'Officer Bubbles' Sues YouTube Commenters Over Mockery 594
An anonymous reader writes "'Officer Bubbles' — the Toronto Police Constable who was videotaped threatening a G20 protester with arrest for assault over the crime of blowing bubbles at a police officer has had enough of mocking videos and comments on YouTube. He has decided to sue everyone involved (commenters included) for more than a million dollars each. The complaint is detailed in his statement of claim — most of the comments seem fairly tame by internet standards; if this goes anywhere, everyone is going to have to watch what they say pretty carefully. The lawsuit appears to have been successful in intimidating the author of the mocking cartoons into taking them down."
Great idea (Score:4, Interesting)
Canadians repress speech on a regular basis (Score:1, Interesting)
This type of idiocy is common from Canadians. I had a American Professor friend post a not to nice blog about a product made in Canada and the Canadian company sent him a take-down letter. He told the Canadians to fuck off.
Re:Great idea (Score:3, Interesting)
It's certainly going to erase the bad impression of him from the internet. Especially now that he's on legal record as "officer bubbles."
Re:Drinking session (Score:3, Interesting)
Officer Bubbles Is a Moron -- quote me on that! (Score:4, Interesting)
I am not a doctor or a lawyer.
I'm reading the document, and I think some things are clear:
"Josephs is a police officer who abuses his position of authority"
"Josephs mistreats members of the public"
"Josephs is incompetent and unfit to be a police officer"
"Josephs has psychological problems"
"Josephs is a narcissist"
"Josephs bullies members of the public"
"Josephs is egotistical"
Even if they weren't true following the protest event that was publicised on YouTube, they are true now that he's filed the lawsuit.
Hopefully he's forced to actually present evidence of damages and not just to sit their weeping on the stand and crying about how his lack of dignity was publicised resulting in a lack of public respect for him.
If he were to emphasize the statement under Sec.IV.40, ("Damages... Josephs has received threats of physical harm") I'm sure the public would have to remind him that police officers sign onto a job that is not popular with the public, and that threats against their person for so much as taking the job are something to be weathered.
Sec.IV.41 notes that the defendant acted "callously" towards Josephs, and who knows -- in Canada, maybe there isn't really freedom of speech.
What's obvious to me, though, underneath all of this, is that Josephs intends to amass over a million dollars and probably to use it to boost a career in entertainment. That's what people usually do when internet publicity ruins their lives -- they take the internet up on the offer and try to make good of their own charicature.
At any rate, it's boring, I never heard of it before and I'm not likely to hear of it again, since it's Canadian, not America.
Re:Drinking session (Score:5, Interesting)
I know we didn't get to see the crowd very well, but the part of we we did see in that video was anything but ugly. Mostly just people milling about, taking pictures, and one lady blowing bubbles. It wasn't exactly a mob situation. It didn't even sound very angry in the background.
This is a G20 summit meeting, these people are there to protest their policies. Therefore, they are opposed to the entrenched power, therefore they are to subdued, beaten, and subjugated. That is what Toronto Police constable Adam Josephs was telling himself, as he wished the camera wasn't there so he could show that little white bitch who's the real man in that street. Sure, Adam Joseph probably can't get "it" up, but the city of Toronto conveniently provides him with a big black rod he can use for just such an occasion.
Yes, I believe Toronto Police Const. Adam Josephs is a potential rapist, and believe that he does not routinely act on his impulses only because he has difficulty maintaining an erection. I do hope that litigious bastard doesn't find out who I am, he would surely sue me, and attempt to insert his night stick in my rectum to compensate for his lack of genital endowment through acts of abuse of power such as the one depicted in the video.
Re:You Know What They Say? (Score:5, Interesting)
They are trained to take control of situations and something silly like not respecting their authority and blowing bubbles can sometimes escalate quickly into something worse.
So, a cop sees you doing something he doesn't like (say maybe dancing, or listening to music) and decides you're not "respecting his authority" - it gives him the right to come over to you and harrass you?
fuck that.
This cop had a choice - he could have just ignored it. The female cop that was talking to the protester has no problem, why did Officer Bubbles have to stick his nose in it?
Re:Drinking session (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:To play devil's advocate (Score:3, Interesting)
Defamation laws vary by country quite a bit, so I can only comment from the perspective of someone from California. But in a place where people openly post cartoons of our president dressed as Hitler, standards of defamation seem to be pretty solidly on the open-dialog side.
Videos in question are here [cartoonbrew.com].
Adam Josephs quickly made himself a symbol of the tiny everyday police abuses that build deep resentment in the community. This was not something someone did to him: he did it to himself. It may not be as potent a symbol as the shooting of an unarmed, complying suspect by Oakland officer Johannes Mehserle (and the subsequent attempted coverup). But it nonetheless resonates with people who have had that bad run in with an officer who abused his power and managed to turn an innocuous situation into a terrible one. If you watch the videos above, the officer is parodied arresting a woman for dancing in the street, and other things which all seem on similar lines as arresting a woman for blowing bubbles.
And even suing the makers of the parody would make sense, albeit a messed up sense that should be thrown out of court immediately. But suing the commenters? And then YouTube?
On a side note, I've had my fair share of interactions with the police. And every time they were courteous and professional, even when I was at the other end of their gun. But police abuses do happen, and have happened to people I care very much about. People like Adam Josephs need to be singled out as unacceptable outliers. Last week, I was chatting with an officer about how they were telling stories about bad situations they were in, and were looking for solutions to de-escalate the situations with minimal fuss. One told the story of how he was surrounded as he attempted to leave a bar, and someone blocked his way out with thinly veiled threats to kill him. The officer, being outnumbered, offered to buy his assailant a diet coke. This threw the assailant so much, they sat down, had a drink, chatted a bit, and the officer walked out of there alive.
In the case of a bubble-blowing protester, even a simple "Hey, that's kind of annoying. Would you blow that somewhere else?" would have ended the situation right there. It takes a special kind of talent to start with a bubble-blowing peacenick and elevate it into an arrest. That's what these videos are satirizing, and they do so in a well targeted, irreverent, silly fashion.
Re:You Know What They Say? (Score:2, Interesting)
MOD PARENT UP! Re:Cartoons? (Score:4, Interesting)
Found 'em:
http://www.youtube.com/user/MisterOfficerBubbles [youtube.com]
It's an hilarious parody of that news clip! http://www.youtube.com/user/MisterOfficerBubbles#p/a/u/1/CvqEazn9dG8 [youtube.com]