Link: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/oct/27/florida-soccer-game-three-year-old-boy-benched-police

Parent of the year!

Calling the cops on a kid for being good at his sport is nuts, but calling the cops on is a Black kid in the U S. is next-level asshole.

One officer appeared to want to see more of Nevada though. “I kind of want to see him play. I bet he’s good,” he can be heard saying to another officer on body camera.

Rare instance of American cops not being... American cops. I can't think of another word without insulting something or someone else

That's the parents story though.

The league's story is that the parents were the problem.

the official can be heard saying he has "an unruly parent here, calling me names and having me on Instagram."

They didn't call the cops on a kid for being good at his sports, nor for the kid being black.

The kid was asked by the ref to stop pushing other kids, which the other parents supported. These parents got angry that their future-Messi was told to stop being so aggressive, so they got into an altercation with other parents and the ref. The parents started posting the ref on Instagram, so he walked away and called the cops.

Yeah, totally my fault for trusting a friend's account of the story rather than reading it myself.

You’d be surprised to know, that every day that goes by, hundreds of thousands of law enforcement officers are doing no wrong.

Will you remember to check primary sources next time you read something sensational?

It's often argued that by standing idle they are complicit.

You know what they say. A few bad apples spoils the whole batch

So a good cop in Sarasota should put his job on the line because of what a cop did in Bakersfield? Is that the logic here?

I'm not getting into the concrete with you.

The general idea is that if one cop witnesses another cop commit a crime and does nothing, they are complicit.

Yes they are. However- The point remains. Every day goes by with countless cops doing good things. But don’t let this get in the ways of a nuanceless view.

Well, the story is basically he said/he said. Some reports say the kid was just humiliating the other kids, which got the other parents angry. The boy's parents shared (their chosen clips) video of him scoring goals without pushing anyone. Other reports talk about the boy's parents being belligerent and arguing with the ref and other parents, but there is no video of that. I think there is nothing to point at this being about race, even if there is something about other parents getting angry that their kids were feeling embarrassed and not having fun (still unclear on that, though).

I will say the video from the boy's parents has them celebrating like he scored in a world cup game instead of scoring at a 3 year olds' league game. That could rub some parents the wrong way.

Yeah, a friend had told me about it after he saw a post on Reddit, so I made the mistake of listening to him and not watching it myself when I saw it here. I also don't think it was about race, my point there was simply that in the American context, calling the cops on a Black person is a serious escalation. The parents definitely sound like they're their own worst enemy in this situation for sure.

Your comment almost reads like you are talking to me. I'm sure I misunderstood.