As Angela reported yesterday (and you flipped your collective wig in the comments), the cop who was kicked out of the Red and Black coffee shop for allegedly making people feel “uncomfortable” has officially hit the big time… on the front page of CNN! Ahhh, PORTLAND!

Video via KGW, and hat tips to Blogtown commenter, It’s On!

Bang bang, choo-choo train, let me see you shake that thang. Wm. Steven Humphrey is the editor-in-chief of the Portland Mercury and has held the job since 2000. (So don’t get any funny ideas.)

33 replies on “Spurned Coffee Shop Cop Makes CNN”

  4. A human being was humiliated. Oh the humanity!! National NEWS!!! Oh yeah, by the way there have been some kind of deadly police shootings lately, but you don’t need to here about that.

  7. In Boston the cops went on strike…There was mayham,,,if it were not for cops we’d have more rape robbery and all kinds of crap. What a total jerk this guy is….

  8. That who they kicked out?! He doesn’t even have a menacing cop mustache. Or a dissented police man ponch. Although, kicking out a police officer from a cafe is hardly comparable to segregation, R+W was still wrong.

  10. “Sort of harkens to the days of segregation” – Won’t someone defend the white male police officer from such HORRIBLE racism?!

  11. Cornelia Seigneur is, and it seems readers of the Mercury are, terribly ignorant of the conditions faced by thousands of homeless and poor people, immigrants, indigenous people, trans and gender-queer people, women and people of color in Portland and across the country and the brutality they face at the hands of armed representatives of the state.

    And why would they, this is liberal Portland.

    Though we can clearly see example after example of how under Portland’s liberal veneer there are huge pools of violence and poverty and exploitation; any act of defiance or refusal by the “have nots” or “have littles” that could make the police or anyone in power “uncomfortable” or “embarrassed” is too much for liberal Portland to deal with.

    How many times a day is a homeless person, who is simply trying to stay out of the rain and cold, kicked out of a Starbucks by the police or Starbucks management? Would this be news or are the Starbucks managers and police justified in making the establishment safe for commerce and for “you”.

    Seems that removing in individual who is armed and is part of an institution that is founded upon maintaining a particular social order by use of force and violence, and has repeatedly killed those who are mentally ill and poor and homeless and of color, is completely justified to maintain the safety of those who would be victims of said violence.

    One question: When Cornelia Seigneur or Mercury readers or “you” say “they [meaning the police] are just here to protect us”? You need to ask yourself: who is this “us” and who is this “us” being protected from.

    Because this “us”, when it is asked by liberal Portlander’s or by members of the Tea Party Movement [who say we want to “take our country back”] they are referring to white middle-class people whose wealth and quality of life depends directly and indirectly on the exploitation and immiseration and violent suppression of thousands of homeless and poor people, immigrants, indigenous people, trans and gender-queer people, women and people of color in Portland and across the country and across the planet.

    Our society is like a tree of monkeys: those at the top [Cornelia Seigneur, systems of police power, white Portland liberals] look down and see nothing but smiling faces. Those at the bottom look up and see nothing but assholes.

    As a “have little”, I apologize ahead of time to those who are “uncomfortable” or “embarrassed” when the “have nots” and “have littles” cut down this tree.

  13. I will never again be duped by vegan baked goods. If a cookie is merely edible, that cookie is a failure. Please stop trying to convince me that vegan baked goods are anything but awful. Many vegan dishes are quite tasty but the baked goods suck and the continued promotion of said baked goods casts a pall over the entire vegan movement.

  16. What I find most interesting about this whole debacle (since most of it is pretty banal) is that it largely confirms that most people have lost the ability to think for themselves outside of the mores they picked up at 16. I’d say that 90% of the reactions are knee-jerk right/left, complete outrage or complete absolution. How will we ever move forward with such entrenched simplicity? Thank God I have no children.

  17. Of course the yokels on oregonlive.com (hello Clackamas and Forest Grove!) don’t know anything at all about the issue. They think the cafe has a single “owner” (it is a worker-owned cooperative, so everyone who works there is an owner), they think that because the 100 people who read oregonlive.com will no longer go there (like they’ve ever visited) the cafe will go out of business (it is a radical-people hot-spot and they usually have a lot of business from people who would probably never read oregonlive.com)… etc.

    Because R&B is a center of radical organizing and meeting, police brutality is a sore spot with much of the clientele. Asking a uniformed officer to leave would be the obvious choice for anyone who actually understood the culture. I think the objection might have something to do with this:
    http://www.portlandcopwatch.org/PPR28/bush…
    Or this:
    http://jameschasse.blogspot.com/2006_09_17…
    Or this:
    http://bikeportland.org/2008/06/11/man-on-…
    …etc. including the baby in a peaceful crowd of protesters which was pepper-sprayed at a Bush protest several years ago.

  18. @ba_kin

    Cut down that tree and when you can’t find food to eat, a roof to keep you dry, or medical for your poor sick self or family don’t call us.

  19. I’m old enough to remember when it was generally understood by everyone that cops could go into any restaurant and get free food, coffee, etc because the management felt that having cops onsite would deter any criminals from trying anything. It was considered worth it to give cops free food just to have them hang around.

    How times have changed!!

    Kevin – http://www.soleragroup.com

  20. @Spartacus

    Be fair, some of these people are still 16. For the rest of us, at least I read the whole blog post before resorting to my knee jerk opinion.

  21. So….. when the meth addled robber figures out to hit them for till cash …. who they gonna call?

    Who better to rob than peaceful non-violent vegans who reject the police?

  22. Look, at some point, a lot of us say petty, awkward things when the jocks show up at our hangout and start charming the girls. I know this usually happens in highschool. But still!

    And then, CNN has to show up like the yearbook committee and shine an unflattering light on Portland’s pimples? OMG. Sooo awkward.

  24. Here’s the bottom line. It doesn’t matter what you think of cops throwing people out of Starbucks or any other establishment. That is because the owner wants the homeless person out so the cops are honoring the owner’s request. I have nothing against homeless people, they need help, and we should give it to them. But if any of you had a restaurant and someone was just sitting there sleeping, or smelled of urine, or was talking and yelling to no one in particular, and your paying customer’s were feeling uncomfortable or walking out, you would want that individual removed too. It doesn’t mean you don’t understand the plight of the homeless. There are shelters available, but some homeless people refuse to go to them. But don’t blame a cop for removing them, that’s their job. If a NON-homeless person was in a store yelling, or smelled of urine, or sleeping in the store, I’m sure the owners would want them out too! And remember, cops are people too. Off duty, a cop may be involved in homless projects or volunteer work; you never know. How many of you, however, have turned your head away or refused to give money to someone on the street when they asked, but you’re talking about what a cop does when he’s on duty and that’s his responsibility?

  25. “Really? How did you have the guts to do that?” *giggle*
    “I just walked up and told him he should get the hell out of there. It was totally killer. Do you want to come back to my place?”
    ———————————————————————————————————
    This whole situation just strikes me as bullshit posturing, by the dude at Red and Black.
    Here’s why:

    Does throwing the police officer out of a coffee shop (after you’ve already served him coffee) help people that are disenfranchised? No.

    Will it help the officer to understand the plight of the community, and invite him to be part of the solution? No.

    Maybe it can begin the process of changing a culture that pushes people on the fringes into situations where they run a foul of the law? No.

    Can he use this story to get laid at some house party? Yes.

  26. @ KevinC: Since I’m only twentysomething I have no such memories, so answer me a question about this bygone, Maybury-esque era in Portland (?) history. (And I swear I’m not trying to be sarcastic or condescending. I’m really curious here!)

    When exactly was this era? And how often were cops shooting people to death with little to no good reason?

    (Bonus question if youre up for it and I managed to not offend: And if the cops were shooting the place up as they are now, what was the average skintone difference between whoever got shot and, say, Bryce Dallas Howard?)

  27. @ba_kin

    “Man,” I hate when “someone” makes a “somewhat” reasonable argument then undercuts “it” because they “overuse” quotation marks “around” their words. “Embarrassed”? “Uncomfortable”? You’re “going” to get “arthritis” in your “knuckles” from of all of the “goddamn” air “quotes.” I was equally annoyed by the Red and Black manager’s self-satisfied speaking of truth to power, and the cop’s comparing his inability to get a shitty vegan muffin(FULL DISCLOSURE: Those sandwiches are pretty decent) to the civil rights movement , but your take on the situation is the most laughable (at least until i look at the OregonLive comments).

  29. If you need help, should you call a bad cop?

    Because in Portland, that is more than likely what you will get. If you’ve been raped, should you call a cop who will victimize you again? If you have a suicidal friend, should you call a cop, who will kill him? That is what Portland cops do, and their leadership promote it.

    The problem isn’t that we have a police force, the problem is that we have a bad police force.

  30. John Langley (co-owner) looks and sounds like a loser douche-bag.

    And if you look up the Red and Black Cafe, out of 156 reviews online, they average 2 stars out of 5.

    Please, pass the word to the criminals and crooks, ROB THIS PLACE (since they likely won’t want to file a report with the cops)!!

  31. 911: 911 What is your emergency?
    Red & Black Cafe: There is a man with a shooting a gun at the Red & Black Cafe sen help now!!!!
    911: Please hold (Music)………………………………….

  32. I hope that restaurant gets robbed. So the cops can tell the manager sorry we’re not welcome there. Stupid hippies.

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