Tag: United Police States of America

Make Way for His Majesty

Hear ye, hear ye, all subjects of the realm. His majesty, our king, Barack Obama will be here in Minnesota for two days. In recognition of his gloriousness both parks that he’s speaking at will be entirely shutdown in addition to the roads he will grace with his presence:

For starters, access to the boat launch was shut down at 10 p.m. Wednesday. And starting early Friday, no boats will be allowed on the lake. That means people who have sailboats there won’t be allowed to access them.

A playground, a beach, the rose garden and trails will be closed, as well as the restaurant next to the Band Shell.

[…]

Obama arrives in the Twin Cities early Thursday afternoon and will take part in an invitation-only town hall about 2 p.m. at Minnehaha Park, which will also be essentially shut down. Several roads near both parks also will be closed.

That was me trying to poke a little fun at the fact that one man has the power to shutdown entire parks and inconvenience the people who are forced to pay for them. It’s annoying but not the end of the world. This part, well, this part crosses the line:

People who live near the Band Shell, where Obama will speak Friday, will have to be escorted to and from their homes that morning.

[…]

On Friday, police will escort homeowners on Queen Avenue S. between 40th Street and 42nd Street to and from their homes from early morning through the end of the event.

Every reader knows how I feel about violence. I abhor it. But if some piece of shit in a cheap suit thinks they are going to escort me to and from my home they’re going to get a rude awakening when my fist makes contact with their face. There are some lines you do not cross. Making me a prisoner in my own home and requiring me to beg for permission to come and go as I please is one of them. I will not tolerate such bullshit. Fortunately for the Secret Service I don’t live there because if I did I would make it a point to walk around my neighborhood without permission or an escort.

Welcome to the freest country on Earth.

They Just Want to Thump Some Skulls

Modern police departments have more in common with military forces than they do with security agencies. If you look at most private security providers they tend to have little in the way of riot gear, grenade launchers, and armored personnel carriers. But there are a lot of police departments with plenty of all three and much more. Likewise the strategies employed by the two organizations differ. Private security providers tend to be far less psychopathic because no business wants its customers harassed by a man with a badge every time they try to come in the store. Modern police departments often don’t bother knocking on the door before sending a battering ram and a flashbang through as a precursor to a full scale invasion.

As modern police departments become more militarized more people are becoming upset, which has lead to a few investigations. The Seattle Police Department has been under investigation for a while now due to its use of excessive force on minorities. This has lead to the department adopting new rules of engagement, which has made many of its officers unhappy:

(Reuters) – Seattle police officers filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday challenging new policies that restrict use of force, saying the rules endanger lives of both officers and civilians.

More than 120 officers have joined the lawsuit, which seeks a complete dismantling of a new use of force policy hammered out between the Seattle Police Department and the U.S. Department of Justice to stem an alleged pattern of excessive force.

The Seattle Police Department has been under federal monitoring since 2012, following an investigation into a series of incidents in which officers appeared to engage in excessive force, particularly against minorities.

I believe that modern police departments, due to the strategies they employ more commonly every day, attract a special type of person. Namely people who actually enjoy hurting other people. Because of this we have police departments that are filled with vicious men who get upset whenever their ability to hurt other people is hindered.

If these officers were actually concerned with helping people they would already be using the bare minimum amount of force necessary to resolve situations. There wouldn’t be multiple reports of excessive force as other officers would come down on any of their fellows that employed it. But excessive force is the norm so long as the words “officer safety” can be written on the report. Officer safety shouldn’t be the primary concern of a police department, the safety of community members should be.

In an ideal world an individual signing up to become a police officer would do so with the understanding that their job is to protect members of the community. That necessarily requires putting one’s own life on the line to protect others, not putting other’s lives on the line to protect one’s self. If that is an idea that disturbs an individual then they should find another job.

Schools Reflect Prisons More and More Everyday

American schools and prisons become more of a mirror image every day. Prisons now contain classrooms, art centers, computer labs, libraries, and other things we would expect to find in a school. Schools are now surrounded by chain link fencing, guards and metal detectors are posted at entrances, and students are prohibited from having mechanisms that could conceal anything that they’re carrying:

A New York high school is the latest in the nation to ban backpacks following several bomb threats, and has even taken extra steps, including sealing up students’ lockers.

For the last two weeks of the school year, students at Wantagh High School — located about 34 miles east of New York City — are being forced to carry their books and belongings in plastic bags, sign in and out to use the bathroom and submit to searches when entering the building. But the sealing up of lockers took school security to a new level.

When I was in high school there were whispers of backpack bans but they were similar to the whispers about instating school uniforms: they are brought up every now and then only to be shot down by people who aren’t completely stupid. But now, from my understanding, backpack bans aren’t unheard of but the sealing up of lockers is new to me. Depending on the school an average student may have anywhere from four to eight classes. Trying to lug around everything you need for those classes all day is annoying to say the least. But schools are often spend a great deal of time making students’ lives miserable while paying lip service to making a safe learning environment.

At this rate they might as well just house students in prisons.

Prussian Efficiency

Germany is well known for being an efficient country populated by efficient people. This is evident in many things the country does including policing:

German police officers fired a total of 85 bullets in 2011, 49 of which were warning shots, the German publication Der Spiegel reported. Officers fired 36 times at people, killing six and injuring 15. This is a slight decline from 2010, when seven people were killed and 17 injured. Ninety-six shots were fired in 2010.

Meanwhile, in the United States, The Atlantic reported that in April, 84 shots were fired at one murder suspect in Harlem, and another 90 at an unarmed man in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles police department alone requires as many rounds of ammunition to take down one suspect as the entire country of Germany requires for all of its police in an entire year. Talk about German efficiency (or American inefficiency).

But there’s more to this story than mere numbers. Those numbers indicate a potential cultural difference between German policing and American policing. German police appear to turn to the gun more as a last resort whereas American police turn to the gun whenever the magical phrase “officer safety” can be applied to a situation. One of my issues with modern policing in the United States is how quickly it usually turns to deadly force, armed no-knock raids, and general thuggery. The days when a couple of police officers would knock on your door, present a warrant, and arrest you are rapidly disappearing entirely. Instead those days are being replaced with an armed Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team kicking in your door at two in the morning, shooting whatever pets they see, and busting you up or shooting you before handcuffs are even brought out.

Other developed countries manage a less militant take on policing and haven’t fallen into chaos. Perhaps this is due to those countries still treating the police as a civilian peacekeeping force and not paramilitary forces. Either way our police could learn a thing or two from Germany’s police.

Assault Tattoo

Disproportionate responses are standard operating procedure for most law enforcement agencies these days. If an individual calls the police claiming that they saw a man with a gun the appropriate response would be to ask if that individual was acting in a threatening manner. That question never seems to get asked. Instead police will often toss logic to the wind, grab their toys, and head out to harass the subject of the call. That’s what happened to a man in Maine who wasn’t even carrying a gun:

NORRIDGEWOCK — Michael Smith went outside shirtless after being awakened Tuesday morning, yelling at a tree removal company to get off his property.

The workers thought they saw a gun in his waistband and called police.

Smith, who’d gone back to bed, was awakened again minutes later — this time by Maine State Police at his front door, backed up by a group of troopers with assault rifles in his driveway. They were asking him via a megaphone to come out of his house.

Smith did have a gun. It was tattooed on his stomach.

Because Smith was yelling at the tree removal service I can see where a claim of threatening behavior could be made. But even then an appropriate response would have been to send a couple of police officers to knock on Smith’s door and ask some questions. Loading up an entire group of troopers is overkill whether or not Smith had a real gun.

Officer safety has become the go to excuse for police agencies to act like paramilitary forces. Why did so many police officers have to be sent to respond to a call about a man who was merely through to be in possession of a gun? Because officer safety. Either that or I must assume that police officers think so poorly of their ability that they feel the only way they could win a potential gunfight is with overwhelming firepower.

Zero Accountability

The Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) has a colorful history involving a lot of abuses of power. Police departments abusing power isn’t something that surprises people these days as it’s incredibly common, especially in larger cities. But people often wonder why so much abuses takes place in modern police departments. I believe the answer lies in the lack of accountability modern police officers face. One of Minneapolis’s finest has a habit of beating people while off duty and two lawsuits filed against the department for his behavior have turned into payouts for the victims:

A judge’s order in a Minneapolis police brutality suit last week pushed the city’s bill to $410,653.33 for two lawsuits filed against police officer Michael Griffin.

The suits, one stemming from a 2010 incident and the other from 2011, both involve cases in which Griffin was off-duty and at downtown bars when he allegedly punched or kicked people who did not want to fight him. Three people were hospitalized as a result of the incidents, including one man who was unconscious and bleeding for more than five minutes, according to one of the lawsuits.

Griffin remains a patrol officer in the Fourth Precinct on the city’s North Side, according to a department spokesman. The status of an internal affairs review of the incidents was not immediately available Friday.

Notice two important points. First, the city is footing the bill. Although officer Griffin was the attacker in both cases the tax victims of Minneapolis are left paying for his violence. Mr. Griffin should be the one who has to pay his victims as he was the one who wronged them. Second, Mr. Griffin is still on active duty. The man has been found at fault for assaulting two people. He should not be allowed to remain in his position of authority.

But cases like this aren’t uncommon. Police officers are generally insulated from the consequences of their misdeeds. Cities often pay the bills of lawsuits stemming from police abuses cases and officers found guilty of wrongdoing often remain employed by the department. This insulation from wrongdoing means officers often face no consequence when they abuse their power. If one doesn’t suffer consequences for abusing power they are more likely to abuse power.

I believe making officers personally responsible for their actions would do a lot to reduce abuses of power performed by police in this country.

Answering the Door When Psychopaths Come Knocking is a Bad Idea

Answering the door when psychopaths come knocking is never a good idea. But sometimes it’s unavoidable so I’m going to give a few tips for dealing with such a situation.

The first thing to do is identify whether or not the person knocking is a psychopath. Identifying a psychopath isn’t always easy but some of them make their mental disorder obvious. If the person knocking at the door is wearing a state issued costume that includes a shiny badge that is your first indication that the person is likely a psychopath. Oftentimes these costume-clad individuals will be carrying various weapons. It’s crucial to determine whether or not the weapons being carried are holstered or aimed at the door. In the case of the latter it’s best not to answer.

But you may be forced to answer. In such a case there are some tips you should keep in mind. The very first thing you should do is hide any dogs that you may have in the house. Psychopaths of the badged variety have a propensity to shoot dogs. It’s also a good idea to hide any friends of family members who may be over because the lack of K9 targets may cause the psychopaths at the door to seek human blood instead. After all living creatures have been hidden away make sure you have nothing in your hands. Don’t answer the door with a drink, a sandwich, or a game controller in your hand:

EUHARLEE, Ga. – An attorney representing the family of a 17-year-old Georgia boy who was shot and killed by a police officer says the boy was holding a video game controller when he was shot after opening his door.

Christopher Roupe was fatally shot in the chest Friday, Feb. 14 when Euharlee officers showed up at the door of his mobile home to serve a probation violation warrant for the boy’s father, WSB-TV reports. A female officer reportedly told the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that Roupe pointed a gun at her after he opened the door.

But the family’s attorney, Cole Law, said the boy was holding a Nintendo Wii video game controller, and was about to watch a movie.

What makes these situations worse is that the badged nutcases are considered trusted authority figures by the state. That means several novel-length legal books exist excusing this type of behavior and granting these badged thugs the authority to kick in your door if you don’t answer it (and sometimes they can kick it in if you do try to answer it). Heed the advice given above and you may survive one of these encounters.

You Can’t Own Property, Man

Private property is often held up as one of the founding principles of the United States. But private property doesn’t exist, the state owns all property. This is why armed thugs with badges can order you to evacuate your home and then occupy and ransack it:

Franz said it all started shortly after overhearing a fight at her neighbor’s house across the street Sunday. A short time later, the SWAT team swarmed her neighborhood.

“The cop goes ‘You all need to leave, you can’t be in your house,'” said Franz.

That happened around 1 p.m. About six hours later, deputies cleared the scene and she went back home. But something was off when she walked through the door.

“I stopped, I froze because I realized somebody had messed with my TV,” said Franz.

Franz said her blinds were opened, her Xbox and TV were disconnected, and a drape over her bedroom window was thrown on the floor.

At first she thought it was a burglar but then realized nothing was missing.

[…]

Franz said she called the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office to complain.

“He did call me back and he said ‘Yeah Ms. Franz my men did come in your house,'” said Franz.

What else could Franz have done? Had she refused to leave the SWAT officers would likely have kidnapped her or executed her on the spot. Legally speaking there probably isn’t much she can do since, as the story points out, there are exceptions to the warrant requirement for officers entering a home. Those exceptions aren’t clear cut and the police typically get off without punishment even when they do something illegal.

This story further reinforces the lesson that the state owns all property and we’re simply allowed to rent some of it. The second we fail to pay our rent, err, property tax or a costume-clad thug with a badge wants it we must either leave or face the state’s violence.

Increasing the Flow Through the School-Prison Pipeline

The 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution didn’t abolish slavery regardless of what many believe. What it did was change the rules. Criteria for who can and cannot be used as a slave is no longer based entirely on skin color, although it often plays out that way. Instead the primary criteria is whether or not an individual has been given the arbitrary label of criminal. With the slave labor pool dropping something has to be done to keep Federal Prison Industries and Corrections Corporation of America stocked with workers.

Schools in Minnesota, and most likely their slave labor employing partner MINNCOR, are looking at an innovative new way to get those numbers back up. The experiment involves drug testing children in schools:

School administrators in Duluth are talking about testing students randomly for drugs.

Educators say parent and student input would be gathered if the idea moves forward.

Parent Deb Johnson tells KSTP’s sister station WDIO-TV she’s in favor of the tests because it would likely curb the drug problem in the high schools. Johnson is president of the Duluth East Parent-Teacher-Student Association. She expects some resistance to the idea.

Since every activity an adult can possible consider doing is effectively illegal in this country the only way to increase the flow of laborers into the prison system is to either increase enforcement or criminalize children. Increasing enforcement costs money and requires more badged thugs. Criminalizing children is much easier because the population is mostly captive. This is probably why more states have been trying to open the school-prison pipeline wider. Testing adults for drugs is slightly more difficult than testing children for drugs because adults have the right to refuse. Children, on the other hand, are given no legal opportunity to refuse any order given by a school administrator.

I’m sure many people, like Deb Johnson, will approve of drug testing children. They will approve of this because they perceive that a drug problem exists and believe drug testing will fix that problem. In reality this is a case where the “fix” is worse than the “problem”. In all likelihood any kid who tests positive for drug use will find him or herself brought up on charges. What may have been a youthful indiscretion would turn into a lifelong punishment.

Finding a job is extremely difficult when you have anything on your criminal record. It’s one of the reasons I believe the recidivism rate is so high in the United States. After getting out of prison an individual has a difficult time getting a job so they return to crime in order to survive. By charging children with a drug offense they are effectively guaranteed a lifetime of hardship in regards to finding a job. While many people may claim that this is a good reason for kids not to do drugs we need to be honest and admit that children suck at long term planning. That’s part of the reason we don’t trust them with real responsibility. So hitting them with a lifelong punishment is nothing short of absurd. But that’s most likely what will come of these drug tests.

I find it sick that the schools are even thinking about doing this and I find it even sicker that many people will actually approve of this.

We’re All Criminals Now

This post is for all of those people who believe this country needs to be tough on crime. While severely punishing criminals sounds like an effective idea the problem with such an attitude is that we’re all criminals. There are over two centuries of laws on the books at a federal level. Hawaii, the newest state in the United States, has over half a century of laws on the books while every other state has even more. It’s not just the laws that make us criminals but previous court decisions also create more criminals. In fact nearly 50 percent of black males and 40 percent of white males are arrested before they reach 23 years of age:

A large number of American men have already been arrested by the time they’re in their early 20s, according to a new report.

The study, published on Monday in the journal Crime & Delinquency, found that nearly half (49 percent) of African-American men and 40 percent of white men have been arrested by the age of 23, “which can hurt their ability to find work, go to school and participate fully in their communities,” according to a press release.

When everybody is a criminal the label criminal loses its meaning. That’s the point we’re at in our society. The average American unknowingly commits three felonies a day. If we became tough on crime or enforced the laws already on the books every single one of us would be in a cage.

This is something you should consider the next time one of your friends or a politician blabbers on about the need to be tougher on crime.