An open letter to John Kerry
After I saw the video, I wrote the following letter to John Kerry. (Links at the end of the article.)
Why was Andrew Meyer arrested?
Was he obnoxious? Yes. So what. Aren’t we allowed to be a little passionate at times? A little over-excited in our youth? A little obnoxious when trying to make a point?
Is being obnoxious a good enough reason to be thrown to the ground, held there by multiple officers and then tasered? I think not.
There are those that say he ‘resisted arrested’. From a technical stand point they may be right. What I saw in the video was a kid who got in over his head. A kid who didn’t know how to react when cops over-reacted.
If this was an isolated incident, it could be forgiven as an aberration. Unfortunately it is not. Many such reports of police brutality appear in our newspapers practically every day.
Since 9-11 we have become a nation that is not only willing to give up our freedoms for the illusion of security, but eager. We’ve also unfortunately had a president that is more than willing to take advantage of that.
Mr. Kerry. You should have done better. You should have directed the police to release him immediately. If you truly didn’t know what was happening at the time, once you found out about it you should have personally appeared at the police station and demanded his release.
Was Andrew Meyer obnoxious? Yes. But he committed no crime. Your relative silence on this issue is criminal however.
You need to do better. You need to talk about this incident. You need to answer his questions. You need to do something, anything, to give people hope that this country will not become the police state it is headed towards.
Links
There are many more videos of this on youtube, just search for Andrew Meyer.