Good question that has come up in news reporting on this: So the stated reason they weren't handcuffed was because of the type of arrest. News cameras being present, the profile of the targets, and the fact they were making a point of being non-resistive likely also played a large part.
As for why your arrest was different @Federal Farmer we'd need to know more details that I don't think it's reasonable to ask you to share publicly, but if you really want to go on that tangent would could dig into it.
Alt-righters would throw verbal tomatoes at a Cub Scout helping an old lady across the street, and the old lady rewarding said Cub Scout with a mint. "Look! Look! the Cub Scout took bribes!!! Zoom in on that!!".
I am going to say it seemed very odd she was walking with her hands behind her back without cuffs on. You also should probably not put your hands in a place where the arresting officer cannot see them. I also found it surprising to see her raise her hand because it was an odd way to walk while not being cuffed. I like AOC, but that whole situation was entirely performative. They were there to be arrested and planned for it. It was a photo op to begin with. I am not stupid, so I know she put her hands behind her like she was cuffed to make it look more like she was getting treated poorly while the cops were giving her the benefit of not being cuffed. Then she wanted a good photo with her hand up in a defiant pose so she did that and went right back to the cuffed walk. The pictures were what she was there for. The excuse that you put your hands behind you when the cop is in front of you is so wrong. The only times when your hands go behind you is after the police have searched you and are cuffing you, or if you are lying prone on your face on the pavement. I would really love to defend AOC and say idiot boy is wrong, but this was a planned performance by her. She put her hands behind her to do the perp walk and when she saw a moment for a fist in the air photo op she did it wand went back to the perp walk.
Eh, the cops were still arresting them, there's no obligation on the arrested person to try and downplay that. Police (especially US police) are overly violent and authoritarian. If the argument is that people being arrested shouldn't behave as if they're under threat then the police should stop making doing the things that give that perception of them. As for intending to be arrested they were joining a protest. Public figures being arrested is great for motivating other people to participate,until things are at a scale where they can't arrest everybody.
They were being arrested at a women's rights protest, the fact you dismiss that as "drama queens" says more about you than them.
The real drama queen might be the one who treats any different interpretation of things as lying and gaslighting.
Not every arrest requires handcuffs. Lots of things can factor in: whether the person is cooperative or not. The policies of the particular agency. Whether the cops intend to take the person into custody (as the Capitol police specifically said in response to questions). Whether the particular cop conducting the arrest is feeling benevolent or a jerk. Whether the cops are scared of adverse publicity. I'm guessing that most likely none of the 17 congresspeople were actually cuffed, regardless of their race or gender. The person who was being escorted by the same officer and who was presumably under arrest -- also not cuffed. And at this point you should probably know better but it bears repeating: the concept of white privilege does not mean that every white person is going to be better off than every minority. Nor does the concept of male privilege mean that every man is going to do better than every woman. Heck, it doesn't even mean that one has to be extraordinarily talented to succeed as a minority or a woman. It's that the history and much of the present of our society frequently had a built-in assumption that to be white or male was "normal"/"good," and that to be minority or female was "unusual"/"bad" and that there have been and continue to be obstacles both intentional and unintentional that people who are women and people of color have to face because of those sorts of assumptions. Again, this does not mean that women and minorities never get lucky, never succeed on their merits, or that men and white people never get unlucky or are treated poorly. To give you an example that you might understand in the gender area: you probably have never had to worry that you were going to get raped walking down the street, or that your date was going to roofie you. That (as I understand it) is a common fear among women. In an ideal world, no one would have to worry about that. But the fact that you and I and most men don't have to worry about that is an advantage that we get to enjoy over most women who do.
That is not what I am saying at all. I am saying they went there as a photo op. The perp walk was a part of the posing, as was the moment she put up her arm with her fist up in the air. It is all performance. In all honesty most protests are performances. I am not saying that they are not worthwhile, nor that they do not do something, but they are performances. Also, police are not always abusive and horrible. I am saying this as a white person who thinks the police should handle more things with the respect they give a white person. There was no reason to cuff AOC. She did her performance and surrendered peacefully following the police to be removed and perhaps charged. It is a non-violent citation (I hope). It is not the end of the world, and I am even happy she chose to do it for something this important. You are suffering from TDS and trying very hard to put unspecified complaints in my words. Just because it is a performance does not mean it is a bad one, but the perp walk was on purpose. This cop was treating her as nice as possible. However, you do not put your hands on the other side of your body from the cop where the cop does not see them unless you are really getting treated well. I can tell you I have been asked enough by cops not to put my hands behind my back. I was in NJROTC and was used to standing at rest as a sort of respectful way to look semi decent. I had to get out of that when dealing with cops because they do not want your hands behind your back when they are in front of you. You do not even do that in court. I have been admonished by judges for that. I actually thought the military at rest stance was a proper way to stand in respect to an authority, but I have learned to keep my hands at my sides because that bothers them. I will say it makes sense for the performance that she looks like she was being arrested. If she just walked normally it would not look like she was being detained to some. It would have looked more like she was accompanying the cop and that was not her photo op.
This goes to the point I am making. Walking with the police, even if you are under arrest or detained, does not look like an arrest if you are just strolling with them. They wanted a picture. They showed up to be arrested. That is part of the protest. It is great the cops were going along and treating them as people who were not violent. That was not going to make a statement like seeing AOC in cuffs fighting for abortion rights. So she put on the show. She raised her fist in the air for some cheers too. Let us not lose our damned minds when dealing with a show. This is part of the reason politics are so bad. What is really being accomplished at the moment? This is all motivational for the next election because nothing can be done by the feds at the moment. (Maybe Biden could but he won't) They need to rally, and they need these moments to rally. It is still a show because that is all they can do. Nothing can get through the senate, Joe Biden is putting more anti-abortion judges on the federal courts, and the supreme court will shoot anything below an amendment down when the challenge gets to them. Joe is not going to stack the court either. So she did what she did for a photo of her being arrested to drum up support. She put the pose on when the cops did not cuff her.
So....let me piece together the impression I'm getting from the half of this discussion I can see. Item: a partisanly manipulated, nakedly political majority of SCOTUS, ruling based on historical lies, insanely disjointed legal "rational" and at odds with the entire history of the court, for the first time in our history removed from recognition a previously recognized constitutional right Item: as a result of this bullshit half the states have or plan to pass radical and irrational limitations in order to pander to their Christian Supremacists base which demonstrably will KILL a considerable number of people who experience pregnancy complications and will inevitably lead to (already existing) exploding rates of withholding of needed medical care which will lead to grave health outcomes up to and including death, even when a pregnancy wasn't involved. Item: In anticipation of the natural blowback to this draconian change, privileged SCOTUS oligarchs insulate themselves from the inevitable desire to protest on their grounds by fencing off the entire campus Item: as a result of this imposition on free speech - one that directly violates THEIR OWN PREVIOUS HOLDING related to protests at abortion clinics - protesters have no choice to protest in a nearby street and THAT gets them arrested which further suppresses their constitutional free speech And in the face of ALL THAT BULLSHIT some goddamn twit is on here losing his fucking mind about the manner in which a protester held her arms positioned for a few seconds? Do I have this right?
I feel like now is a great time to remind Wordforge that by your own admission, one of your girlfriend's had an abortion at your insistance.
Ten Lubak is an asshole. I'm also an asshole. Doesn't mean we're wrong or don't care about our fellow human beings.
Jeez, the kid can't help but publicly humiliate himself all over the board. Must be a slow summer for him.
