Jewell Hampton and Jordan Bernstien Arrested

Message boards like this are almost designed to get people to overreact to anything that hits the news, so all of us should take that into consideration here.

Public intox is ultimately a bogus law. The profit model for Iowa City's bars is founded upon tacitly encouraging (mostly underage) college students to get intoxicated in public. There is already a great deal of public, intoxicated douchebaggery going on every single Friday and Saturday night in IC when the students are in town. (Which, btw, is why my friends and I partied in our dorms/apartments.) If the ICPD were strictly enforcing PI, they'd be arresting tons of students every weekend -- until the kids eventually decided to avoid downtown on the weekends, causing the bars to go out of business.

The moment you ask law enforcement to pick and choose which publicly intoxicated people will and won't be arrested, then you have a problem waiting to happen. On what legal and equitable basis do they make such decisions? Some people here are making an argument from authority. (If the cops arrested these guys for PI, then they MUST have done something wrong to "deserve" it, even though we personally have NO DIRECT KNOWLEDGE of what actually happened.) Look, people, the Bill of Rights was written for a reason: you can't just give someone a gun and a badge and unquestioned authority if you want to live in a free society. Even basically good people would abuse this power -- or at least make mistakes that lead to unjust punishments.

There is no law against being a D-bag or annoying a cop, and if anyone tried to pass such a law it'd be unconstitutional. While I'm disappointed in the risky choices these guys made, (at the least Jewel could have decided to avoid drinking in bars until he's 21, and at the least Jordan could have said, "Dude, if you get busted, it'll be in all the papers tomorrow, so don't go") I'm not ready to jump to the conclusion that Jewel and Jordan need stiff punishments from the team. And I'm glad Ferentz isn't ready to jump to that conclusion, either, especially given how his prudence in dealing with Adrian Clayborn's incident has been vindicated.
 
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Nice post Randy, several good points made.

Douchebaggery (and asshattery) are fine nouns deserving of wider usage. The continued resistance to their inclusion in Webster's and Oxford is an indefensible travesty.
 
clone21 said:
OK, you asked for it.

CF: Join date 10/22/2008, posts 8314... posts/day = 14.04
HN: Join date 10/19/2009, posts 2306... posts/day = 10.03

Just providing the facts... let you decide.
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nothing like judging someone on their post count
 
Billso said:
Nice post Randy, several good points made.

Douchebaggery (and asshattery) are fine nouns deserving of wider usage. The continued resistance to their inclusion in Webster's and Oxford is an indefensible travesty.
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While i respect you billso, all i saw were a bunch of excuses in his post. Pretty much a complete lack of accountability.
 
clone21 said:
OK, you asked for it.

CF: Join date 10/22/2008, posts 8314... posts/day = 14.04
HN: Join date 10/19/2009, posts 2306... posts/day = 10.03

Just providing the facts... let you decide.
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I guess it would be easy to see how much I posted on CF since I joined here. That's what i was getting at, but - not surprisingly - it went way over your head. Not like I spelled it or anything.

Let me explain this in language that I think you'll understand. Since this site started, I don't on CF anywhere near as often as I used to.

I don't really give two ***** what your opinion is.
 
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ShadasRevenge said:
I guess it would be easy to see how much I posted on CF since I joined here. That's what i was getting at, but - not surprisingly - it went way over your head.

Let me explain this in language that I think you'll understand. Since this site started, I don't on CF anywhere near as often as I used to.

I don't really give two ***** what your opinion is.
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I would not ever waste your time with him/her man.
 
Billso said:
Nice post Randy, several good points made.

Douchebaggery (and asshattery) are fine nouns deserving of wider usage. The continued resistance to their inclusion in Webster's and Oxford is an indefensible travesty.
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Which post are you referring to?
 
iahawk20 said:
LOL, that is the worst example of "reason" i have ever seen. Yep, it is all a conspiracy and the law is flawed. Whatever makes you sleep better at night.
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Actually, you just proved your poor understanding of reason with that clumsy straw man argument. I didn't say anything about a conspiracy. I didn't even hint at a conspiracy.

It's a lot easier to dismiss people who disagree with you by falsely characterizing their positions than it is to actually engage their arguments and attempt to refute them with your own reasoned arguments. I would be interested in any reasoned arguments you have in response to what I wrote.

Why would I need a conspiracy theory to help me sleep better at night? What exact aspect of this incident, public intoxication laws, or anything else do you imagine would tend to make me lose sleep? What does that have to do with anything at all???
 
EastLosRandy said:
Actually, you just proved your poor understanding of reason with that clumsy straw man argument. I didn't say anything about a conspiracy. I didn't even hint at a conspiracy.

It's a lot easier to dismiss people who disagree with you by falsely characterizing their positions than it is to actually engage their arguments and attempt to refute them with your own reasoned arguments. I would be interested in any reasoned arguments you have in response to what I wrote.

Why would I need a conspiracy theory to help me sleep better at night? What exact aspect of this incident, public intoxication laws, or anything else do you imagine would tend to make me lose sleep? What does that have to do with anything at all???
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Your ENTIRE post set up the perfect conspiracy theory with the current claim you made about the law. You want me to refute it? The entire claim you made is so off the wall that it is absolutely ridiculous. I dont need to refute it...the law exists and works quite well, I am not the one begging for a change here.

It really is not that hard to live 4 years in Iowa City and not be cited or arrested. Again, dodge personal accountability all you want.
 
iahawk20 said:
Your ENTIRE post set up the perfect conspiracy theory with the current claim you made about the law. You want me to refute it? The entire claim you made is so off the wall that it is absolutely ridiculous. I dont need to refute it...the law exists and works quite well, I am not the one begging for a change here.

It really is not that hard to live 4 years in Iowa City and not be cited or arrested. Again, dodge personal accountability all you want.
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All he really said was the the public intox law is ridiculous. And it is, just like the 21-ordinance. I agree it's not hard to stay sober for 4 years in Iowa City (2 down, 2 to go for me), but I'm a bit of a shy person who doesn't mind staying in my room playing NHL 10 with my roommate or posting on here. If you're outgoing, the options are remarkably limited outside of football season, as I've found out.

But 90% of patrons at a bar are legally drunk. Yes, the officers will arrest those who act up, as they should. But the ones who would blow .08 or higher and aren't causing problems are breaking the law, too. And it doesn't get enforced, because the bars would go out of business if EVERY legally drunk person was arrested for public intox. THAT'S what makes it a sham law. And that was what Randy was saying. At least that's what I took from it.
 
And I don't even think it's a conspiracy between the cops and the bars. The main reason PI is not really enforced to the letter of the law, IMO, is I doubt that the ICPD really wants 100 drunk UI students puking all over their jail cells every Friday and Saturday night. (Actually Thursday night, too, as I recall the behavior patterns of my freshman roommate and his friends.) Plus, for the most part, these kids tend to get home without major incidents.

Some of them go pee-pee in the street, and that's pretty gross, and there's a specific law against it. When the police catch them, they get busted, and I am certainly not "begging for a change" to that law.

Unless you were there last night, then like me you don't really know what exactly Jordan did. I think it's definitely possible that he didn't really do anything criminal, but just annoyed the police in a tense situation. Poor judgement? Probably. Worthy of a night in jail and criminal charges? I'm skeptical. Do I think a police officer could have overreacted and arrested Jordan without probable cause? Cops are human beings so yeah, I think it's possible.

As for Jewel: According to news reports there seem to be credible claims from multiple persons that he was involved in some hijinks that are at least worthy of a "probable cause" scenario that triggers a criminal investigation. While I disagree with US drinking-age laws (in Germany it's 16), at least they are unambiguous, and Jewel should have know better.

Adrian Clayborn was facing much more serious charges when Coach Ferentz gave him the benefit of the doubt until he had his day in court, where the assault charge was dropped. A lot of people were criticizing Ferentz for that, (especially Clown fans) but in the end I think he was vindicated. Unless something more specific and damning comes to light, I think that should be the model for Jordan's case.

If "innocent until proven guilty" is good enough for Kirk, then it should be good enough for us! (Sorry, everyone. Talk about your "arguments from authority!" Sheesh!) ;)
 
For someone who went to the UI a few years ago, it's hard for me to comprehend football players getting in trouble with the ICPD for drinking related issues. That's why when it is an alcohol related charge, I don't get that "here we go again" feeling. They need to be smarter, because that's the way it is in IC, but this is not something to panic about.
 
homes said:
For someone who went to the UI a few years ago, it's hard for me to comprehend football players getting in trouble with the ICPD for drinking related issues. That's why when it is an alcohol related charge, I don't get that "here we go again" feeling. They need to be smarter, because that's the way it is in IC, but this is not something to panic about.
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Agreed. Not here to defend the ICPD; some of them were arrogant power freaks when I attended the U 35 years ago, and it sounds like some things never change. But they have an almost thankless job patrolling a downtown bar area packed with thousands of students, some underage, each night with all that goes with it. If I still lived in Iowa City and frequented downtown establishments, I would want someone to keep the lid on the rowdiness and drunken behavior and certainly keep as many drunk drivers off the streets as possible.

What upsets me more is why Iowa's student athletes continue to get into trouble when this has been a significant issue in the past and supposedly the department is trying to crack down on this stuff.
 
Im not worried at all about these arrest for a few reasons, 1.) Micah Hyde and Brandon Wegher 2.) Highly doubt they will be kicked off the team, more than likely a 3 game suspension.
 
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