> The police in this case are enforcing the morals of some subset of the local population. Some nobody called them up and they dutifully got right on it.
I don't think the problem is so much about them checking on the kids' family after being called by some neighbour (which is prob. legitimate to avoid any risk of neglect etc.).
As you said t he problem is that they arrested a parent who, for all intents and purposes, was complying with their questioning. In front of their children. And threatened the second parent with arrest. And taking away the children.
I don't see how you can make the jump from "response was disproportionate" to "commentators are not that different from the person who reported the incident" though.
>I don't see how you can make the jump from "response was disproportionate" to "commentators are not that different from the person who reported the incident" though.
The point is that the call didn't come in from one of the "more equal animals". Any one of us could have made the same call and got the same response. It's not like the cops were doing someone a favor by responding.
I don't think the problem is so much about them checking on the kids' family after being called by some neighbour (which is prob. legitimate to avoid any risk of neglect etc.).
As you said t he problem is that they arrested a parent who, for all intents and purposes, was complying with their questioning. In front of their children. And threatened the second parent with arrest. And taking away the children.
I don't see how you can make the jump from "response was disproportionate" to "commentators are not that different from the person who reported the incident" though.