But let’s back up. I shouldn’t load all the scary things into one paragraph, let’s lay them out one by one so the fear can gestate. Man, that’s a dark sentiment. I guess I’ll focus on one scary thing, the police and possibly the fact that NWA was at times correct about their four letter statement towards them. Moving on we can start with the evolution of the police. To most of us these are the guys that force us to tap our brakes when driving on the highway and give us small heart attacks when they end up following you until the turn off or pass you. They are minor but necessary inconveniences in the grand scheme of things. But lately it seems the mentality of the police is a bit meaner, a bit more aggressive, more like a them versus us mentality. This manifests itself when cops seem to go out and look for trouble and force a confrontation. Cough** Andrew Zimmerman ** cough. Obviously an officer has the right to defend him or herself if they are in an ugly situation. And it’s hard for a person sitting comfortable behind a monitor to say what level of violence to use when meeting this danger. But there are specific steps and guidelines for use of force. It starts with a base level like your voice and conflict de-escalation. After then of course it immediate goes to your sidearm and deadly force. Or, well, maybe pepper spray, or a nightstick (still deadly but with a lower mortality rate that guns). But maybe this could be fixed with some better training around preventative measures and not creating, encouraging, or fostering an environment where the violence happens or escalates. Simply put, stop fucking making the situation worse until the only answer is shooting someone. If some idiot runs away because you scare them over an ounce of weed creating a deadly scenario is not in anyone’s best interest. Think of the paper work. Or that, you know, you killed someone over a small crime that a lot of people indulge in.
Think that scenario is a really overdoing it? No, killing a man by mistaking a colostomy bag for a conspicuous bulge in his pants, that is over the edge. Oh, yeah, the man who was 22 years old and had down syndrome. So someone who processes information at a slower rate was involved in a violent death with the cops where he, had done nothing wrong and had no weapon.
http://libertycrier.com/22-year-old-syndrome-beaten-police-bulge-pants-colostomy-bag/
So maybe that is a one off. That’s a pretty extreme example. But it happened. Maybe that might call for some severe turn around in training and behavior for the police departments across the nation. But we aren’t fighting just some policy it’s a mentality, a culture. A culture of violence and suppression. Cops violently attacking peaceful student activists? That happened in the sixties to national outcry and it’s been happening again. There is a meme of a police officer casually pepper spraying students who were sitting. I don’t know about you but I am not terrible dangerous when sitting on the ground without a weapon. I mean I could be singing some atrocious folk music or awful and pretentious poetry slam recitals whatever that is, but really that’s about the worst of it. I’m rather sure I have mentioned this gentleman, I hesitate to use that word but walking piece of excrement seems a tad judgmental, but he is worth mentioning as an enemy of decency.
I mentioned Zimmerman and the Trayvon Martin debacle which brings me to the somewhat horrifying stand your ground law. What this means is you can use lethal force with having to attempt to extricate yourself from a dangerous situation. You don’t need to attempt to leave. That seems kinda bad. If walking away stops the problem maybe you shouldn’t be allowed to shoot someone.
Oh, also stand your ground doesn’t seem to work all the time. Odd that a black woman using that same tactic went to jail. And yes, I am saying that there is racial motivation here. But that statement is made lightly as I think all things should be examined. It could be this lady is interpreting the law incorrectly and she should not be allowed to use deadly force in here circumstance, it could also be that it is easier to shoot to a black man and get away with it if you happen to not be black. But it doesn seem that Florida is its own little microcosm of fucked up.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/01/08/fla-mom-who-failed-in-bid-to-use-stand-your-ground-law-as-defense-faces-parole/
I am not in any way against the use of the proper amount of force. I am just questioning, strongly, the choices made. If someone stood in the way of me getting home to wife and I thought the only way out was violence that might kill the other person I would feel justified in doing so. I might hesitate, which could be disastrous, but once I committed I would go through that person and I would show little mercy. I think this an important distinction to make. I also think it’s important to note that no job of mine has required me to be in situation where this might happen.
Back to the police. My premise is that there is often a black and white mentality, an us (cops) versus them (criminals and suspects). And sometimes this isn’t bad. There are plenty of scum the cops have to deal with. But they are still people who deserve to be treated something resembling decency. Or then there is a time someone died in police custody over an allergy. This case is a man who turned himself in over a misdemeanor charge for pot possession. He died from a reaction to dairy, something that was brought up before he ate breakfast in jail. Someone he complained about for quite some time. Once being brought out for use of an inhaler. But then ignored later because they thought he might be faking it. Unsurprisingly after being ignored for some time he died. Inattention caused a young man to die a totally preventable death. But let us look at it from the side of the police. This is some fresh faced whiny kid wasting their time. He is there on a misdemeanor and they have other pressing matters they need to deal with. They already brought him out once and now he won’t quit wasting their time. He is just some brat who is probably faking it. Maybe so, but allergies are nothing to be ignored. I know people who are so sensitive just taking a bite and spiting it out may still lead to a hospital trip. And that indiscretion can’t be fixed.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/06/todays-drug-war-outrage-m_n_4225995.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
Or what about the whole knockless warrant thing? Those are warrants that allow for entry without notification. So the police do not have to identify themselves and can, and do, burst in weapons drawn making commotion. This proves to be problematic for several reasons. It is acceptable to react within this country violently to those that enter our homes in said fashion unannounced. If it was an armed burglary it would be acceptable to protect yourself in violent methods. It is also acceptable for a police officer once fired upon to fire back. You can see where this is going and has happened. People have their houses broken into, they don’t know it’s the cops. They fire back, then the cops who know have few options left after it has escalated to a firefight shoot and kill the homeowner. The cops have the right to fire back, I am not denying this. What would be nice is if the situation didn’t happen. The need for knockless warrants is over stated as these types of situations arrive from it. There is the occasional need for entry without stating you are cop and simply barging in but there are only so many places this is necessary. A drug bust is often not one of them. Drugs are not a good thing but it isn’t akin to violent crime. It only devolves to that because of search and seizure and America’s war on drugs. A war we are in no winning. A war that our neighbors are suffering for (look at what is happening in Latin and South America because of it), a war that is promoting street violence and a war that provides easy money for people with an ambiguous moral code. If you conjure up in your mind someone who is growing their own pot in their house that image most likely does not equate to an evil criminal mastermind. This is not a violent sociopath who needs several police officers to barge in announced in fear that stating their intention will cause harm or the subject will evade arrest. I posit that knockless warrants in many, if not most, cases create more harm than good.
There is also the extreme use of force in calling the swat teams for situation that do not necessitate that show of force. Seeing several well-armed and rather intimidating officers with large weapons pointed at you can cause many things besides simply unwanted bowel movements. Like, for instance, fatal heart attacks. Again I’m not saying SWAT teams are bad or unnecessary. That is a blatantly false assertion in my opinion. My opinion is that again these highly specialized teams are being over used for offenses and situations well below what I think is the necessary threshold to have such a reaction.
Violence begets violence. This is a rather simple truth. These are just a few examples of problems with unjustified force by police. So it’s a known problem which needs to be fixed. But is it simply a matter of implementing some better training. That would accomplish a lot I am sure but this entrenched culture can’t simply be shrugged off. It goes past training. It comes around to things like repercussions and making sure there can’t be easy cover up. You can’t simply allow an environment that does little to stop things planted evidence to justify a shooting or lying on the stand or falsification of records (he came in with that black eye and broken rib).
There is a way to accomplish this. And a town in California figured it out. Rialto, California has a new policy and its genius in its simplicity. Cameras. That’s it. A simple camera mounted to sunglasses. It can help the police as they now have video evidence of what happens and help the suspects as they now have video evidence of what going on. Having a camera switched on might make an officer think twice about excessive force. By might I mean it does.
“In the first year after the cameras were introduced here in February 2012, the number of complaints filed against officers fell by 88 percent compared with the previous 12 months. Use of force by officers fell by almost 60 percent over the same period.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/us/in-california-a-champion-for-police-cameras.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
The article also makes mention of the racial profiling made legal in the form of New York City’s ill-fated stop and frisk program. Something Bloomberg should be ashamed of but he is too busy trying to ruin fat and salt for people (not a terrible idea helping curb obesity just rather fascist in execution). It’s an interesting comparison. Our police departments are rather disparate in policy and behavior. If New York is encouraging random search and seizure while Rialto is putting pressure on their officers for more transparency. I hope we have more movement towards the Rialto way of thinking. It would be nice to feel you can trust a cop. It would be nice to think if them as bastions of public good. And then we can stop fucking the police and just have a nice cuddle, with hot cocoa in front of the fire and everything.
Ben
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Thanks for posting. You are awesome!