Police Called On 3-Year-Old Black Boy Because He Was Too Good At Soccer
cross-posted from: https://quokk.au/c/usa/p/1271268/police-called-on-3-year-old-black-boy-because-he-was-too-good-at-soccer
https://blacksportsonline.com/2026/10/police-called-on-3-year-old-black-boy-because-he-was-too-good-at-soccer/Open linkView original on lemmy.ca
213 replies
I choose to read it as "they asked for 3yo's help because he was good at soccer."
There has to be more to the story
It’s a non-competitive league with specific rules about sharing and playing together. My kid played I-9 for flag football for a while and then we went over to a competitive league as he got better, and wanted to actually compete. I-9 is explicitly for just getting kids out to play.
Other parents complained because this kid should clearly be in a competitive league instead, and the other story I read was that the dad was filming for tik tok and loudly going on about how famous his kid was online. Other parents were fed up with the stunt and complained about it and the parent filming their kids to put online, so the league refunded the parents and asked them to take the kid to a different league if he wanted to play competitively. The parents then started losing it and arguing about it and causing a scene.
They didn’t call the cops on a black kid for being too good at soccer. They called the cops on his parents for orchestrating a stupid tik tok stunt and being assholes to all the other families there just to get their kids outside doing something as a team, and not leaving when asked.
If you want your kid to play competitively, go to a competitive league. There’s thousands out there. If you want to go have your kid dunk on non-competitive kids and ruin their fun, don’t be surprised when you get asked to leave, and don’t start throwing a little bitch fit when that happens.
If this is true, I have just one thing to say: context changes everything...
Well now, that's a completely different story that actually makes sense.
Well those sure are some important details. Thanks.
Lmao so it's like showing up to an average park, running around stealing everyone's frisbees out of the air all while filming yourself for tiktok talking about how insanely good you are at ultimate frisbee. In bird culture we would consider this "a dick move."
If this is true, I have just one thing to say: context changes everything...
A lot of that is directly mentioned in this article, just glossed over or spun. And I know I-9 from personal experience with my kids and coaching for them in the league. There’s always some parent that thinks their kid is the next superstar but is too cheap to put them in the more expensive competitive league.
And
And
https://www.i9sports.com/how-we-differ
Its kinda funny how they hit the details while spinning them to be something else.
Even the article trying to rile people up says they were streaming to TikTok, had previously posted videos of him dominating other kids in the league, and were asked to leave by league officials.
The only thing that says the police were called on the kid is the annoying dad live streaming to tik tok saying “they really called the police on a three year old for being too good”. Like no dumbass, they called the police on YOU for being an asshole.
This helps. Thanks for the additional context.
Hence why club league systems exists in the rest of the world. Kid signs up to a club and gets assigned to a team that plays in a league that suits them. Bottom kids leagues are just for fun where winning and losing doesn't really matter. If a kid is good and wants to play competitively they automatically get moved to a different team that plays in a higher league. So there is no need to kick a kid out of a football club.
Where did you get these missing details?
I mean, those details are in this very article too… the rest of the article is just written with a heavy slant.
And
And here’s I-9s page about what their intent is. I know their goal because my kids have played in their league lol. I’ve coached in their league when my kids were little.
https://www.i9sports.com/how-we-differ
Their entire purpose is to not be a competitive league and to just give kids an organized place to play and work on teamwork and building basic sports skills. They do not want hyper competitive kids there and will ask you to take your kid to a competitive league, which this article even touched on this family getting multiple complaints. They don’t want parents inserting themselves into the games. They don’t even keep score (at least they didn’t when my kids played for them).
The league asked the parents to leave, they didn’t, the league gave them a trespass notice and the police enforced that, and the family was refunded their league costs. This article even talks about how the parents have made multiple social media posts with videos of him doing this with him going viral online.
Nobody called the cops on a 3 year old for being too good at soccer.
These shitheads put their son in a league intentionally designed to be equal playing time and non-competitive, had him out there beating up on other kids so they could video it and get him viral. Nobody gives a shit about the kid being “too good” at soccer. The whole thing is that the kid should be in a competitively league instead of his parents having him break every rule in the league so that they can put out highlight reels of him on social media.
Really puts a lot of concern for all the knee jerk comments in this thread.
That’s Lemmy for you lol. Not any better than Reddit was.
Less bots, more funny.
Thank you for posting this. The article, as written, is quite clearly missing critical details and is biased.
Yeah that was intentional on their part.
Here’s I-9s about page. They explicitly are against this kind of shit in the first place. Parents are supposed to stay out of it because the entire point is providing a fun inclusive environment to get kids out there playing, without the pressure from overbearing parents and coaches. And at least for flag football, they didn’t even keep scores in the first place so there was no point in running up goals.
https://www.i9sports.com/how-we-differ
Everything they were doing was against the rules and purpose of the league. So naturally they were asked to leave. If your kid is so great and the next Ronaldo, go put them in a competitive league. But then they probably wouldn’t be dominating like they were and you wouldn’t have content for your stupid TikTok.
This situation should have been a sketch comedy bit.
WKUK, Gilly&Keeves, Key&Peele, somebodys
White guys can't jump or check a ball.
I played soccer at that age, my siblings did too, and my cousins do as well.
When you're 3/4/5 you're not playing soccer. There are no rules, positions, score, winner/loser or goalies. It's "go kick the ball around time". When the ball goes out of bounds the coaches, who are often just some dad, just give it to a player that has not had a ball in a while. No one is trying to win, there is no 'win', it's all make believe for the kids to have a chance to run around for a while in the sun. If one super-player wins every match, that sucks for every other player on the field including his team since they don't even get to "win", there are no winners. They just have to sit around bored with the other team because there is no point.
So the league refunded the parents fee and asked them to not come back (trespassed them). They are no longer legally allowed on the field and for that matter, have no claim to participate in the league seeing as they were refunded. They weren't kicked out on the basis of race, it was many parents complaining "Hey, I paid ~$600 for 'go kick the ball around time', and you are facilitating a situation where my kid doesn't get to kick the ball". This isn't a competitive format it's gym hour and they are not receiving the product they paid for.
A 3 yearold hogging the ball all game, isn't doing anything wrong. He's 3. He's should be instructed to share more but he isn't doing something that warrants the cops involvement. The parents however, that understand the situation and failed to correct it / their kids ability to share, do. The adults that received their money back, understand it. The adults that received a trespass notice, understand it. The adults, who the cops talked to not the kid, understand it. The parents of the superplayers here at being assholes and injecting their kid in a situation they already KNOW will cause problems. All the kids are just being kids and the other parents, as far as I can tell, just want their kid to receive the product they paid for.
Too many people in this thread letting their emotions control their opinion due to a scary headline about a subject they apparently know very little about.
The fact is the police were called and legal action was taken. Now that it has been escalated to involve the power of state force, that invites a challenge to the charge based on equal accommodations laws.
Considering the state of the society is such that John Oliver's most recent LWT segment is about neo-nazi entrenchment in the party in power, we can't look at this incident and not see a racism mattar. We have to consider if the response of the other parents to invoke law enforcement would have occurred if the color of the offending family was a few shades lighter.
It's always good to check; reportedly, the team is already quite diverse, and black parents were among those filing complaints.
The father had been coaching the child who turned out to be quite skilled, and had enrolled him in a very beginner rec league. He got his viral videos out there and started tagging teams and schools. He got the publicity he was looking for, and the facility had him removed and issued a refund because the child's advanced training and subsequent skill level/play were inappropriate for their beginner rec league.
This is not substianted, you can review the videos posted by the father and see the makeup of the team was not primarily white. No other kids were removed from the team.
Yes. As more details of the incident became known to me, my position has evolved. It appears the police were called regarding the behavior of the father, and the response by the police was temperate.
"Because police and a black person were involved, we can't NOT assume it's racism"
Riiiiiiiight. The fact that this bat shit insane comment is upvoted is an indictment on Lemmy
Not a great concept, but pretty easy to scope out, not like we don't have video evidence that it wasn't a black kid on a white team.
I did add context that one of the primary political parties — the one in power, in fact — is openly white supremacist and xenophobic. Hate crimes surged in 2016 by 68% and haven't dropped since. Literal lynchings in the US have become conspicuously more frequent.
Even before Trump, police and the justice system have been demonstrably dangerous to black Americans.
So, yes?
Maybe if we wanted to take interracial tolerance in the US for granted, we shouldn't have voted a white supremacist into office, which Americans did twice, specifically for his racist and white supremacist views. Maybe the response to Brianna Taylor and Heorge Floyd should have followed through on police reform.
Uriel's view has changed, this rebuttal i provided is no longer necessary
I'm not claiming racism doesn't exist, or doesn't exist in America, or that the police force isn't often racist (intentionally or otherwise).
My claim is after looking into all the details of the situation, it's the unfortunate reality that the kid WAS literally just too good. It's funny to say but it's the actual fact. He was too good, and didn't belong. On top of that the parents were being problematic which is the real reason the cops were called. If the parents just chilled and acted like reasonable adults then nothing would have happened.
A blanket perspective of "A bad thing happened to a non-white person, therefor, the bad thing happened because they are non-white" is barley better than the full throated maga racists and it infantilizes and removes autonomy of non-white people. Sometimes the reality is that non-white people DO deserve the cops called on them. It's not the case that the police involvement is ALWAYS racist.
They called the police in a situation where the need for police is implausible. There were parents there, yes? I assume they were sober. Why didn't they manage the situation as might mature adults?
No, they escalated to state intervention, and that means question of equal accommodations can be raised, if the state has laws mandating them.
But it also raises the question of racism, especially if that was the only black family in the group.
Racism doesn't merely exist in the US, it's the dominant culture right now. So yes, it's entirely appropriate to expect it and catalog when it happens.
If it was a matter and refunding and asking people to leave why was police involved? I can think of 100 ways to handle this without police starting with giving the other kids another ball.
There has been an update. As far as the reason for the call:
So it sounds like the coach benched the kid at some point, maybe to give the other kids some time to kick the ball, and the parents argued with the coach about it, which led to them being refunded and asked to leave, which they refused to do until after police got there.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/winter-park-police-explain-response-164621178.html
Seems it was a parent that called, not i9 Sports.
Just bench the kid? Has no one here coached baby soccer?
According to the comment above yours (that cites a Yahoo article), they did. That's why the parents were upset and supposedly caused a disturbance.
Maybe you can stop repeating this now that the PD is contradicting your claims?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/winter-park-police-explain-response-164621178.html
Source? All the article says is "i9 Sports, which operates youth leagues, camps, and clinics for children ages 3 and up in sports including soccer, has not issued a public statement on the incident. Local police have also not released information confirming details of any call or escort."
What you're describing is not just some more reasonable interpretation of the info in the article. You're describing facts other people have no way of knowing. It's not "letting emotions control their opinion". It's simply having opinion about facts at hand.
The same article, but what I'm having trouble finding is whether they had been banned before this game or as a result of this game.
Exactly, this says they were kicked out, not that they still came back later. Those are two completely different situations.
you know what, I had assumed that naturally the ban had already occurred and that this was not the initial trespass notice that the cops responded to
if they called the cops and issued the trespass at the same time, that's weird. if they issued the trespass and then they refused to leave, well yeah duh call the cops that's what they're for
Can't speak for your jurisdiction, but around here, and most of America I think, if a private business tells you to leave and you don't, that's trespass. In Florida it's trespass if you ignore certain property signage. The police don't "issue" a trespass, it's automatic.
right
so if everybody called the cops at the same time as initially trespassing somebody, that'd be weird. like, you tell them to leave, they don't, then you call the cops
Just go to a park...
Yeah but when they get there, there isn't a marked soccer field with 2 goals and 15 other kids all wearing matching uniforms.
You're paying for the orchestration and scheduling of the games
Not fucking $600 I'm not. That's a car payment. My friends and I were always able to make do with sticks or fence posts or whatever and organize games. That was before we even had cell phones. You don't even need organized teams and uniforms for a bunch of little children to just fuck around.
Well it sure isn’t $600 a month lol. It’s $600 once and covers like 4 months of playing.
$150 a month is still insane for a 4 year old to play soccer.
Ok I’ll admit I just rolled with what you said on the price, but turns out that was just an exaggeration.
I just looked it up and soccer is $157 and covers 6 weeks. So about $26 a week that covers the organization, setting up practice, the games, the refs, etc.
That’s pretty cheap.
Yeah I was responding to someone else who gave that price. $26 is much more reasonable.
Kids are expensive...
Metal gymnastics are strong with this one
to be fair to people, the headline is just lying to us about why the police were called
I think it's reasonable to expect headlines to be correct, and that the blame lays almost solely on the publisher who is stating incorrect information
I understand where you are coming from, but I don't think that is a reasonable assumption in 2026.
I don't think it's been a reasonable assumption for a long time lol
This is my Lemmy experience in a nutshell. I really wanted this to be a good reddit alternative, but it seems kinda like maga for the left. Which obviously is better than maga, but still exhausting.
The secret is filters. Just block the subs that are all politics, block keywords that are too culture war. Cultivate a bubble and know that it's a nice bubble where you're more likely to get genuine people with interesting things to share than any other bubble I know of.
Living in a society sometimes means suffering opinions and attitudes you don't like. I know I don't always agree with the Lemmy consensus.
I don't think the notions of respecting equal accommodations, and approaching potentially racist situations with an abundance of caution — especially considering the current party in power — is radically left, id est MAGA for the left.
Feel free to block people whose opinions you can't stand.
I thought it would be better than corporate social media. Seeing as there has to be some reason you came here rather than the 'easier' options.
But no it's mostly people just being emotional and slinging mud. I've already been called a bigot in this thread even before that wall of text.
You'll be called a bootlicker any moment now. Wait and see. :)
Lots of downvotes, yet no one actually defending Lemmy.
They know. They don't like it. But they know.
GUARANfuckingTEED to be the same parents who won’t shut the fuck up about participation trophies, how kids these days are too soft, and how nobody deserves anything they haven’t earned through white-approved work. Always preaching meritocracy, personal responsibility, and how losing builds character. Fucking snowflakes.
If I were the cop, I'd show up just to yell at the guy who called me, and to tell him that if I ever again show up to a call he made that turns out to be as idiotic as this one, I'll arrest HIM for abusing public services.
Obviously this looks awful on its face, but we definitely don't know all the details leading up to them getting a criminal trespass notice. Having an 8 year old who plays recreational soccer, I can confidently tell you I would have a serious problem with another parent live streaming his games on Tik Tok. Dad says "there's thousands of people watching this, he's famous." This seems likely to be against the rules at most soccer clubs, and it's definitely a privacy violation.
Edit: Update indicates what likely happened was the coach benches the kid to give the other kids a turn, the parents complained to the coach about this (maybe because it was bad for their live stream) which ended in them being refunded their money and asked to leave, but they didn't leave, so police were called.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/winter-park-police-explain-response-164621178.html
They didn't, according to the articles throughout this thread and others.
Yes so call the police?
Okay, then why is the viral video of them kicking this kid out of the league and having him escorted out with police instead of a video of the coach having a conversation with the father about live streaming the games?
Because if that was the issue, then that should have been the conversation. Not "your kid is too good we're going to kick him out of the league because he's making the white kids feel bad about themselves."
Selective editing. That conversation could have already occurred and the parents refused and were trespassed. They knew the rage bait of having a cop come and kick them out would get views so that's the only thing they published. I will never trust influencers, especially one's who involve their own children. They are almost always complete scum of the earth.
Neither you nor I know what conversations the league had with the parents or how many times, because the parents here did not share that. The league has not shared any information on what happened, and rightfully so, though I'm sure they will now that it's hit the news. I'm just cautioning against automatically jumping to the worst conclusion on very little info, and also sharing that I'd have a serious problem with this parent live-streaming my son on Tik Tok.
The only information we have is from the family who were live streaming the game. Not sure I trust their statements on why they were escorted off by police. Definitely feels like there's a lot going on that they're not going to disclose.
Fuck i never even thought of this. Back in the days, the worst thing was an overbearing parent next to the field. Now you have people uploading your child durectly to social media.
Where was the coach for this game? Why weren't people talking to him about a solution?
The 'coach' is probably a volunteer (or more likely a voluntold) with no training or authority if it is anything like what goes on around me. Where I am, they'd be lucky if the coach has played soccer before.
You don’t develop talent simply by forcing players to share the ball. You actually kill it. Keeping the ball is the number one skill to be learned by a soccer player.
At 3-5 years it's more about keeping a volley going. Most kids that age are learning basic motor skills. Sure, some of them may be ahead in development, but again there are leagues for progidies like that.
White people intuitively understanding how cops are there to protect white supremacy even though when asked directly they'll deny it and call themselves allies of black people
Looks like some people are trying to defend this by arguing that kids are there to just have fun, not being outplayed. Which still completely ignores the fact, the the 3yo also was just having fun.
Time for lil' Billy to learn how to slide tackle if he wants the ball!
My 9 year-old's team played soccer against a team of giants. They had 3 kids at least a foot taller who manhandled them and could kick the length of the field and score. It wasn't fun and we were annoyed, but we didn't call the police.
Sounds like you wasted a valuable opportunity to teach your kid they can get what they want by calling the cops on anyone who hurts their feelings.
I've been going to my sister's kids' games since they started and there's ALWAYS a huge skill disparity in the younger games. And honestly it's just one thing that seems to click and instantly make twice as good: predicting where the ball will go.
Kids that age ball chase because they have no idea what's going to happen next. They will literally stop and wait for an opposing player to make their move before deciding what to do.
It's exceedingly frustrating to watch but also really funny to see a whole field pause to watch a player do some tippy taps before kicking the ball straight into the feet of another.
Under 5 years old, an age difference of 2+ months can already be a major advantage in any sport that requires coordination, dexterity, anticipation, and agility without even considering raw talent. There's a documented phenomenon where leagues that start splitting kids into skill levels at a young age are split predominantly based on the proximity of the month the kids were born to the age cutoff. Being older is already a massive advantage around then because their brains and bodies are developing rapidly and a few extra months of development has a lot of effect on their cognitive and physical abilities, and their height and weight.
This kid may be an outlier in raw skill. But honestly that also may even out considerably as other kids' motor skills develop. This shit is temporary and part of playing sports in this age range. All of the people involved need to just chill out and watch the kids play whether they are killing it or chasing the ball.
That's true about age differences being much more significant when they're young. And I remember reading about the disproportionate amount of January and February birthdays in hockey leagues of the 90s/2000s so that other part tracks, too.
We're on the same page about the rest. And (aside from foot coordination) it's not a steady skill increase, it happens in big steps as ideas click for them. The worst player in the team can become the best overnight at that age lol
And the other ~15 4 yearolds were not
The article is down. Threadiverse death hug?
I'm going to wait for more details before I get worked up about this. Not gonna take the word of a family of influencers.
Cop could have just said "Are you for real? Did you really waste police resources on this?"
They trespassed the kid, so the police had no choice but to escort him out. Which absolutely is a waste of police resources, but is also perfectly legal and follows the process.
In more reasonable countries, nobody can trespass you from a football field, unless you give them a very good reason like repeated physical assault.
Who trespassed the kid? Like I know it says "the league" but the league obviously didn't have any meeting or come to a consensus in time to make that decision.
The other parents repeatedly complained about their kid not being able to participate in the make-believe form of a soccer played at age 3/4/5
No, they trespassed his loud mouth wannabe influencer parents.
And followed up with a ticket. This happened at work when some teen tried to fax and could've figure out dialing put over 9 or 1. Somehow faxed 9911Xxxxxx so the fax called the police. They showed up and fined us for the waste of time.
Well, I'm not really sure how I'd feel about it from a moral standpoint (and I have no idea if, or what, might be going on behind the scenes). But from my perspective, the incident (and the media coverage) is great publicity for a boy who might one day make a living playing soccer. I mean, a 3-year-old who gets taken off the field by the police because he’s outplaying 5-year-olds might just be a sign of some talent...
I'd rather him get the same treatment as his talentless white peers: safety, respect, education, support etc.
If this happened to a white kid, they would be suing for trauma damages of a million dollars arguing this will ruin the child's career because anytime they play soccer they will be worried if they play too good he will have the cops called on him.
I hope they sue.
Kid is learning an early lesson in ACAB. Also, the white kids are going to remember this and if they have a shred of empathy, will be hesitant around cops now.
I feel the same way; I believe that this must be the goal is really not even up for debate.
Yeah, you might've traumatized a baby by calling the cops on him, but think of his future career prospects! Thank goodness the pig didn't murder him so we can see what kind of value we can extract from his black body!
/s
Got so many pop-ups I just gave up on reading it.
Are people really that stupid in the usa?
At best, they're half as stupid and twice as hateful
They voted for trump didn't they ? Twice. There's your answer.
Three times
True. Only successful twice, but stupid three times.
At this point one might conclude they're stupid all the time.
A lot of white people are.
The Karens will always do Karen shit.
The police could have used common sense but elected not to.
You expect police to not needlessly use their power? This is a country were SWATing is so easy there is a term for it and so common that it doesn't get investigated.
also very racist in varying degrees.
The article makes it (slightly) less bad. 3 year old was kicked out of a 5 year old league for being too good and ruining competitive balance. The kid's parents took it badly and would not leave until police intervened.
Most team sports don't ban star players
Although i have seen a show called Ted Lasso where the coach put him on the bench for hogging the ball.
The article says multiple substitutions. Wonder what the coach's role was in the whole thing.
It’s a toddler fun league. The league has specific rules about it not being competitive and sharing play time.
The kids parents are wannabe influencers filming everything for TikTok.
Nobody called the cops on a kid for being too good. They called the cops on the parents because they were asked to leave over their stupid social media stunts, and then they refused.
Most youth leagues dont do substitutions like pros do, they swap out every quarter or so. The goal is to have the kids play about equally, or else parents lose their shit that their kid sat on the bench the whole game.
This article is a metaphor for all right-wing "anti-DEI" policies.
Hello 911 what's your emergency?
...
Yeah we're not going to attend that.
Ok so, sure, other parents seem to have escalated things in a dumb way, but... for the rest of his life, this kid can say "I was so good at soccer they called the police on me... when I was 3."
In the update, seems like the coach benched the kid to give other kids a turn, the kid's parents complained (maybe because they were live streaming their son on Tik Tok) and that escalated to them being asked to leave and fully refunded, but they didn't leave, so police were called.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/winter-park-police-explain-response-164621178.html
It would be hilarious if he grows up and completely stops playing or just is shit at it.
Why would that be hilarious?
As irony!
they realy just dint want a black kid make a white kid look bad, plus racist parents.
"Ball so hard motherfuckers wanna fine me"
Bro was out there breaking ankles!
My neighbor called the police when my dog chased their cat...in my backyard. I got off with a warning.
Were they at least told to keep their cat inside? Or on their own property?!?
Laws vary from county to county, city to city, but in most places cats are free to roam, legally, and deliberately harming a cat for nothing more than trespass exposes you to animal cruelty charges punishable with fines and/or mandatory anger management and other counselling.
…and even country to country.
Obviously I don’t know the specifics of this situation, but if a cat jumps into a fenced yard with a dog and gets chased, that seems pretty unfair since the dog owner is being responsible. But maybe that wasn’t the case here.
I am a responsible dog owner. The guy was just a jerk, and he still is.
Every case needs a proper, unbiased, investigation - and we won't be getting that here tonight.
My snowflake neighbor came crying to me about his chickens being murdered and how he saw my cat on his camera and if he ever saw my cat again he was going to shoot it - nevermind that cats don't murder full grown laying hens in their pen and the fact that we have raccoons, hawks, owls, and coyotes which DO murder full grown laying hens at any opportunity. I had to jump a hoop (get an ear clipped) to get my cat protected as "free to roam" in our county, which is a little weird, but now that he's protected legally as a "community cat" anyone who brags about shooting him is eligible for an open and shut animal cruelty case, $500 fine and court ordered anger management counselling. We passed this information to the snowflake through his landlord, and have not heard peep out of him since - 2 and a half years now.
I would probably buy a gun and shoot someone if they shot my cat. Humans aren't more special than animals. That's like the one thing that would get me riled up enough to commit a crime of passion is hurting my cats.
When I was 9 years old, our neighbor boys used our cat for target practice with their air rifles, back in those days apparently the air rifles were powerful enough to put a pellet through a pelt, our cat crawled up inside the engine bay of our car to hide, got caught in the belts when we started it, but it wasn't the belt that killed the cat, it was the pellet hole in its torso. I never acknowledged their existence again except to be rude at any opportunity, I doubt it changed their cruel dispositions.
Not about your specific situation, but Cats can definitely kill hens. I used to live on a small farm and we had issues with some wild cats.
Lots of other issues with other predators, but it’s entirely possible, especially at night.
Yeah, we've got a vicious killer on our hands here, he's a big orange/white floof and about 6 times in the 7 years we have had him, he'll bring a baby squirrel, or little fledgling bird to us. Nothing approaching the size of an adult squirrel, much less a hen. I suppose if he were hungry enough he might try, but... with all the other wildlife around it's irresponsible to not protect your henhouse with hardware cloth to prevent predators from digging under the wire in the night (which, somehow the camera surveillance managed to miss - although why snowflake didn't just make his coop more secure like the neighbors do is just... a him thing.) His next door neighbor watched a hawk grab the wire on the top of their run, in the middle of he day, and try to fly up with it / lift it off. We have had a young hawk grab a hen from the new neighbors' open run that was a little too big for him to carry far, made it 100 meters to our driveway and set down there, as I rounded the corner I spooked him away and he left his prize, 15 minutes later he had returned to take it away.
So, yeah, bruiser the cat is capable, but about as likely to bother with his hens as he is to attack the FedEx delivery guy.
If you ever get another cat, name it Snowflake and make sure to tell your neighbor you named it after them 😁👍
Sure, but there's a difference between deliberately harming a cat and your dog chasing a cat.
Agreed, idiots abound.
Cats are free to roam here. He wasn't a nice guy to begin with. He was renting and I own so...problem solved.
what does this have to do with anything?
tenants have just as much rights in their homes as anyone else
He moved, I didn't.
He was temporary, I was permanent.
The "problem" solved itself.
We have several of those temporary neighbors here, too. I wish the one next to me was a renter. Or, maybe I don't. I suppose having a new neighbor every year or so has it's downsides, too. You never know what you're going to get. Although, rent is so high now, renters pay more than most owners pay on their mortgages here. In my case, renting a house here is double what I pay in mortgage.
All the houses in my neighbourhood have sold to some kind of commercial endeavor. Rental or airbnb.
A lot of people live here but no one "LIVES" here.
You're right, what does your comment have to do with anything? Tenants can be just as big of idiots as homeowners.
they really shouldnt, cats on the outside are likely to live shorter lives than indoor cats.
This is a VERY rural area. Population 3.000.
When my "outside" cat passed (cancer), the vet had 17 years of medical history on him.
I live next to a highway. That cat would cross the highway to get mice in the field.
If too good is an offense, then technically they could've called the police for someone being too stupid.
I'm the one who called the cops. You guys don't understand just how good this toddler is, someone had to do something
If you want this kid in black and white stripes, call Juventes.
Don't you know about cops killing black people though. They could have showed up and thought that little 3 year old boy was going to kick a soccer ball at them.
Or an acorn could have fallen on a car, causing them to shoot the place up.
Home boys gonna fucking roll more than he has since he played sonic in the 90s.
If those cops ever live that down....
I thought it was obvious, but /s for the aforementioned comment you're replying to.
Edit, I read half your reply when I replied. It seems I'm the one with egg on my face
Someone call the cops! This comment is too good.
This reminds me of the time when I was in elementary school and I did much better than the other kids on a math quiz, so their parents called the police and the school trespassed me so I was arrested and spent my entire childhood in Sing Sing. I was the only 6 year old in my cell block.
That must have been traumatic.
Unbelievable.
By which I mean, I literally don't believe this story as presented. There's definitely some details missing.
Listening to the parent talking in the video it sounds like there was past history between the kid's parents and the other parents and that there was at least an altercation between them after someone said something the kid's parent didn't like. This seems to be the real reason behind the parents being kicked out and the cops ultimately called. But of course, the parent who released the video edited all those parts out to make it sound they're kicking the kid out for being too good. Feel bad for the kid though. That wasn't his fault.
This reads like copium, a milder variant of the racism that this family was subjected to.
There may have been more to the story but nothing that warranted police involvement. There's a league administration to deal with any such matters.
The article claims that the game was being live streamed, others could/would have reported any real infractions had there actually been anything to report.
What I can tell for sure is that the article reports the kid's parents side of the story and their side only. They obviously make the claim that the cops were called because their kid was too good at the sport. The video they edited opens up with the father saying that. But if you read between the lines of what they tell the cop afterwards it is clear that there was a clash between the parents before the cops were called and the article fails to even mention that. If there is recorded footage of the events somewhere whoever wrote that article couldn't find it, just like they couldn't find anyone else who was there to tell what they see happened.
This is far from being high-end investigative journalism and I'm pointing that out.
The only thing we can deduce with some decent level of certainty is that it is the league that fucked up first. Kids are usually grouped by skill level to avoid things like that and they failed to correct that situation for quite some time it seems.
AOL Keyword: Uppity.
Look into it.
You are very articulate.
What an articulate young man! Pinches cheek
Even paw patrol shouldn't bother for petty bench fights. But since black folks were involved, officers smelled blood.
There’s a lot of over correction in this thread.
Police breaking up a recurring altercation is 100% part of what they are there for. A party being black is just unfortunate for optics.
You don't hide your bigotry as well as you think you do.
Yeah this thread has been... enlightening. Lemmy might be more prejudiced than I would have initially thought.
What a lazy response to a nuanced topic.
Er ad hominem or whatever
There's no nuance involved in systemic racism and Karens weaponizing the police to protect white fragility.
That's pretty cut and dry.
If you watch the video, the parent says “We always stay on this side and don’t interfere with the other parents.” Followed by “Something was said today because they were all huddled up talking about my kid.” So the parents got into an argument at some point.
The article mentions a TikTok live stream, so I wonder if that part got recorded.
Yeah I noticed those comments. I'm sure there's more to this than we know. I'm not saying calling the police due to the reasons said is ok, but sounds like something more happened.
I mean, even if the story is true as told, I still want to know more about the story and what was up with the huddle. Were they loud enough to hear from the other side of the field? Were they pointing at the kids? Did the parent pass by and hear something? Who called the cops, and what did they say? What’s on the trespass order?
I don’t have TikTok, so unless this story gets huge, I’m probably never going to hear about it again.
12-15 years from now we may start to hear of an up and comer in the soccer leagues, and someone will rediscover his early roots.
just kidding. we'll have destroyed ourselves long before this delightful and skillful little boys dreams come true.
Fuck, this looks like a variant of swatting.
Messi was like that when he was an adolescent. Theres video of him just tearing it up as the smallest kid in the game
The future looks bright for little Nevada
Or it would be if he was allowed on the pitch.
Wow, those other parents are total pieces of shit.
They are, but it’s not just them
The whole system complied. On a kid younger than them
I can’t say I’m surprised either
Hah, that's the weird part, when the parent called, the cops didn't just hang up.
Considering how easy it is to call a SWAT on a stranger with no evidence, I'm not surprised they went ahead with any excuse to exert their power.
If my kid was playing with baby Messi? I would still want them to have a chance to play. This is fucking kids soccer - there’s no money on it. Good for the kid at being a god, but my kid can’t get good if she doesn’t have a chance to play.
Edit: calling the cops was wrong. I cannot believe anybody thought that was a good idea.
lol
Take your kid to a different league, what are the cops even doing here?
So you’re fine with this? Just to clarify?
No. Full stop. That was potentially deadly and scary and stupid and an unbelievable overreaction. I am fully against what they did. I can’t believe these dipshit parents couldn’t talk to the coach or that kid’s parents fucking mystifies me.
I’d want my kid playing with or against
The quickest way to get gud is be outclassed
Thanks for calling me out on that. That was beyond wrong of the parents, on multiple levels.
One thing I like about this place is so much of the community are willing to own their mistake. No dramas.
we all know that playing against people of the same level makes you better...... You are just teaching your kid to find the shallowest pool to play in. How dare they be exposed to the idea that someone is better and maybe this is just all for learning.
Kid was playing against other kids 2 years older. I dare say they learned. And again, bringing cops into was beyond anything imaginable and wrong. But this should’ve been a learning opportunity, not “hey, let’s endanger a kid for playing soccer while black.”
Something that can be remedied without involving armed law enforcement. Maybe the coach could do their job and make sure all the kids get at least some chance to play?
Yes, this. Fucking idiots bringing cops into it boggles the mind.
I'd like to take a moment to point out that the child's race is mentioned exclusively by the people reporting this story. At no point was the child's race mentioned by the police or by the parents who called them.
Although those parents may have privately considered race a factor, there is no indication that they explicitly mentioned it or that it played any stated role in their decision to have this family trespassed from the property.
And that's precisely my point: the child's race is completely irrelevant to how petty and ridiculous this situation already is. Having a family trespassed because their child was supposedly too good at soccer is absurd enough on its own.
I hate that the article's headline goes out of its way to mention the child's race, seemingly for no other reason than to generate clicks and stir up controversy. And, of course, the comment section falls for it hook, line, and sinker. Suddenly, everyone is convinced that race must have been the issue.
Maybe race played a role behind the scenes, or maybe it didn't. We don't have enough information to know. But the people reporting this story have made it a central part of the narrative, and the comment section has run with it as though it's an established fact.
The underlying story is already ridiculous enough. We don't need journalists injecting racial controversy into it without evidence just to generate engagement.
Do you actually think that calling the police on a black family who haven't committed a crime has no societal relevance in America?
I'm not saying in a perfect world it should, but to say that it doesn't is ignoring a long precedent of systemic racism. Especially considering that the family wasn't made aware of their trespassing by the league before the police were contacted.
That is exactly what I am saying, word for word. The race of the child has no societal relevance in this particular story because race was never mentioned by either the police or the parents who called them.
Can we infer the possibility of racism? Yes. Can we speculate that the parents may have been racially motivated? Absolutely. However, inference, speculation, and supposition are not the same thing as explicitly expressed racism. There is nothing in the information presented to establish that race was a factor in this incident.
Therefore, there was absolutely no legitimate reason to identify the child as Black in the headline other than to generate clickbait and manufacture controversy, which you apparently have no issue with.
The fact that these parents called the police because they believed a child was playing soccer too well is already preposterous enough on its own. The child's race adds absolutely nothing to the story. Including it in the headline serves no informative purpose; it simply invites readers to interpret the incident through a racial lens without sufficient evidence to justify doing so.
It's only racism in the plantation region of Southern Texas, everywhere else it's just sparkling bigotry.
Ridiculous "racism has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt" bullshit. Get outta here with that shit.
A bunch of white parents called the POLICE to kick out a black family because the black kid was good at sports and it made their white kids feel bad. But I'm supposed to give them all the benefit of the doubt because none of the said the n-word loud enough for the camera to pick it up.
I see. So your only criteria for determining racism are that some people were white and others were black? That's a lot of assumptions right there, bucko.
Honestly, that says far more about you than it does about the people on that soccer field.
And yes, nobody used the N-word. Race was never brought up, and the stated reason for calling the police was that the kid was too good at soccer. Yet here you are, saying, “Nah, man, the kid is black, so it must have been racism.”
And yes, you have to establish that racism actually occurred. Simply pointing out the skin color of the people involved is not sufficient evidence, and it never should be.
But hey, if assuming the worst about people makes you feel morally superior, who am I to stop you?
Wait a minute. What's the actual definition of racism?
You clearly don't understand the experience of racism. Being victimised by racism is just thousands of these situations where obvious racists (even you said it was probably racially motivated) skirt the plausible deniability line and get the benefit of the doubt while you have the police shoot you at 10x the rate of white people.
If this is Winter Park, CO, it's basically the rich version of South Park, no black people as in, 0. If it's Winter Park, FL, more likely I think, black folk are only 4% of the population. I don't find racism to be unlikely. Were it Steve White's kid, Steve Jr., dominating, the parents would have a talk with dad.
This entire comment is complete nonsense.
He was already playing with kids roughly 2 years older than him according to the article
If there are more leagues that are older still literally just out him with even older kids. Calling the cops is batshit
They had him banned from the league over this.
They banned him AFTER this. If he was banned before, the coach wouldn't have fielded him.
Pure copium. There is no situation where it's okay for parents to call the cops over a U5 soccer game because a kid is too good. Even if it's a "just for fun" League. Even if the kid is "breaking the rules by being too good". Even if the times say he has to share the ball. Even if you're tired of the parents cheering their kid on as he demolishes the other kids.
None of that is police shit. Calling the police over this is racist shit.
I know when I said they banned from the league over this, I'm saying this incident lead to him being banned from the league, thus AFTER, not before.
I can't help but remember this sketch from Reno 911.
Is that from a later season or revival of some sort? That actor looks much older and has a mohawk.
They revived the series during COVID after an 11 year haitus.
Too much melanin
So it's not just the PresiDunce that's beyond stupid then.
(The above was not a question, it was a statement)
That child is going places fr 💀
Too good at soccer? Believe it or not, straight to jail
If this were France or Spain though? The kid would be getting an all-expenses-paid scholarship on the PSG or Barça
And in the United States it costs ridiculous amounts of parents money to join the most competitive leagues. It's no wonder we're not competitive on the world stage, only rich kids can compete.
???