Police Handle Creepy Woman-in-a-Suitcase Situation Correctly


So, a couple days ago cops in Portland, Oregon did the right thing in a rare situation. It was immortalized on the PPD twitter feed:

 

 

Now, I’m all for consensual fun, and if you wanna ride around in a suitcase, you do you, right? But I also get why this was reported. If you do a google search for “portland police alert woman suitcase” you get some seriously not okay stuff all over the first page. Worse, it’s not just multiple reports of the same case, you get links to reports of separate, unrelated incidents. (People with multiple treatment resistant faith in humanity can have it cured right there on that google page.)

As entertaining as it might be for the people doing suitcase transportation, the rest of us don’t always want to be part of your role-play, especially unwittingly. If you get off on the idea that people will think you’re a kidnapper/kidnap victim, you’re roping in others without consent and risking seriously emotional consequences for those around you. Please don’t do that, eh? Also, if you set up the scenario so that your fun gets the cops called, that’s just wasting cop time and resources, which is also in the not cool category.

Since I couldn’t find follow up info contextualizing the suitcase riding I can’t be sure the woman wasn’t partially zipped up with head and arms hanging out yelling, “Whooppee! Go faster! Go faster!” with a smile on her face. In that case, you’re just being very, very Portland and there’s no roping anyone into any role-playing. (And Freud the people who would call the cops on someone for that.) So I’m not making definitive statements about these two people, just a general one about the ethics of roping other people into your activities.

On the other hand, while I frequently criticize cops who escalate interactions with the public instead of deescalating them, this shows cops doing it right. Whatever the story is here (and we don’t know, there has been no news story about it that I can find and though I’m fully aware of how to request more information from PPD I don’t feel like bothering), even in the worst case scenario where people were publicly roleplaying a kidnapping or something similar, if things are actually non-criminal and the cops have done their welfare check, it’s time to clear out. That’s just what they did.

Comments

  1. se habla espol says

    Being Portland and all, they organized their police under the nomenclature “Bureau” rather than the more usual “Department”. Thus, being Portland and all, the Proper abbreviation is PPB. Just a small difference between English and Portlandish.

  2. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    Thanks! I don’t know why I made that mistake. I lived in Portland for years and actually worked at 911 there for a year. You would think I would remember that.

  3. says

    There recently was a case here where a man called the police because he had witnessed two men abusing a tied up woman.
    Well, it was a couple taking lessons about the correct way to do so.
    The instructor offered the police officers a free “professional training class”, it was reported as “Fifty Shades of Name of Town” and we all had a good laugh, but thank you dear unknown passer by who called the police.
    Only next time somebody sees such a scenario they will remember the episode and maybe be less likely to call the police because they don’t want to be the idiot who spoiled somebody’s sexy times.
    So yeah, whatever your kink is, you have a moral duty to make sure it is not conflated with actual violence against women, but I#m probably kink shaming again…

  4. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    So yeah, whatever your kink is, you have a moral duty to make sure it is not conflated with actual violence against women, but I’m probably kink shaming again…

    Nah. That’s not shaming the kink. That’s shaming careless practices that create (or strengthen) social barriers to aiding people being abused. I’ve got no problem with that.

  5. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    Ah. Sorry, then. Please dispense this internet hug from your USB port and a time and in a context where it would be welcome.

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