Yesterday afternoon, I came across a couple of epic bodycam videos on YouTube. Both situations involved US citizens who were incredibly rude and disrespectful to other people. Whenever I see these kinds of things on YouTube, I’m left wondering what led to these folks behaving the way they do.
I understand that people usually start off life as total innocents. Then, as they get older, shit starts to happen. The shit can turn into something that makes them evolve into shitty people… or just people who act out in very inappropriate ways. Then I start wondering what it’s like for the people who are regularly in their lives.
This morning, I got a comment from a new visitor to my blog. This person had found a review I had written for a true crime book about Frederick “West” Greene and Michael Jervey, two men from Franklin, Virginia who murdered a classmate over an insult back in 1990. I only know about the case myself because a college friend is from Franklin and knew the people involved in the case. In fact, she brought West to our college once. I met him. Then, not long after that, it came out that he and his high school friend had brutally murdered another student at their high school. They kept the crime a secret for a couple of years.
The person who wrote to me today claimed to have had a relationship with West after he was paroled. In their comment, they requested that fellow readers “spare judgments” about the relationship. I have no problem doing that. I have pointed out many times in this blog that pretty much everyone has someone in their lives who loves them, in spite of what they’ve done. Even Josh Duggar has family who care about his well-being. So, it stands to reason that even people who have committed murders also have people who love them, for whatever reason. Many parents love their kids, for instance… no matter what evil they do.
Anyway, this post isn’t meant to be about Josh Duggar or West Greene. This post is about two bodycam videos I saw yesterday. Neither case involved murder or sex crimes, but they did involve people who didn’t appear to be very lovable at all. And yet, both women in these videos did have people who cared enough about them to help when they got arrested and acted like totally out of control worst nightmares.
I’ll start with the shorter video.
The comments about Dena Craig are pretty vicious. Lots of people write that they would never want Dena around the grandchildren again. As I watch her rant and rave about fast food, complaining that the fast food worker was “crying” about being hit with a hamburger, I can’t help but marvel at the massive sense of entitlement. It’s true that the worker wasn’t hurt when she got hit with the burger. But Dena’s conduct, as well as her husband, Marlon’s actions, are just unacceptable. If she acts like this in public, what must she be like at home? And what led up to this behavior?
In my experience, a lot of people who do crazy things like hurl hamburgers at strangers have a history of abuse. Some of them also have character disorders. There must have been a time when Dena was calm and charming enough to be attractive to another person. That’s why she’s a wife, mother, and grandmother, whose kids care enough to come down to the Wendy’s to deal with her. But I also have a feeling that this behavior isn’t unusual for her… and many innocent people have had to be on the receiving end of her tirades and bullying.
I would like to offer hearty congratulations and praise to the Wendy’s workers who called the police. There’s no telling how many people Dena has victimized with her over-the-top reactions to minor issues. I wouldn’t expect Dena to go to jail for a long time for throwing a burger at someone, but she does need some consequences for acting like this. I suspect she also has some very real mental health issues that need to be addressed.
I thought Dena’s case was pretty egregious. I mean, on one level, it’s a little funny… and a bit tragic. She got put in handcuffs for throwing fast food at someone who is paid very little to take her abuse. But I hadn’t seen anything yet. The next video I saw made Dena Craig and her husband look like devoted members of the church choir.
Behold…
I don’t usually have the patience to sit through super long bodycam videos. However, Jaime Granger’s case was one rare traffic stop video that captured my attention for almost two hours. I’m serious, folks. This was about two solid hours jam packed with jaw dropping action. It had everything from a dramatic bust, to an ambulance ride, to kicking and screaming and totally defiant behavior. Jaime cursed, lied, bit, spit, kicked, threatened, barked, manipulated, cried, and demanded… and yet, somehow, she never ended up in a restraint chair.
I don’t usually like the way many American cops behave, but I have to tip my hat to the state police officers in New Mexico for not knocking the hell out of Jaime. It’s not that I would condone them beating her up, but I think I could understand feeling the urge to smack her a few times… There are instances in the above video when the cops are actually kind and compassionate toward Jaime, who goes from being distraught and pathetic, to overbearing and demanding, at the simple drop of a hat.
When Jaime is first apprehended, she’s in a bathroom stall. She had been in there peeing, I guess. A cop busted the stall door down and arrested her, at first using language that I didn’t find professional or appropriate. But then, it quickly becomes apparent that Jaime pretty much deserves being sworn at, at the very least.
The most disgusting part of the video, for me, at least, is when Jaime falsely accuses the cops of raping her. It’s not that I don’t think a woman like Jaime can be raped. Rape, for the most part, isn’t a crime about sexual gratification as it is about power, intimidation, and humiliation. A lot of people were commenting that Jaime is too unattractive to be sexually violated. That’s not true. Physical attraction has little to do with that particular crime.
However, Jaime wasn’t assaulted by the police. She may have felt threatened, and it’s my guess that in the past, someone probably did victimize her in some way. She doesn’t appear to be someone with much self respect, and a lot of times, people with no self respect lash out at others.
Again, it appears that Jaime has someone in her life who cares about her. She mentions her boyfriend, David, over and over again. Later, when she’s at the jail, one of the officers tells her that David has already called them about her. I only wonder what David has to deal with behind closed doors, especially when Jaime drinks.
Later in the video, when the cops decide to have Jaime medically evaluated due to her high blood pressure, the paramedics come to take her to the hospital. She is combative and uncooperative to them, to the point at which they kick her out of the ambulance and she’s forced to ride to the hospital in the back of a cop car. The whole time, she’s yelling and screaming, denying that she did anything wrong, and being totally repulsive. And yet, in spite of her atrocious behavior, the police are mostly respectful and professional, and they somehow manage to avoid clocking her in the face during her super long, non-stop temper tantrum. You can see that this case must have taken over half a shift for the cop who arrested her, as the sun goes down while she’s being processed.
In the end, Jaime took a plea deal…
I don’t know what Jaime’s ultimate punishment was in the wake of the incident from December 2021. I noticed that a lot of commenters on YouTube had very little compassion for her. I can certainly understand why they feel that way. However, I bet there are reasons why Jaime behaves the way she does… reasons that are just terrible. That doesn’t excuse her atrocious conduct, of course, but maybe it could offer an explanation.
I notice that I never see videos like these in Germany. It might be because Germans are much more private than most Americans are, and there are strict privacy laws here, at least involving crime. Even people who have committed horrific crimes have the right to have their faces hidden and names obscured. This is supposedly so they can recover from infamy. But I also don’t think most Germans act this way. Here, it seems like people are more passive aggressive than overtly hostile and crazy.
Anyway… I just felt like writing about this today… because these videos definitely blew my mind. It’s kind of embarrassing and depressing to observe how Americans act on bodycam footage. The longer I live outside of the United States, they more I can see why so many non-Americans think our culture is so completely fucked up on so many levels.
I used to resent foreigners’ negative comments about the United States, its government, its people, and its policies (especially its foreign policies and military operations overseas). I was, of course, much younger, naive, and (mostly) thought that we Americans were the “good guys.”
I wasn’t as jingoistic or blind to America’s problems (particularly those caused by the racial divide) as your average MAGA cult member, but I was far more conservative than I am now. As late as 1988, I voted mostly Republican, and one of the few arguments that I had with my Spanish flatmate in Seville started because I’d voted for George H. W. Bush (via absentee ballot) in that year’s Presidential election.
I still remember some of the most pointed criticisms about Americans that I heard from folks who don’t live in the U.S. and don’t buy into the “American exceptionalism” myth. They include:
1. Uninterest in what goes on outside the United States
2. Disrespect for other countries/nationalities
3. Unwarranted arrogance
4. Provincial outlook about politics
5. Poorly educated on average
6. Hypocrites: “Americans express lofty ideals – ‘Liberty and justice for all,’ ‘all men are created equal,’ – yet don’t live up to their own beliefs.”
I still love my country of birth, but I wish that my book sales would “go viral” so I could afford to move to Europe. It’s getting crazier here!
I really think that if more people from the USA visited other countries or even lived there awhile, maybe our population would be less ignorant. But these cases I have written about today certainly don’t make a very good case for Americans.
De acuerdo. 🙂
A lot of these people are very entitled. Be glad you aren’t waitressing any more. I saw it in the hotel. Everyone seems to think they deserve the best and shouldn’t have to pay for it. And many (white) Americans seem to think they should be able to break the law and have zero consequences. The fast food one galls me because my son works at McD’s. We are lucky the managers and staff there go out of their way to protect him, but he’s had to deal with people yelling at him for things he has no control over. Even if there is a mistake, isn’t it better to be nice about it? These workers don’t go to work thinking about how they can mess up a customers’ day.
I totally agree. When I waited tables, it always amazed me when people acted like I gave them “bad service” on purpose. Sometimes shit happens.
I also agree with the opinion that these folks have an entitled attitude, but I think the reason a lot of people act *this* badly is because they were treated badly when they were unable to fight back. It’s also why a lot of people drink to excess, which also causes them to act so badly.
The second woman is just horrible. They’re both bad, but she’s much worse.
I am wondering about the mental state of many of these people. Some as you say may have personality disorders that are more or less permanent fixtures on their personalities. However, what I think is even more common are mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, delusional disorder, which can make someone paranoid, hostile, acting very uncooperative and entitled, etc., temporarily. I have definitely seen fellow Swedes acting very entitled and violent but I tend to think of them as sick, and that there is something wrong with them. However, you don’t film this and put this on internet but here in the US you do.
On the other hand. I think it is also true that many Americans have a sense of entitlement. An example is the Trumpers. An insane and entitled billionaire who does not respect the law and who is obviously unfit to lead the country, and above all who is deeply divisive. Despite that many people support him precisely because he is divisive and disrespects the rights of the other half of the country. As I see everyday in my mailbox his supporters think of themselves as “the real Americans”, the rest of the world doesn’t count. Well, “we the real Americans” that’s what the mail and texts says. They also know better than all the scienists in the world. That is a sense of entitlement that may not end up on videos from McDonald but it effects everyone.
Honestly, I think a lot of Trump supporters have fallen into cult thinking. They have deluded themselves into thinking he cares about them and can save America… or that he even wants to do that. They don’t see that Trump is really only interested in himself. Even those who do see it, don’t get why it’s a huge problem. A lot of those folks never studied history, I guess.
I think the woman in the second video has a serious alcohol problem, and that may have been brought about by child abuse in her past. I don’t condone her behavior at all, of course. But I have see it before, and to me, it looks like she has a mental health issue. But, I could be wrong.
Either way, I feel sorry for those who have to deal with her.
Both women are batshit crazy, though you’re right that Jaime Granger is in a league of her own.
I wonder how she is when she’s sober…