The complaint registered in today’s Youth Column, “On Being Hassled”, is one familiar to the parents of young adults. City or county, any place they go, young men report receiving a lot of unwelcome police attention. They don’t gripe so much at being stopped, or asked to identify themselves, but they are bitter at the rude, “Don’t you get tough with me, Sonny” attitude some policemen take toward young people.
We expect a lot of our police officers in this neighborhood, and they do a good job, but is it too much to ask common courtesy, or plain politeness toward all citizens on the part of uniformed police officers? Courtesy doesn’t cost a dime, requires no federal funds or matching grants but does more to breed respect for lawmen than all the hardware in an arsenal.
If those young men had had short grey hair, the officers would have rolled down their window, yelled, “Hey Bud, you forgot your lights”, and sent a group of citizens home full of appreciation for policemen instead of disgust.
Originally published in The Paper, October–November 1972.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1972_10.pdf, printed page 2.
