• corroded@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It’s hard for me to understand someone who would call the police on a kid mowing yards. You hear all these complaints from the older generation about kids these days not knowing the value of hard work or being too “soft” because they spend all their time in front of a screen. This is an example of a young person going out and offering useful manual labor to their neighbors in order to earn money for something they want. It’s exactly how kids learn the value of hard work. Who could have a problem with this? I’m glad the police were willing to help him out, but I feel like at least one of his neighbors needs a slap to the face.

    • noodlejetski@geddit.social
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      1 year ago

      Who could have a problem with this?

      well you see, according to the pictures in the article the kid is Black.

    • Case@unilem.org
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      1 year ago

      I can understand not wanting to pay a kid for lawn work, I’ve been broke before. Just say no thank you and go on with life.

      That being said, we hire kids in our neighborhood all the time.

      We have two girls (9 and 6, I think, never met them, grandma drives and “supervises”) who come pick up dog poop, and we’ve had a kid for a couple years who turned mowing yards in the summer into an LLC and he just hired his first employee to help out with client growth.

      I know if he wasn’t a white blonde kid who looks halway decent (long hair, which just makes me jealous, but boomers would have a fit) then the Karen’s would call the cops.

      Someone in the neighborhood called the cops about a black woman going through mailboxes. It was a postal worker, in uniform, in a clearly labeled mail truck. I just don’t get it.

    • catshit_dogfart@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yeah I hear that a lot in my own town.

      “Kids these days stay inside too much” kids go outside and they’re calling the cops. Gee wonder why the kids don’t go outside anymore.

       

      You know, nothing summed it up quite like the whole Pokemon Go craze. It was wild, people of all ages were out like it was a festival every day. I’ve never seen main street so active before or since, and the parks too. That was like the best four weeks, perhaps a feeling I haven’t had since being a kid on summer vacation, it really felt like summer meant something again.

      And oh my god the old folks were livid. At kids playing. In the park. There are people in the city park, there aren’t supposed to be people there, it’s supposed to be empty and dilapidated.

      • Sivitri@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Man it’s wild to me how hard people hate on kids having areas to play. I live near an empty lot that used to be a pool and the city wanted to turn it into a skate park. There’s some old grump with a homemade sign slung over their fence with “WE DON’T WANT A SKATE PARK” scrawled on it like?? Come on, give the local kids a safe place to play that isn’t a parking lot. I’m for it and I don’t even have kids!

        • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Depending on how close the fence was to the property line, that sign might be litter. Just sayin’

      • Dark_Blade@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        He’s a black kid. The people doing this don’t want black kids out, they want them inside cells or caskets.

    • soviettaters@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Honestly, just racism. I know a group of people who were knocking on doors advertising a community event and the cops were called on the one black dude they had with them. He always has a big smile on him and doesn’t look threatening at all, so I find it hard to believe that it’s not just racism.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      I find it hard to believe the police turned up.

      “Hello police, there is a kid mowing gardens.” Isn’t exactly a priority response call.

      • Orange@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I doubt the neighbor that called said they were just mowing lawns. More likely along the lines of “suspicious black person has been walking around peoples houses” as they conveniently leave out that they are walking behind a lawn mower.

    • Knasen@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Can’t really grasp (edit: NOT grapes!) it either, have a theory but I hate being so cynical.

      • corroded@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s hard not to be cynical these days. The article didn’t specify what neighborhood this took place in, but I’m sure this was a case of a kid who didn’t “look right” for the neighborhood.

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, when they say that they mean white kids.

      They don’t want blacks anywhere near their neighbourhood.

    • Elderos@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      People shoot black kids for ringing bells, calling the cops is actually pretty mild. They want to scare minorities away from their neighborhood, and this is the legal way to do it.

  • EmperorHenry@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    FUCK YOU, KAREN!

    A rare instance of good cops. Although I’m not so sure…They might’ve just wanted to spite Karen for the false report.

    • Fester@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      The kid knew this all along… Karen and cop are just pawns in his 4D chess.

        • ZapBeebz_@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          In general, I agree when that one gets called, however this case just feels mostly feel-good (once you get past the obvious racism). The kid wasn’t out there trying to make money for a wheelchair or his parents rent or so he could eat. He was saving for a PS5, a luxury good, and taking the initiative to try to make his own money for it. Karen, being racist, called the cops. And the cops decided (correctly) that Karen was full of shit, and decided to help the kid buy something he wants. Not needs to survive, just wants.

    • fidodo@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Good cops do exist. The problem is that when a good cops does something like this it makes a kid really happy, but when there’s a bad cop somebody fucking dies. It’s not that there aren’t enough good cops, it’s that any amount of bad cops is too many and instead of purging them the system protects them. I’d rather have 100% neutral competent cops than 99% good cops and 1% bad cops who are protected by the system to continue murdering people.

  • A2PKXG@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    As a European, I’ve heard that people will call the police on you if you happen to stroll through a neighbourhood. Apparently they feel uncomfortable when people move their body without a car

    • Altima NEO@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      The was a black preacher who had the cops called on him for watering his neighbors plants while they were on vacation. They even arrested him.

      Fucking nosy ass neighbors, man.

    • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      It’s happened a few times to me, most of the time it’s just awkward for me and the cop and they just politely ask me to go home.

      One time they tried to gaslight me into thinking I was on drugs, didn’t really work because I think I’d remember if I did a bunch of crack.

      • Kool_Newt@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I think I’d remember if I did a bunch of crack.

        Sounds like what a crack head would say

        • audaxdreik@pawb.social
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          1 year ago

          I’ve heard this is often a tactic of theirs, especially if they’re being recorded by a body cam or such. Just simply declaring loudly that they smell alcohol or suspect drugs sets it on the record so now it’s your word against the cop’s. If it ever ends up as evidence or in courts, it now appears as if there was probable cause for everything that follows and it’s only your word to say the record straight (good luck!)

          • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            The other flavor of “Stop resisting!” when your arms are pinned and their knee is on your throat so their partner can keep kicking you in the ribs.

      • sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        I got into an argument with my girlfriend when I was going to University. I jumped on my bike to blow off some steam / just get some space with quiet. I’m riding down the residential street I lived on in a shitty party of town, and the fucking police helicopter lit me up for a good block and a half. That was about 30 years ago. I can’t imagine things have gotten better.

    • I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The neighborhood I grew up in was like that. I didn’t notice until I moved away for college and then came back home to visit. It was a 100% residential neighborhood, with no businesses really in walking distance. Anyone out walking was wearing Walking ClothesTM.

      If someone old enough to drive were just walking down the street as if it was their mode of transportation, not an exercise activity, they would at minimum be stared at with suspicion until they were safely away from the starers house and at maximum have the police called “just to check out the situation.”

      It didn’t occur to me that this was strange until I moved away to a mixed use neighborhood with businesses and residences and lots of people walking to get where they were going.

      • dx1@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’ve been noticing lately how huge blocks of residential zoning with no allowance for commercial use pretty much guarantees people are going to use cars on a daily basis.

    • Dramachad@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      this only happens when someone involved is a T*xan, just don’t go to T*xas or Al*bama and you’ll be fine

  • mashbooq@infosec.pub
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    1 year ago

    This is the 5% people are talking about when they say “95% of police ruin it for the other 5%”

  • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    ACAB

    And I wish those ‘neighbors’ a lifetime of frustrated celibacy for being assholes. The classy thing to do would have been to give the kid $5 and wish him luck.

      • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Not at all.

        Those same cops would shoot this kid if it were convenient for them. It’s what cops do, at least here in America.

        • Stumblinbear@pawb.social
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          1 year ago

          When did we go from “the ones not being shitty cops are enabling the ones who are and are therefore bad” to “literally every cop is itching to shoot unarmed harmless ten year olds”

          • Moc@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I think it comes from the perception that in order to survive in a corrupt organisation, one must be willing to be complicit in corruption.

            Therefore, they hypothesis is that the “good cops” were weeded out long ago.

          • archomrade [he/him]@midwest.social
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            1 year ago

            It’s not that every cop is innately murderous, it’s that the institution itself presents violence as it’s main tool and protects its use against scrutiny.

            Put another way: to a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

  • ArugulaZ@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    So they call the cops on you for mowing while black, too? Geez, just tell the kid “I have someone take care of that for me, sorry” and let it go at that.

    • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You don’t call the cops on someone in America unless you’re hoping they make the evening news. Anyone who says otherwise is kidding themselves.

  • bigkix@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I am usually against yelling “racism” to every single bullshit, but I wonder would this posh neighbourhood react the same way is it was a white boy.

    • Rinox@feddit.it
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      1 year ago

      Depends on how he’s dressed. Dressed like Eminem in the early 2000s, probably yes. Dressed with a pink polo and khakis, hell no.

  • nymwit@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    “Why would someone call the cops?”

    Since 2005, Hapeville has seen significant gentrification, beginning with the Virginia Park neighborhood and then spreading throughout the city.

    Wikipedia: Hapeville, Georgia Demographics there as well.