Topic: Lowell Sun - "He Bounds Over Buildings, Police Spring To Action"

[Brian Belida]

http://www.lowellsun.com/front/ci_4699539

My pops sent me an email today after talking to his parents / my grandparents who live in Lowell, MA. He said this article in the paper caught there eye and sent me the link to the Lowell Sun site. A rather unfortunate bit of media [and no doubt my traditional grandparents will further disapprove :p] A couple negative spins on things, but the article does take a shot at explaining what parkour is.

Apparently the kid ran from the police when they spotted him. I'm sure the article exaggerates on some of the distances / occurrences, but the kid himself says he has jumped "20 or 30 feet from trucks and rooftops."

Trucks on stilts? Anyhow, read it for yourself. Gotta take the bad with the good.

[Ryan Ford]

That is pretty much the perfect example of what NOT to do and say if you are ever involved with parkour and the media.

[Kurokaze]

i wanna punch this kid in the face.

seriously, was he TRYING to give parkour bad press?

[Steven Low]

I think we should at least write a letter to the newspaper editors to try to inform them that this isn't what Parkour is about.

[Gearsighted]

Here's my email:

I was recently alerted to the article you wrote for the Lowell Sun on a 17 year old's arrest for practicing Parkour on rooftops and then proceeding to lead the police in a chase. Being involved in Parkour for the past three years, and running http://www.americanparkour.com , I felt obligated to inform you that a mistake made by a young kid is hardly representative of an entire movement. At the moment I am working through an affiliation with http://www.crossfit.com to both open my own gym and travel around the country in order to train both military and law-enforcement personnel in the techniques we use to navigate the urban environment. My hope is that Parkour can become a useful tool in the repertoire of those who protect our country, rather than a nuisance sport practiced in disobeyance of trespassing laws. It's a disservice to the efforts of many dedicated practitioners to paint a useful art as merely a criminal act. I'd love to talk further with you about our various projects in this arena, so feel free to contact me at any time. Thanks.

[Nem]

Gear- Professional, very nice.  Let us know if they do call you back. 

[Kurokaze]

yes, i too would be very interested in their response.

[whiteninja]

Very simply: That kid was an idiot.

It was dumb enough to be jumping from rooftops like that when you aren't a pro, then even more stupid to try to outrun the cops.

[Quazar]

Gear, I am thouroghly impressed with that letter
nice job man, hope it get's some attention.

[Machete]

yeah great letter gear, and i agree, that kid was stupid. if i ever get in trouble for training, or anybody for that matter, we should make it clear to KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!!! and dont mention parkour.

[Quazar]

I don't know, to be honest, I don't think it's fair to demonize this kid based on the information we have here.

What's more, I know it's always been a collectively acceptable rule of thumb in these forums that if someone with negative intent interupts your training you should calmly and respectfuly explain to them what you are doing, parkour included.

my point is this, I don't really know what this kid did or who he is, he may very well be the idiot we're all painting him to be, but I've seen how creative media jargon can portray white as black, dark as light, and hero as villain.  The fact is I'm not content to ostricize this kid untill I've heard his side of the story.  Granted, that may never happen, but I mean some of this stuff just reeks of bias:

"He Bounds Over Buildings Police Spring to Action"

It's perfectly clear right from the start who the good guys and the bad guys are in this story, before we even begin reading.

Truth is, I'm not even sure he ever ran from the police, what we get are alot of "apparentlys"

It says police "caught" him, and they quote one officer who had to "chase him through downtown Lowell".  You can take this in the context that they had to go through trouble in finding and stopping a guy who was running around and obviously elusive in his own unintentional right or in context that, yes, he did explicitly recongize and run from the police.  The latter however would have been fully taken advantage of...
both by the police who would have charged him with resisting arrest, not just "trespassing and disorderly conduct" and by the paper who would have clearly stated that he tried to escape the police instead of just indirectly suggesting it.

I really don't know, but I think it's only right to read between the lines and give both sides a chance, am I wrong?

[Sat Santokh]

Damn you Dan.  You and your level headedness and conscience but seriously thank you for providing the positivity that everybody requires to go through their lives peacefully.

[Jack On]

Gotta agree with Quazar.

Dont know all the details, sure, but when the police officer says "If you're anywhere on any building again, you're trespassing," I dont see how parkour had a chance to be in a positive light in the first place, since, well, parkour requires buildings and using those buildings is trespassing.

[Streetviper]

gaaa~ as soon as i finish my three page rant on why the kid is stupid i get that! thanks Quazar!











nah jk. i agree.

[dak]

Damn stupid page says it isn't there no more. I wanted to read it to.

[John Francis]

Yeah, I wanted to read it too.

But yes, if you ever trespass onto a rooftop and the situation looks terrible, don't mention le Parkour.
On the last day of my sophomore year, my friend and I went on top of our school. We'd done it before but when we did it was midnight at the time. This specific time I speak of was at eleven and we were seen so the cops got called on us. When we got down they found us, luckily they didn't see us up there and they realized we had no criminal intent, so we were charged for trespassing. But I was charged for curfew. Anyways, we didn't mention Parkour at the time because we didn't want the police to see two "punk" teenagers and associate Parkour with trespassing and roof climbing.

The awesome part though, is that with the cops was one of the Assistant Principals at our school (he lives near the school and he came in his pajamas) and he said he would punish us next year. Well next year came and no punishments, but the awesome part is that we were featured in an article in the school newspaper called "The Spidermen of Kids Kastle." The AP read this and when he passed my friends mom in the hallway he said, "So now I understand why they were jumping around on the roof."

[Quazar]

haha, good story

[Joey Marion]

 I think they took it off their site because of gear's email. I think if i was trying to run from the cops (which i wouldnt) and i got caught i definatly wouldnt try to give the media something bad to talk about pk. right now the media is unsure about pk, if things like this keep happening they are going to get the wrong impression and start saying bad things about it.

i dont think it matters about how much information we weren't given, all that matters is the info that we were given. This kid in my oppinion is an idiot. He just gave pk more bad rep. he may have or may not have been running from the police, but he gave the media an opening to say something bad about pk, and everyone knows the media will take that opening and tear it out of proportion.