Skateboarding started more than 40 years ago and it originated from surfing in California. It was made popular by the Z-boys skate team in California. It started off with small competitions and pool jams until it gradually became well known by the 1980s by pro skater Natas Koupas. The sport became yet another thing America was known for. However, skateboarding has been given a bad name in society because many people say it is destructive, loud, and dangerous. Skateboarding is not a dangerous sport and it is not destructive in any way.

Some people just simply don’t understand the dynamics of skateboarding. It’s a lifestyle for some people and that’s what they love to do. For some, it’s their job to skate if they are sponsored. Unfortunately, security guards don’t let them do their job because in some public places it is illegal to skate. How are you supposed to make your living if there are people standing in your way? Skateboarding isn’t like baseball or any other sport. In baseball, you throw the ball, and you hit it, and that’s basically it. As pro skater Jerry Hsu said “If you skateboard, you can contribute to skateboarding by making things up and adding to it, and there’s so much personal style involved in it that you could look at a silhouette of a photo of a guy and you would know who it is… The artistic side of skateboarding, this is gonna sound corny, but its how you express yourself…” There is so much style and personality in this not only sport but lifestyle, and security guards and police are doing whatever is necessary to stop it.
There are the security guards that tell you to leave a certain “spot” or they will call the police. If you ignore them, they will call the police. Now punishment can range from being kicked out of a certain area, to a ticket of $100. Apparently, the NYPD consider skating somewhere your not supposed to more important that a parking ticket, which ranges from $35-$65, depending where you are. Skateboarding is not destructive because it is not hurting anyone around, nor is it destroying public property. The only reason police and guards tell us to leave is because they think skateboarding is very annoying and irritant to people around. Sometimes the police do abuse their powers as officers and that’s when things get really out of hand.

I remember about a year ago I was at a skating with some friends. All of a sudden, all we hear is “cops, run!” So we run. But me along with two of my friends ran the wrong way. We then just stopped and stood still until the police came to us because we didn’t do anything. The cops then take us. They threw us to the ground. Kicked us around, and hit us a couple of times. Then they put us against a wall, searched us, took our names down, and called our parents. The police beat us down when we didn’t even do anything. All they saw were a couple of skateboarders that weren’t supposed to be skating a certain place, so they took unnecessary action.
I hope, as do many other skateboarders, that security guards would stay inside in their nice cozy offices, and not tell us to leave because they think its their job. Doing this will make everyone happy. The guards don’t have to come outside and waste his or her time, and skaters can skate without being asked to leave. The police need to stop abusing their authority by harassing skaters, and making trouble for no reason. Skateboarders should be allowed to do their job, without having any trouble. I hope that one day skateboarders and authorities like the police and guards can stop considering themselves enemies, and we can skate in peace.