April 16th, 2009 
joel Warning: your next rant in a drunken stupor could make you infamous on YouTube.
Spring-breaking college seniors know something that an Erie policeman obviously didn’t: your outrageous public behavior when caught on video can be an extreme detriment to your employment prospects. The front-page lead in this morning’s Erie Times News by Kara Murphy and Ed Palattella reports about a nearly eight minute long video that has surfaced on YouTube, showing Erie Patrolman James Cousins II, “holding forth in a Girard bar as he makes fun of people he has encountered on the job.”
The newspaper reporters brought the video to the attention of Police Chief Steve Franklin and Mayor Joe Sinnott who later suspended Cousins with pay after the video was posted on GoErie.com.
In the story, Franklin was quoted to say that the Bureau of Police was attempting to have YouTube remove the video, “because it was posted by someone other than Cousins. ‘I don’t see a need for it to be on there,’ he said.”
In a related story, Times News reporter Lisa Thompson recounts the showing of the video of Cousins to family members of a murder victim that the policeman referred to in the video, Rondale Jennings, Sr. The family member had to brace themselves for the content, she reported.
It was still up on YouTube as of 8:00 Thursday morning…be warned, this video is full of profanity and will be offensive to most viewers.
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I can’t believe none of the opinionated people that see this video have not commented one way or another on this blog.
Perhaps, they to are afraid of retribution from “Federal Authorities”.
I applaud the job all law enforcement agencies do. Sources such as this video help eliminate the bad apples, provided there is no cover up attempted.
You will notice that the GoErie blog “Talk about it” is no longer available. Guess the ETN’s has caved-in to local political pressure.
Found it….Topix.com…
http://www.topix.net/forum/city/erie-pa
Seems the ETN just dumped it. Maybe they were taking heat from all the local politicos.
This post and commentary looks like a “7″-”10″ split, in bowling. Time to Make That Spare!
Joel topics the YouTube Erie Cop tape, apparently reflecting on our city all over the globe.
JIMBO wisely notes there is a preponderance of silence going on here in regard to the post.
PR points out a maxim: Topix disappeared on GoErie, but attributes this to political pressure.
Let’s go for the “7″ pin first and see if it flies over to knock down the “10″ pin too.
Joel includes this warning in his blog (regarding viewing the tape of Erie’s wonderful cop):
“this video is full of profanity and will be offensive to MOST viewers.”(emphasis mine)
~~~Joel
I took Joel at his word and simply did not view the YouTube experience.
Indeed, if the tape reflected anything but what has been printed about it, howls of political pressure would ensue. My life goes on in a better mood without watching some fool, make a fool of himself (and from reading GoErie on Saturday after, this cop is pressuring a takedown of the tape on WWW, or “he could lose his job”.
I don’t know if the YOUTube tape was at GoErie, but it was not political pressure that removed Topix.
It took a long time for Topix to come to Erie.
You can respond to an article or a comment immediately on Topix, and at first, it added value to GoErie, from waiting 3 months for Kevin Cuneo and best buds, to look at a Letter-To-The-Editor, determione if the author was an “In” writer, or an “Out”, edited the letter beyond recognition, and printed it in a timely fashion, ….say, 3 to 4 months after an article appeared in print. THAT’S now a good time for a response ala Cuneo thought. Topix revamped that to NOW.
Regrettably, the site is poorly monitored.
Be Nice.
Be Polite.
Be on Topic.
No Name Calling, etc.
These warnings to a post were summarily dismissed from the mind of responders to anything.
Swearing was standard communication.
Internet trolls came to roost in Erie (we have weird news).
The same names—–you KNOW them all and what they will say before you read—-appeared in every story as a political left. or political right, or simply insane.
We were degenerating as people, along with these writer’s of insanity.
Many times, they posted posts, or Polls, on themselves!
It was a nightmare to read, and impossible to find a thread that actually related to the story at hand.
BEFORE reading a comment list that went on for 4 to 30 pages, I always went to the last post first. It would tell me if it was still on topic to the article, or had morphed into the hate fest known as Topix.
99 out of a 100 times, the last post was so far removed from the article, it made no sense.
Maybe ‘Teri Rhodes would go to jail’ links to perhaps ‘Obama is a terrorist pal’, while neglecting THAT came from a Gridiron “make fun of yourself” moment in Washington.
It was not political pressure that ended Topix; it was commentary unmoderated, off topic, off color, personal attack, and the worst of the Internet.
MY choice for Topix was the same as Joel’s warning for this post and YouTube tape, dont read it, don’t view it, UNLESS youi choose to diminish the quality of your life.
ETN/GoErie/Cheeseman were wise to say adios to that hornets nest of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
However, a young McDowell student wrote a letter this week on Beowolf in class (assignment from teacher) and what she learned about syntax from reading it.
I would have loved to respond to this young (and gifted) writer, to tell her that in audience communication, her teacher did her a favor. There is linkage from beginning to end and syntax, NOT context, is crucial to getting your message delivered.
Her syntax was impeccable and it would have been nice to tell her.
But if Topix were opened and I did just that, it would be followed by lewd, off-topic, political, Citi
and a host of nonsense unrelated attack on each other, largely ignoring the McDowell student and HER views.
I would like to commend ETN GoErie for stopping the nonsense and ridding this community of Topix. People were very worried that their hometown was skewed by Time Warner beneath their preposterous pseudonyms.
“HEY! I live in Mill Village and my name says I am in Albion”
Political pressure had nothing to do with stopping this idiocy; Topix impaled a sword into their bowels.
It would be fitting to say Topix: RIP, but they never gave Erie any Peace, so Topix: R. I. Hell.
There is one more item I would like to address concerning this debacle.
It concerns the handling of the supposed investigation.
I can understand the taking of a witness to view a suspect for identification purposes.
However, it appears as a sign of intimidation when the person doing the identifying is a suspended police officer (IN UNIFORM) who is also acting as chauffer for the investigating officer.
Also, perhaps it is a small thing, but I get extremely nervous when I hear the I.A detective’s superiors address him as “Jimmy D.”
To me this is not a sign of maturity, but a sign of “Frat Boy” comraderee.
Just a footnote: This story just made national news on CNN.
Heat being applied to Franklin for the mishandleing of the investigation from the start.
It was pretty clear from the beginning that the mayor and police chief wanted to let this bozo off and go after the person who took the video. When the media latched on to the story and the Erie pastors and NAACP got involved, I was wondering if the chief & mayor would have the kahunas to let him off…and I’ll be damned if they didn’t!
I hope the citizens of Erie put a protest together and the feds investigate the Erie po-lice. This stinks to high heaven.
This guy shouldn’t be a cop PERIOD.
(and we still never heard whether he drove a car home while intoxicated (I put money he did) and who is the cackling bimbo on the bar stool.)