Hell, no! He won’t go!
Columnist and author Eric
CartmanAlterman was arrested Sunday night inside the debate spin room and charged with criminal trespass after police say he refused repeated orders to leave.Goffstown, N.H. police say Alterman was in the spin room as a guest of the Creative Coalition and went to an area reserved for a private reception for WMUR-TV. Police say he was asked by an executive at the party if he was invited to the private area and was asked to leave. A police officer was called after a verbal altercation ensued. He was asked by police seven times to leave, and police say he became increasingly loud as he refused. After ignoring a final request, police say he was handcuffed and taken from the building. He is charged with criminal trespass, and a bail commissioner will determine if he will be released.
Alterman writes a column for “The Nation†and writes the “Altercation†blog for Media Matters. He also has authored several books, including “Why Presidents Lie.â€Â
Do you know who I am?!
All right. Here’s Alterman’s version of events:
Ok, here’s what happened.
I came to New Hampshire with the Creative Coalition for a panel tomorrow morning and was supposed to be in the auditorium for the debate but because I am a journalist, they were told I would have to wait in the spin room. When I got to the spin room, which was an empty gymnasium, I noticed that there were chairs located on a balcony above us. So I went up there–no one asked me for my ID or anything–and went over to the bar and asked if it was a cash bar, because I had no idea what kind of event it was. I was told it was an open bar so I asked for a glass of wine and a glass of water and went to sit down and wait for the event to begin.
A guy came over and asked me who I was and I told him I was a colmunist for The Nation and he told me I had to leave. I thought he was kind of rude, so I asked him his name, thinking it might go into Altercation the next day. He refused to answer me I asked again. He refused again. But I was following him out when he went to get a cop. The cop told me to leave the room and I did. We left the room, past where the people were handing out badges to go into the reception and I figured the entire drama was over. But the cop kept yelling at me to leave. I didn’t understand. I thought I had left. I asked him to stop yelling, I had left. He kept telling me to leave. In retrospect, I guess he was kicking me out of the building and I didn’t understand, but it was really mystifying and annoying and I told him I wanted to speak to his commanding officer.
We went over to the commanding officer and I, calmly and politely, sought to explain that I didn’t know why this cop was continuing to hassle me. The first cop kept interrupting me as I tried to explain myself and finally I turned around and said, “Can I please finish a sentence here?” That’s when the first cop decided to arrest me. He handcuffed me behind my back and took me outside.
(A funny aside, Congressman Ed Markey happen to walk by then and came over to say hello to me and stuck out his hand for a shake. I had to say, “Sorry, Ed, I’m being handcuffed.” He laughed, and told the officers that he would vouch for my character and walked away.)
Anyway, I never refused to leave and the only time I raised my voice was when the first cop would not let me explain what I had thought was a massive misunderstanding to his commanding officer. Once I was arrested and brought to the Goffstown station, I actually had a pretty nice time with the cops there, who were very friendly and understanding of my situation. When they learned I was a writer and planned to write about this incident, they wanted to make sure that I knew that the cop who had arrested me was not one of theirs, but was from another town and had been working on an “reciprocity” arrangement.
I paid a $30 to be released and the whole thing took about 45 minutes. I filed a written report with the police explaining that I thought the arresting officer had treated me unfairly, and I do think this was the case, but I now think it was based on a misunderstanding on just where he wanted me to stay and where he wanted me to leave.
In any case, I spoke to CNN and I believe they will correct some of the misimpressions created by their first story. Just to be clear, I did not refuse to leave seven times and I did not, as far as I know, raise my voice, except for that last time.
For the record, I also don’t remember anyone reading me my Miranda rights, though I don’t know if that is ultimately going to matter. I have a court date in July but I am hoping to be able to clear it up before I leave tomorrow because it strikes me as mosty, a misunderstanding.
Thanks to Jeffersonian and Additional Blonde Agent. Eric Alterman is working on a book project tentatively called “Why Cops and CNN Lie.”
UPDATE: Heh
I just read Alterman’s side of this and, to me, it looks like some cop was just trying to be a hardass about this. It happened, but it’s nothing.
Of course, had it happened at a Rethuglican hootenanny…
Sorry, Jeffersonian, but may I have the link, please?
Try Instapundit…
Yep, Insty. Sorry.
ROFL!
If Alterman had Katrina vanden Heuvel’s biceps shit like this wouldn’t happen.
If you wish to avoid sounding like an aging hippie, never use “cop” and “hassle” in the same sentence.
Ol’ Sparky it is, then.
You only need the Miranda warnings if you are going to be interrogated while in custody. Failure to give the warnings will cause the results of the interrogation to be thrown out of court.
He likely wasn’t Mirandized because they did not need to interrogate him – what, are they going to need a confession from him about trespass when they have the first man and the arresting officer?
Plus, this likely a misdemeanor (or even civil infraction). I hope his little heart wen t all pitter-pat as The Man! took him away.
I have some sympathy, but it’s tempered by the fact that after the age of 16 most of us have learned that of all the people you need to pretend to respect, because they can ruin your day, a policeman is top of the list.
Telling a 4 star general to go fuck himself, on the other hand, is relatively straightforward. Most 4 star generals are pretty slow on their pins by that stage.
He writes for The Nation, and writes a blog for Media Matters.
Ipso facto, he’s a liar and a prevaricator.
There goes another keyboard. Did Henry Root ever publish in the US? He described John Spenkelink as “hopping about like a prawn on a hotplate”.
Not that I approve.
Yeah. A neighbor of mine years back razzed me and another neighbor because we cooperated with the sheriff’s deputy who pointed his gun at us.
Boy what a couple of wusses we were. I wonder if Mr. Attitude has gotten himself shot yet?
McGehee, I rememberbeing slightly late for a date back when I was 20 and driving 5 mph over the speed limit to pass a police officer. He pulled me over, gave me an official warning, an unofficial warning (“never pass a cop, sir”), and a lesson learned, i.e. if you think you’re late now, just see how late you after a traffic stop.
I can see where Alterman and the police officer’s confusion would come from. He thought he was booted from the fancy shindig area and the officer thought he was booted from the building. It’s a better story if the officer tasered him, though.
Especially if there’s video.
Why not have genuine respect?
Communities that show monumental disrespect of law officers also have the highest murder rates of their own community members and very low qualities of life. Visit Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Detroit, L.A., ad nauseum. Aged pseudojournalist hippies can stick it to the man and then live in gated communities.
Alterman gets paid to write analyses of important events and policy, but we’re supposed to believe he doesn’t understand a policeman is telling him to leave the building.
If I believe him when he writes this, I need to be quite skeptical of anything he writes.
I believe him.
You can and generally should have genuine respect, Geezer, but even where you don’t respect the man at all, as in Saudi Arabia, it is still a good idea to pretend that you do.
timmyb, that is the most human thing I have seen you post. Wossup?
I like the way Alter was planning to just calmly drag some guy’s name through the mud on his website – and all because he had the chutzpah to object to him horning in on an open bar. That whole defense just bleeds a sense of affronted entitlement – “who are you dumb proles to harass me for breaking the rules? Where’s your commanding officer?”
If the rest of us have to live with the rule-bound nanny state, it’s good that our betters get the occasional encounter with the forces of law and order. Perhaps I’ll live to see a quorum of the current House convene in Lewisburg Penitentiary.
But I’m not counting on it.
What is the worse is when you get hasseled by mall cops.
One time me and my friends were just folling around by the Aunt Sarah’s pretzel, making goof faces and snapping photos on are phone cameras and this mall cop was all like,” You can’t take phone cameras in the mall. We’re have to ask you to leave the premises immediately.” I mean, he was relly red-face mad about it too.
And I was like WFT?
Because, the mall cop explained, you might accidentally get a picture of the Old Navy Logo sign by accident in yoiur phone camera, and then it will be hell to pay.
I wasl like, “Dude, I have the Old Navy Logo sign on my underwear.” (Serously. I did. It’s right on the wasteband, like, about a dozen times. Sometimes if I’m I stripping down to the take a shower, you can even see the imprint of it on my leftover skin.)
The mall cop found this NOT AMUSSING. And it was pretty much frog marched right out of the mall.
So I know about what this guy a little of what’s going through with these cops hasseling you. Its rediculus.
Thanks for that, Witheld! Nice to see you. Stupid mall cop.
Again, I am a human being. Politics ain;t everything.
Besides, I like Alterman. He’s a little to the left of me and a little too strident and shrill, but he’s a lefty who takes on the media bs in this country and Laurie David. Since Mrs. David is a) married to the darkest funniest man on the planet, and b) a sacred cow of the environmental left (which both I and Mr. Alterman support), his chastising her means he’s strident but honest (in my view, but not the biew of N. O’Brain).
Again, I don’t expect that view to be shared, but respecting police officers is no real stretch in my world.
PS To clarify for Nanonymous, he was planning on mentioning the harping of the bossy guy, who pretty rudely demands people leave areas that are not demarcated (according to Alterman). Not sure how I see how that’s any different from ANY blogger would do, e.g. “I went to a media event, no one was there, I wondered upsatirs where there was an open bar and got a drink, a dude (Bill Smith) told me to get the hell out, because that area was for VIP’s. Doesn’t he know I am a VIP….in my own world? So, I left. My thoughts on the debate? Glad you asked…blah blah.”
It’s one of the perks about writing for an audience.
In the age of Google, it’s also a very effective way to trash someone’s reputation.
And I actually have gotten away with passing cops on a number of occasions.
I didn’t exceed the speed limit to do it, which seemed to make all the difference.
Well, don’t pass a State Policeman in Anderson, Indiana…
…while giving them the finger…
What’s Wendy’s chili got to do with it?
Or be carrying loaded M16s. (Long story that I won’t get into at this point.)
Yeah, I also pass cops all the time. Just not when their doing the speed limit or above. Here in the area of the country I live in, we call that “stupid”.
Does the country you live have a problem with pronoun usage or we’re just feeling ironic when you called someone stupid and made a huge a error in grammar?
You know, Jeff’s a former English professor. He will send your posts back to you marked up in red ink.
LLFOLROLFL! Score one, timmyb! (Your absoultely right that the country they live have a HUGE problem of pronouns. To busy watching Nascar and inbreading with there sisters to learn how to write a coherent sentence of English, is my guess.)
You wing-dingers can’t even see the ironies of this when your all the time calling stupid and meanwhile your pronouns are just slipping and slidding all over the place! LLRLRLFLLRLLROFLR!
Timmy’s mad because he can’t has a bucket.
I am Herr Alterman.
I have absolute moral authority.
Fuck you.
Got that?