Listening to the police on radio today, I would have to say total storm in a tea cup and if it was say andrew ryan and his mates we would have heard nothing of it.
The details I heard today, were not that El mazri was sitting in cafe at 10.30pm, they were sitting on a bench outside closed shops at 11.15pm. Now we all have no doubt they had probably been there for coffee and were just continuing their chat after the places had closed, totally innocent.
But for mine any cop would be likely to stop and have a chat to a group of males hanging out late at night outside closed businesses. And yes they could have asked for ID. The whole process of asking for ID is simply a warning shot, saying we know who you are, we know you where here at this time, but if you are not causing trouble its not an issue.
I know when I was younger hanging out late at night having a chat with some mates in a park, or by the beach we often had police do that, and we just made small chat showed the ID and they went on their way. Putting up a fuss I'm afraid is just paranoia, and another reason why being a cop is such a difficult job. The cops are probably just going, " god we are just trying to do our job, why do you need to make an issue of such a small thing". The automatic response to any sort of negative situation is likely to cause back up to be called.
The role of police is to protect the community and you are in a situation that looks suspicious then I would expect the police, to say what are you up to.
I am afraid that there are many different groups who are more likely to be approached by police, its not just lebanese males. Groups of younger males in general are likely to be approached, why simply because there is there is a higher crime rate by people in that demographic than others.
I agree with others its playing the race card for no reason. I'm sure El Mazri was not doing anything wrong, but he wouldn't look to enhance relations between police and young lebanese males by simply co-operating and having chat I don't know.
If there was a robbery at those shops the next day and you spoke to the local cops and said what did you see, and they said "oh we saw a bunch of young blokes sitting out front about 11.15pm, it was pretty dark, but from a distance looks like they were just having a chat, so we kept going", how would the business owners react.
Being a cop is a tough job, they just deal with crap all day, so not suprisingly they may be grumpy from time to time. But if more people just did the right thing and were friendly towards them the world would be better.
By El Masri refsuing to show ID, all he did was prompt a normal rection and waste tax payers money.
Storm and tea cup here I'm afraid.
