing?  Not Mel Smith, but I won't have seen that since it was on TV and maybe only watched it the once.

zero_trooper wrote:

I'm sure the the Express and Mail have already covered this angle. Along with 'urban black youths' and 'a tax dodging overseas coffee giant' this story has it all. Their readers (and editors) must be drooling into their lattes-to-go

Ideally it should have something about coffee either curing or causing cancer, the youths should have been taking shelter from a freak weather event either caused or not caused by global warming, and the branch of Starbucks should be one which Princess Di once visited.

Yorkshire wallet wrote:

Starbucks is full of people loitering or spending 3 hours on a laptop on the back of one drink. It pisses me off when you can't get seated because of it and end up not actually getting anything. Should introduce a minimum spent to sit in to filter out all the students with a filter coffee.  

Support independent cafes. At least they probably pay tax and aren't full of wifi tourists.

Isn't the ambience of Starbucks punishment enough?  Why force people to drink the coffee as well, just because they want to sit down for a bit?