A lot of people, but neocons especially, have a hard time understanding why the public’s view of police officers has been degrading rapidly. They often try to blame the media for focusing too much on the bad things cops do and not enough time on the good things they do. Truth be told the biggest threat to the public’s view of police is police. If there weren’t so many bad cops doing bad things for the media to cover its influence would be minimal. But there seemingly isn’t a day that goes by where something like this hasn’t happened:
The handgun found near a teenager shot and killed by a Minneapolis police officer in 2006 could not have been carried by the teen, new court documents allege: It had last been in possession of police before it was found next to the body of Fong Lee.
Admittedly the Minneapolis Police Department is fairly well known for its corruption. That’s something it shares with the police departments of most sizable metropolitan areas. And therein lies the problem. Police departments in large cities seem to have a high rate of corruption, which means their corruption impacts a lot of people. It’s not that the media is necessarily covering the bad things police officers do; it’s that police departments continue to give the media bad things to cover.
Law enforcement agents are being more heavily scrutinized now than they have been in the past. This is a much needed trend since law enforcers have been acting (and still continue to act) with very little accountability. In addition to raising awareness of the dangers created by allowing law enforcers to act without accountability this trend has also given rise to two extremes. One extreme wants to see every law enforcer gunned down in the streets. The other extreme wants everybody to get down on their hands and knees to lick the boots of every law enforcer. While most people are asking what can be done to hold law enforcers accountable for their actions the two extremes are embroiled in a battle of rhetoric.
Neocons tend to lean towards the boot licker extreme. Scott Walker is a classic example of this. To prove his piety he typed an article claiming that law enforcers today are being targeted far more than law enforcers were when he was growing up. Because he’s running for president (at least I think he is, I can’t be bothered to remember all of the completely irrelevant Republican candidates) he had to blame Obama but even setting that point aside his claims are bullshit:
Walker was born in 1967. In a blog post a few months ago, my former intern Dan Wang looked at the fatality and homicide figures for police going back to the 1960s. Here are a few notable numbers he found:
“More officers were feloniously killed in the 11 years between 1970 and 1980 (1228 deaths) than in the 21 years between 1993 and 2013 (1182 deaths).” Walker would have been 3 in 1970 and 13 in 1980.
Between 1971 and 1975, when Walker would have been between age 4 and 8, an average of 125 police officers were feloniously killed per year. Between 2006 and 2010, the average was 50. In 2013, just 27 officers were feloniously killed. In 2014, it was 51. So far this year, the number of cops killed with firearms is down 16 percent from last year. Two of those officers were killed by other cops.
If you look at the rate at which cops are killed, the numbers are even more dramatic. There are quite a bit more police officers today than there were in the 1970s. So in 1975, for example, when Walker was 8, there were about 411,000 cops on the street, and 129 police officers were feloniously killed. That’s a rate of 31.38 murders per 100,000 officers. In 2013, the rate was about 5. Last year it was higher at 9.4, but that still means the rate was about 3.5 times higher than when Walker was growing up.*
To put those rates into perspective, consider the death rate for fishermen, the most dangerous job in America: 131 deaths per 100,000. Even if you factor in traffic fatalities and other accidents, policing isn’t among the 10 most dangerous jobs in America. Another way to look at these figures: The murder rate for police officers is about the same of the overall murder rate in cities such as Bakersfield, Calif.; Louisville; and Omaha.
The rate of assaults on police officers has been falling, too. So you can’t argue that cops are safer solely because they’re killing more criminals, or because they have better equipment (though there’s evidence that the latter has helped). People are just less likely to attack police today than they’ve been in the past. And that’s despite the increased public scrutiny.
Even with the much deserved increase in scrutiny being a police officer today isn’t nearly as dangerous as it was in decades past. In fact law enforcement isn’t even in the top 10 list of deadliest jobs. You’re more at risk being being an aircraft pilot than you are being a cop.
As an anarchist I don’t believe the State is a legitimate entity. Because of that I don’t believe the State has any business involving itself in law enforcement. I believe government law enforcement agencies; be they federal, state, or local; should be disbanded and replaced with market solutions. With that said, I don’t agree that police officers should be gunned down in cold blood. Many law enforcers should be charged with the crimes they’ve committed and forced to pay restitution. Some officers are almost certainly deserving of being declared outlaws. In other words justice, real justice, should be served. Murdering officers ensures justice won’t be served.
Licking their boots also ensures justice won’t be served. So long as a handful of people are given authority over everybody else, a concept I hope to see abolished someday, that handful should be scrutinized with extreme prejudice. Every action they take should be analyzed under a public microscope. Nothing they do in their official capacity should be private. Boot lickers whine that such transparency makes law enforcers’ jobs harder. Good! Their job should be hard. The second wielding authority becomes easy it gets abused. Justice can only be served if those tasked with providing it are subject to oversight.
Law enforcers have it too easy today. That needs to change. But gunning them down in cold blood isn’t the answer.
Police have been in overdrive expanding their pervasive surveillance apparatus. They want camera, cell phone interceptor, and license plate scanner coverage throughout the country. Just to enjoy the privilege of driving we’re required to submit our personal information, including home address, to the Department of Motor Vehicles so it can print it on a piece of plastic that we have to hand a police when they pull us over so they can check if there are any outstanding warrants. I don’t approve of this widespread surveillance but I do ask that they at least use the data they collect to ensure they storm the correct house when they’re on one of their domestic dog hunting excursions:
Returning home from her Monday evening walk, Tama Colson rounded the corner into her subdivision and saw DeKalb County police cars.
Then she heard the gunshots — and her neighbors’ anguish.
“I hear Leah screaming, I see Chris walking out, ‘They just shot me, they just shot me, and they killed my dog’,” Colson said Tuesday. “So I got him to lay down, took my shirt off and rendered first aid. And Chris just kept saying, ‘Why did they shoot me? Why did they shoot my dog?’”
Those are the key questions in the fourth controversial police shooting in DeKalb County in less than two years — an incident in which, according to authorities, officers responding to a burglary call went to the wrong home, shot the unarmed homeowner, killed his dog and wounded one of their own.
Admittedly shooting two innocents and one violent criminal is a better ratio that the police usually walk away with in these situations. But shooting the homeowner and the dog was criminal and charges should be filed. I would say shooting the cop was, if nothing else, bad form but the police are supposed to help homeowners defend against invaders so the shooting officer was technically doing his job.
More importantly this entire mess shouldn’t have happened. There is no excuse for having both a pervasive surveillance apparatus and raiding the wrong address. When officers are sent on a domestic dog hunting excursion the address should be displayed on a very obvious map (one using small words and basic colors so the city’s finest can understand it). Upon arriving at the address a picture of the home should be sent back to headquarters and checked against photographs already in the database. Then the officers should check their cell phone interceptor to ensure the phone they have associated with the target is at the address.
Obviously I say this halfheartedly. I don’t believe the police should be spying on us. I’m merely illustrating just of how incompetent wrong address raids are when considering all of the data law enforcement agents have available to double check they have the right place.
Last weekend Black Lives Matter marched on the Minnesota State Fair and held a protest. A lot of people are very worked up about this but I wasn’t there so the event didn’t impact me in the slightest. In addition to the protest itself some people are upset that some of the protesters were chanting “Pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon.” Was that phrase a call to kill cops or a clever play on words in context of an event well known for having every food you could imagine in fried form? I don’t know and I don’t care. But representative Tony Cornish cares very much:
Representative Tony Cornish is calling for an apology from the protest group Black Lives Matter for a chant made at the State Fair.
I haven’t written much about the activities of Black Lives Matter. From my point of view the organization is an inevitable reaction to decades of abuse perpetuated by those in authority. If you keep punching somebody you can’t cry foul when they finally retaliate. Since at least (but likely well before) the war on drugs law enforcement agents have been focusing more on generating revenue than protecting and serving the people. Revenue generation, in this case, means stealing wealth in the form of both assets (fines and civil forfeiture) and labor (prison labor). Black people have been far more frequent targets of this quest for revenue. This backlash shouldn’t surprise anybody. The only thing that should surprise anybody is that it has taken so long.
If anybody is owed an apology it’s the people who have been aggressed against by the police. Every nonviolent person who has been confined, extorted, beaten, or killed by agents of the State are the real victims. They’re the ones who have been wronged by the State and left without recourse because of the State’s monopolization of justice. Cornish is a retired police officer. He was one of those responsible for victimizing nonviolent individuals. Instead of demanding an apology he should be the one apologizing.
I haven’t discussed the event in McKinney, Texas because, sadly, stories of police abuse are so frequent that it’s hard to say anything new about them. But idiots rising to defend badged abusers have managed to piss me off enough to write a post. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the situation this video will explain everything:
Thank the gods for people who record the police.
The officer who threw the girl to the ground and kept her pinned is Eric Casebolt. He recently resigned from the force in the hopes of dodging any consequences for actions. That hardly seems necessary though when so many neocons are willing to rise to his defense. Believe it or not there are a lot of people justifying what Casebolt did.
What could possibly justify an officer rushing into a crowd of non-threatening teenagers, run around like a rabid dog, and toss an obviously unarmed girl to the ground? That depends on which idiot is defending him. One of the most common justifications given is the number of teenagers present.
Apparently there is some number, one that none of these abuse apologists will provide, of people present where an officer can transition from a calm and collected professional into a psychotic abuser. It doesn’t matter that the teenagers in the video are obviously non-threatening. It doesn’t matter that the attire of most of the teenagers, especially the girl thrown to the ground, makes it almost entirely impossible for them to conceal a weapon. The simple fact that there are so many of them gives the officer justification to abuse that girl according to these boot lickers.
A lot of abuse defenders have been making a point of the teenagers failing to cooperate with the officers. Failing to cooperate in this case must mean failing to kowtow immediately because none of the teenagers appear to be engaging the officers. Standing idly by as a psychotic nutball runs around screaming threats of violence is not failing to cooperate; it’s actually an exceptionally polite way to deal with the situation. Those teenagers had every right to tackle that officer to the ground as soon as he began assaulting that girl.
“Totality of the situation” is a phrase being favored by these boot lickers. What particular aspects of this situation when combined justify this situation? Who knows. I honestly suspect “totality of the situation” is code for “too many black youths being present” because I can’t see any justification for the violent displayed by the officer in that video.
Simply put, everybody who has been defending Casebolt is an idiot. They are the reason for this country has become a tyrannical police state. Coldbolt should be arrested and tried for assault just as anybody else not wearing a badge would have been in that situation. He should compensate the girl he assaulted an amount agreed upon by a jury because she is the victim and deserves redress. Unless the law applies to everybody equally and wrongs are expected to be righted as much as possible a society cannot consider itself free.
The Transportation Security Agency (TSA) was established shortly after the 9/11 attacks to provide better airplane security. At least that’s the official story. So far the TSA has proven to be incredibly incompetent at its job. Wannabe terrorists have managed to get explosives on board airplanes by hiding them in underwear and shoes. Fortunately the bombs failed to go off but not because of anything the TSA did. However even I never expected a failure rate this absurdly high:
A recent internal investigation by the Department of Homeland Security has found security failures at dozens of the nations’ busiest airports—breaches that allowed undercover investigators to smuggle weapons, fake explosives and other contraband through numerous checkpoints.
In one case, an alarm sounded, but even during a pat down, the screening officer failed to detect a fake plastic explosive taped to an undercover agent’s back. In all, so-called “Red Teams” of Homeland Security agents posing as passengers were able get weapons past Transportation Security Administration agents in 67 out of 70 tests — a 95 percent failure rate, according to agency officials.
A 95 percent failure rage? From a glass is half full perspective I guess the TSA will protect us from an average of five percent of terrorist attacks though!
Only a government agency could demonstrate this level of incompetence and still exist. Failing to fulfill your mandate 95 percent of the time requires shielding from liability that only the state can offer. Imagine hiring a private security guard who only stopped five percent of shoplifters. You’d toss his ass out in a second and maybe hire an investigator to see whether that guard was colluding with the shoplifters since that level of failure almost necessitates him being in on the scam.
The big question is what will come of this. My prediction is a whole lot of nothing. A few senators will use the investigation’s findings to do a big of grandstanding, the higher echelons of the TSA will get shuffled around a bit, and nothing noteworthy will change. I’m sure there will be several congressional grillings of high level TSA officials where we’ll hear excuses about lack of funding, inability to force people to go through body scanners (I’m sure the TSA would love to eliminate opt-outs), and agents not having full enforcement powers (TSA agents can’t arrest you and this really pisses many of them off). The congress critters doing the grillings will likely yell loudly, make some snide remarks, and little else. Air travelers will likely find themselves subjected to more draconian police state nonsense in the name of safety.
On the upside if you want to carry a firearm on board to protect yourself there’s a 95 percent chance you won’t get caught. Every storm cloud has its silver lining, I guess.
As policing in the United States continues its downward spiral into thuggery people are finally starting to fight back. More people are recording police encounters to hold officers accountable. Demands are being made in many major cities to curtail police powers. And in a few places people are actively interfering in police attempts at kidnapping. All of this has many of the more psychopathic officers upset:
Whatever the reason, Melbourne police are grateful that for the second time in recent weeks experience and training overcame fear as officers found themselves surrounded and assaulted by hostile anti-police crowds.
This Friday night, Lt. Steve Sadoff saw 22-year-old Phoenix Chansler Low coming out of the Main Street Pub with an open container.
“The officer told him to go back inside or get rid of it,” said Melbourne Police Commander Dan Lynch. “From there it went downhill. The subject was very intoxicated and he began fighting with the officer.”
The scary thing was what happened next. A crowd of people started closing in on Lt. Sadoff and he was attacked from behind, Lynch said. Sadoff used his taser to get Low off him, and it scared the crowd away long enough for him to radio for help and make the arrest.
The person who attacked Sadoff from behind got away.
The “touch on crime” crowd want you to focus on the fact that an officer was attacked and not the fact that the officer initiated the situation by getting in the face of a person who had performed no crime (carrying an open alcohol container outside of a bar does not involve a victim and is therefore not a crime). Had the officer let the patron be nothing would have happened.
“This is the second incident in the past few weeks where officers were making an arrest and the arrestee or people around attempted to interfere with the officer attempting to do his job,” Lynch said. “It is tremendously concerning to us. Every confrontation an officer has is an armed confrontation and the officers are trained to use the minimal amount of force necessary.”
No, this is the second incident in the past few weeks where people prevented officers from kidnapping somebody. People are getting fed up with unaccountable police officers kidnapping and shooting people who haven’t hurt anybody. Decades of little police accountability combine with officers who enjoy power trips has eroded the public’s faith in modern policing. Since they lack faith in the institution they are unwilling to cooperate with it. If officers are really becoming concerned about this trend then they should start taking measures to regain the public’s trust. That starts with refusing to enforce victimless crimes and actually using minimum necessary force to resolve situations (not just talking about it).
Officer safety is a huge concern for the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD). When you’re a cop you can never been too careful. For example, if you come across a 10 year-old boy at a protests can you be certain that kid isn’t going to rough you up? Of course not! That’s why you need to mace him:
Minneapolis authorities launched an investigation into police response during a downtown street protest that turned unruly Wednesday night in which chemical spray used by officers hit a 10-year-old boy.
Police Chief Janeé Harteau and Mayor Betsy Hodges called a news conference Thursday asking witnesses to come forward.
“It is critical for everyone involved that we complete a thorough investigation, so I need the public’s help,” the chief said. “We must have the full set of facts.”
I’m betting this is going to be another case of “we investigated ourselves and found that we did nothing wrong.” But this shows that the officers of the MPD are either so pathetic that they’re afraid of a 10 year-old boy or are so sadistic that they like to cause children great deals of pain.
Many people believe that police departments have only recently become corrupt cesspools. Others believe police departments have always been violent cesspools but pervasive cameras have allowed individuals to raise awareness of the problem. Either way it’s apparently that recording police interactions is absolutely necessary. To this end many departments have started mandating officers to wear body cameras when on duty. Although this could be a nice step in the right direction the two major problems with body cameras is that the officer wearing them can turn them off (and claim it malfunctioned) and the recorded footage remains under the control of the department. Even if every officer in the country wears a body camera I will still advocate what I’m going to advocate in this post: everybody should record every police interaction they come across.
It doesn’t matter if the police are interacting with you or you just happen to come across police interacting with other individuals; if you see cops interacting with people pull out your camera phone and start recording because that’s the only way shit like this gets noticed:
A Minneapolis police officer has been relieved of duty while his department investigates a profanity-laced video in which he apparently threatens to break the legs of a suspect if he attempts to escape.
The March incident was recorded on a camera phone by one of the young men being arrested in south Minneapolis. In the video, the unidentified officer can be heard telling the suspect: “Plain and simple, if you [expletive] with me, I’m gonna break your legs before you get a chance to run.”
Had the young man not recorded the interaction this claim would be nothing more than his word against the officer’s and we know courts tend to side with officers in such cases. The officer may not receive any punishment for his threat of violence, since officers usually get off scot-free, but the public now knows how this officer chooses to interact with people and that can help them better defend themselves against him. Videos like this are also important to raise awareness of the violence inherent in modern policing. Unless there is public outrage the problem will never be fixed and there won’t be public outrage so long as the public can keep lying to itself about the nature of modern policing.
If you come across a police interaction or are being threatened by police yourself make sure you record everything.
I haven’t spent any time discussing the death of Freddie Gray. Sadly the rate at which police officers kill people in this country is so high that it’s difficult to cover these incidents without feeling like you’re just repeating what you’ve said a thousand times before. But those wonderful neocons have given me something to sink my teeth in. Their love of “tough on crime” has, once again, lead them to dig up whatever excuse they can find to justify the officers’ actions. To this end they have latched onto Freddie’s rap sheet (read the comments for maximum face palm):
His arrest record includes at least 18 arrests:
March 20, 2015: Possession of a Controlled Dangerous Substance
March 13, 2015: Malicious destruction of property, second-degree assault
January 20, 2015: Fourth-degree burglary, trespassing
January 14, 2015: Possession of a controlled dangerous substance, possession of a controlled dangerous substance with intent to distribute
December 31, 2014: Possession of narcotics with intent to distribute
December 14, 2014: Possession of a controlled dangerous substance
August 31, 2014: Illegal gambling, trespassing
January 25, 2014: Possession of marijuana
September 28, 2013: Distribution of narcotics, unlawful possession of a controlled dangerous substance, second-degree assault, second-degree escape
April 13, 2012: Possession of a controlled dangerous substance with intent to distribute, unlawful possession of a controlled dangerous substance, violation of probation
July 16, 2008: Possession of a controlled dangerous substance, possession with intent to distribute
March 28, 2008: Unlawful possession of a controlled dangerous substance
March 14, 2008: Possession of a controlled dangerous substance with intent to manufacture and distribute
February 11, 2008: Unlawful possession of a controlled dangerous substance, possession of a controlled dangerous substance
August 29, 2007: Possession of a controlled dangerous substance with intent to distribute, violation of probation
August 28, 2007: Possession of marijuana
August 23, 2007: False statement to a peace officer, unlawful possession of a controlled dangerous substance
July 16, 2007: Possession of a controlled dangerous substance with intent to distribute, unlawful possession of a controlled dangerous substance (2 counts)
How is this information relevant to the case at hand? It’s not. Except to neocons. They tend to believe that once you’ve been found guilty of a crime, whether it be a real crime or a made up victimless “crime”, anything an officer does to you in the future is justified. Due process, you see, is not a thing neocons hold especially dear.
In their zealous attempt to smear Freddie’s character in order to justify what happened to him the neocons have failed to bring up the rap sheet of the officers who interacted with him. From what I’ve found the only thing Freddie did was run away from a gang of armed men with a history of violence. That’s just common sense. But officers, like dogs, tend to chase anything that runs away from them. When some officers caught up with Freddie they assaulted and then kidnapped him. Why? Because he was in possession of a switchblade, which is one of those victimless “crimes”.
Not only did the officers assault and kidnap Freddie but they almost certainly have a long history of kidnappings, extortion, assault, and armed robbery if not more. Their job description might as well be extort money from the populace and beat or murder anybody who fails to pay their protection money to the state. Freddie’s rap sheet is small potatoes compared to the rap sheet of the average officer “just doing their job.”
If you want to condemn rioters for destroying the property of people who had nothing to do with Freddie’s death that’s fine. But dragging out a dead man’s rap sheet while ignoring his kidnappers’ rap sheets in order to criticize people committing an entirely unrelated crime is not the proper way to make a valid argument.
