The Texas public intoxication law is apparently very broad (you could be arrested without having had a single drink) and is apparently used to discriminate regularly: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/03/texas-racist-law...

Definitely, the lege needs to do something here.

If anybody is acting rashly here, I think it's probably the police officers who profiled him, threw him in jail, put a bag over his head, and then charged him (after 2 drinks) with "public intoxication", because " we're racist" isn't an official charge.

But please keep calm, internet, I'm sure the police were in the right.

People shouldn't stay calm. Every time anyone accuses the police of anything we should immediately believe them and start shouting about injustice on the internet.

Nobody who has been arrested has ever been guilty, and filling up every public forum with accusations of injustice the instant we hear any rumor is a mature and effective way to fix the problems in the world.

It is completely reasonable for you to condemn the the police and assume they are guilty of near criminal behavior and bigotry based on the unsupported story someone you don't know personally is posting to Twitter. Most of the time people who just got out of jail are telling the truth, and we should just assume whatever they say is true and start calling for people to lose their jobs.

In fact, every time anyone is arrested then later say they are not guilty, all the police in the entire world are automatically racists.

This is exactly the problem. The police are obviously not always in the wrong, but when people automatically assume that, regardless of what victims say, the police are in the right, that's why nothing changes. Nobody is calling for anyone to lose their jobs based on a tweet, we're calling for people to pay attention, listen to the victims, and make sure this sort of behavior is investigated and that people are held accountable.

You said yourself in the comment I replied to that these police profiled him because they are racist, and that he did nothing wrong.

Since you don't know the person that was arrested (I assume), and you don't know the police who arrested him, you must have some more general way to know that the police here are racists that are profiling him, right? Maybe you know that they are racists because you know all police are racists? Or is it just police in this Country or this State or this City? Maybe 'all police on the night shift' are racist? I don't know how you knew they were racists, but you said it, so I assume you are reasonable to believe it, and there must be a logical way that you figured it out from information you know is true.

As for how you knew this person was innocent, well, since you don't know him, didn't witness any of the events, and only know 'a person was arrested and said it wasn't their fault', the logic from above must apply. You must have made a logical inference that he is innocent. How do you know it?

How do you know that the police here are racists that profiled this person who did nothing wrong? If it is based entirely on the evidence that this person said they did nothing wrong, and that the person tweeted that they were arrested for no reason because the police are racist, well then you must believe everyone who says they didn't do it and that police are racist (or at least the ones that work for Google? or that use Twitter? I'm not sure how you were able to solve this, please let us know.) In that case it would imply that all police are racists, since all police arrest people who later claim to be innocent.

> Nobody who has been arrested has ever been guilty

What are you talking about?

Looks like you missed the sarcasm.

To be fair, it was a pretty shitty comment, and the sarcasm was pretty poorly done.

He is a white male, the tweet about having a boyfriend probably means he is gay however i doubt that he was in drag singing it's raining men when he was arrested so it doesn't look like the police could even profile him for that.

…plus, isn't that unremarkable in Austin?

Using a spit mask because you're afraid someone is going to vomit sounds like involuntary manslaughter levels of stupidity.

Not really. You can get a lot of nasty diseases if someone spits into your eyes. I don't blame the cops for protecting themselves against MRSA.

If they're spitting, sure. But the OP seemed to imply that they just thought they would vomit. People have died due to suffocating on vomit with these things on.

>Before we turn into an angry mob, can we try to wait until more facts come out about this?

Okay but do yourself a favor and look up Austin PD, Art Acevedo, and co. before you rush to their defense. They're not exactly shining beacons of virtue. Frankly, I am confused as to how Acevedo can survive an election in Austin with all the shit he and his deputies have done over the years.

Just to alleviate your confusion, Acevedo can survive an election, because Chief of Police is an appointed position in Austin. He isn't on a ballot anywhere.

That would explain it! Not sure what I was thinking, he's police chief, not county sheriff. Looks like he's appointed by the City Manager, whoever that is. http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/issues/122006/PD...

Police should not be accorded any presumption of correct behavior or professionalism. Any use of force by state actors should be treated with maximum skepticism.