The Tinkling Cherub of Mississippi

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There’s no shortage of doom and gloom lately. With America’s nuclear launch codes in the hands of an incompetent crook suffering from dementia, there’s plenty of reason for concern. Many other world leaders are sucking up to some geezer in Davos who seems like a wannabe Bond villain, and there’s not much to love about that, either. It’s therefore nice to take a step back from the grimness and have a chuckle over the latest batch of Leftist tomfoolery bubbling through the news. We’ll offer different highlights from the headlines throughout this week.

Our first story comes from Senatobia, Mississippi, where a yellow stream splashed on the pavement, resulting in a much greater splash in the news. The title of the WaPo article “Mississippi officer out of job after arresting child for public urination ^[2]” pretty much says it all: A ten-year-old kid got busted for taking a leak in public.

As told to the FOX 13 Memphis TV affiliate, his mother said that “her son had urinated behind her car in the absence of a public restroom while she visited an attorney’s office.” That does seem a little weird. Don’t lawyers let their clients use the bathroom? Or do they charge for each minute on the can? (More seriously, reportage elsewhere suggests that there was some confusion about this, but asking for clarification would’ve prevented this from happening.) The kid said that he “felt scared and cried, unsure of what would happen to him.” That is an understandable reaction by a frightened kid who has been busted by the police. Then the cop gave him a referral to a youth court.

This does indeed seem a little much. As far as petty hooliganism goes, this was hardly the crime of the century. If I were the cop, I would’ve let the kid off with a mild scolding and given some tips on where to find the nearest bathroom. Likewise, if I were the police chief, I would’ve let the cop off with a mild scolding rather than destroying his livelihood.

The big question is, why all the hype? How did this get to be newsworthy? Although the incident was arguably an overreaction — and I’ll concur with that perspective — the story doesn’t say anything about the kid being roughly handled or otherwise abused by the police. In the rookers of the millicents, he never got a tolchok on the litso or a nightstick to the gulliver; nothing of the sort. Even so, not only is the story also being covered by the Washington Post, but at least two local TV stations ran the story, as did USA Today ^[5]. What’s up with that? Slow news day or something? Not enough UFO landings to report?

There’s an easy explanation. The mother’s name is Latonya Eason, and USA Today says the little squirt is named Quantavious. (Come to think of it, that would be a great name of a seltzer energy drink, now wouldn’t it?) WaPo made the racial angle clear in the opening sentence: “A Mississippi police officer is no longer employed after an investigation into an incident in which a Black child was taken into custody for public urination.”

Knew that one was coming, didn’t you? If this had happened to a white boy instead of young Quantavious, would l’affaire pipi have been splashed across the national news? I suppose some liberal weenie might have moaned that that police only care about public urination when blacks do it. Not so fast: Whites do indeed sometimes get hassled by cops for little reason, and not just by road pirates hiding in the bushes with radar guns. Moreover, a policeman giving a white kid a bad time isn’t at risk of having the event blow up into a racially-charged incident which costs his job.

For Quantavious, his young age worked to his advantage. Things could be a lot worse, really. An adult caught taking a leak in public might be charged as a sex offender and end up on the perp database for the rest of his life. I recall a story about a drunk guy who relieved himself on his front porch, and after this one dumb move, he was marked forever. When nature calls, but there are no bathrooms, the legally correct answer to that quandary is to wet your pants.

The WaPo article further plays up the racial angle by hyperlinking two racially-charged police brutality articles: “White Mississippi ex-officers plead guilty to torturing two Black men” and “Ex-Texas police officer convicted of manslaughter for shooting Black woman.” Again, the little shvartze pisher survived police custody without being tortured, shot, or otherwise brutalized. He apparently wasn’t even handcuffed. The reason the other grim stories were linked to was as part of the spin. They interpreted the story through their narrative filter, ran the “rogue cowboy cops ^[6] are mean to minorities” trope, and produced a race agitation article. Way to go, mainstream media! Finally: “‘His apology is not good enough for me,’ Latonya Eason, the boy’s mother, told local CBS outlet WREG in response to the statement from Chandler, the Senatobia police chief, adding that she was going to seek legal action.”

Of course. This is America, after all! It looks like her attorney is going to stay busy a little while longer. Hopefully there will be no further confusion over bathroom policies at the office.

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