Add yet one more reporter to the long list of those getting arrested in New York! The chair of McGill's daily publications society board of directors, 21-year-old Aaron Vansintjan, might be interested in Occupy Wall Street, according to his Google+ profile and Facebook, but he actually got arrested for climbing a hill to go visit the Cloisters as a suspect in a made-up robbery, in one of the best New York City cops-gone-wrong stories in recent history¹. Miranda rights? WHAT ARE THOSE? On his tour through New York City's holding cells, he got to see the city's ugly secret: everyone else being held was African-American and being processed on dumb marijuana charges. Welcome!
¹ Um, caveat: "best" story that doesn't involve (we have to say allegedly, I guess) police raping anyone in their own apartment. Sorry to remind us all of that terrible episode!
I thought all the jails were now full of people who put their feet up on the subway after working the night shift.
If memory serves, the hill outside the ramp at Bennett is a sheer rock face. But the grassy area down the hill and inside the park is perfectly fine to hike.
Also, gotta love the 34th precinct.
@dntsqzthchrmn
No kidding.
There were probably four cops surrounding this tourist boy acting like they finally had D.B. Cooper, while meanwhile someone trying to report an actual crime a block or two away was being talked out of it because, ugh, paperwork is such a hassle.
At least the nameless cop at the beginning of the story has the decency to be embarassed! Though it's not clear why, seeing as everyone remained convinced of his guilt for another several hours. Maybe arresting white people is embarassing?
He was just following Neel Shah's advice.
@Matt Trying to split a check?
The fact that this post says "Chair of McGill's Daily Publications Society" really says it all. The Daily is a super left-leaning newspaper at McGill written by spoiled white kids who cultivate victim complexes and see social injustice in everything. It completely discredits him to the outside world.
@triceratops Wait, what? A lefty can't complain about a false arrest now? Besides, he didn't complain much.
Sincerely,
The Outside World
@triceratops As a super-left-leaning, formerly spoiled white grownup, I had absolutely no fucking idea what Vansintjan's position "really said," so I think it's a safe bet that not many other people here will, either, much less discredit him for it.
@triceratops that's not an observation from the outside world, it's a presumption from an alternate reality. the kid was falsely arrested for a crime that was not committed.
@triceratops Haha. Yes, it should be McGill Daily Publication Society, I think.
I wrote an article for the Daily once. It concerned a rumour (later found to be completely baseless and false but no follow-up was ever published) that the US military was interested in mining for uranium on nearby Mont Ste. Hilaire
@triceratops The daily were really clear that if I wanted to contribute for them I had to undergo skin bleaching, I guess I was just an anomaly, how could anyone who wasn't white contribute to discourse on the left, or at a university. I mean intellectual discourse is only owned by white people right?
"“After I told him what had happened, the detective said, ‘You know, what the other guy is saying doesn’t match up with your story,’ ” Mr. Vansintjan said, an old ruse used to trick people into admissions."
WHAT A CLEVER RUSE! That thing about not being allowed to be a cop if your IQ is too high seems to apply here.
@Lindsay Robertson This works on me all the time. The other guy's story never matches up with my own so I pretty much confess to anything.
@NotAndersonCooper That's not what I heard.
Gee, this is a nice article but I wish I had some MUSIC to listen to on this website! Now THAT would be something...