Fraters Libertas

Our A.G.'s Daughters Can Beat Up Your A.G's Daughters (updated)

Daughters of Minnesota attorney general arrested in Chicago:

Two daughters of Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch assaulted police and broke a squad car window after a struggle at a Chicago dance club early Saturday, Chicago police said.

Elizabeth Bell Hatch, 22, and Anne Hatch, 21, are scheduled to appear May 5 in Cook County Court.

Taylor, the police spokeswoman, said that Elizabeth and Anne were intoxicated and that about 3 a.m., a club guard asked them to leave because "they were causing a disturbance, yelling and screaming" at a male patron. Police arrived shortly after the club called them.

Officers told the women that "they were no longer welcome at the club and needed to leave," Taylor said. The women refused, and a verbal and physical skirmish broke out between them and police, she said. Elizabeth charged an officer, raised her hands and struck him in the face, knocking off his glasses, Taylor said. Anne struggled with another officer and scratched his face, Taylor added.

UPDATE: Complaint filed against Chicago cops in arrest of Hatch's daughters:

The Police Department's Office of Professional Standards is trying to determine if officers used excessive force when they arrested two daughters of Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch.

Hatch says his daughters, Anne and Elizabeth, were both injured during an early morning altercation with police outside a Chicago nightclub this weekend. Those injuries included black eyes, cuts and a possible wrist fracture, Hatch said.

The two women were celebrating Anne's 21st birthday at the Crobar nightclub on the city's Near North Side when Elizabeth began arguing a man who allegedly groped her, Hatch said. Nightclub staff then asked the women to leave.

Once the sisters were outside, police told the women to leave the area and the two sisters began fighting with them, police said.

After they were taken into custody, the women allegedly kicked out the rear window of a squad car, police spokeswoman JoAnn Taylor said.

The daughters were released from a police station Saturday afternoon after being charged with misdemeanors including assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest and damaging a police car.

Consider the following scenario. JB Doubtless and myself, in the more reckless days of youth, are in a Chicago booze joint imbibing a few cocktails. Late in the evening there is a disagreement between one of us (I'll let you guess who) and another patron. We are asked to leave the premises. Instead we become belligerent and refuse to depart. Eventually we do end up outside, where the local constabulary advises us to call it a night. Again we are uncooperative, even going so far as to take a swing at one of the Windy City's finest.

The question at that point would not be if we would beaten to within inches of our lives, but rather how close we would come to slipping this mortal coil. At a minimum we'd facing the prospect of blood transfusions, full body casts, and weeks of gaining our nutritional sustenance through a straw. And we would have deserved just what we got.

Growing up as a man you learn a few simple lessons of life. If you lip off to guys who are bigger or stronger than you, you will (eventually) get your ass kicked. If you don't listen to bouncers who tell you to leave a bar, you will get your ass kicked. And if you mess with the police, you will most assuredly get your ass kicked.

On occasion these lessons are learned through personal (and painful) experience. More often they are learned when you witness those who violate these rules receiving a dose of brutish justice. Either way, you soon come to understand that actions, like ideas, have consequences.

But I have noticed a growing and disturbing trend of members of the fairer sex not quite grasping this concept. The "empowerment" of women has given many of them the notion that they are, and should be, the equals of men. They can work like men, play sports like men, sleep around like men, swear like men, drink like men, and behave foolishly in public like men. They want to act just like men. But they don't want to accept the consequences of their actions that men have to.

They want all the benefits and fun that behaving like a man can bring, without any of the responsibilities. When the music's playing and everyone is dancing they're all about being viewed and treated as equals. But when the fun stops and it's time to pay the piper, they suddenly retreat to the shelter of woman as helpless victim, deserving of special treatment because of their frailty and vulnerability.

Sorry ladies, but you can't have it both ways. You want to act like a man? Fine. Then you get treated like a man. In all respects. You can talk the talk. But you also have to walk the walk.