Police states 092814

In the wake of another police shooting of an unarmed Black teenager a small mid-west American town erupted into violence as the town's paramilitary police stormed into protesters.  Despite intervention by state and federal authorities the local police continue to fan the flames of public outrage.

There are calls for review of the Government's post 911 policies that equip police forces with armored vehicles and high tech military weapons.  Even some university police departments can now control students with armored vehicles just like at Tiananmen Square.  It is not the military arming of police that presents the problem.  The issue goes much deeper into a cultural sense that law enforcement is above the law and now has the weapons and authority to suppress all descent as a reactionary danger to their sense of good order.  As crime rates rose in the late 20th century the public looked the other way as police bent, and ignored laws, even inventing new legal interpretations.

According to news reports American police shoot about 1,000 people a year although only report about 400 officially to the Federal government. Of the official reporting the majority are claimed as justified.  Considering just the official figures, in the past 20 year "justified" police homicide rate has almost doubled.   There is concern over these figures, but the incidents of quick and massive firepower non-lethal response to minor infractions or mistaken targets is also growing. Official reports are manipulated to claim response to arch criminal activity.  Many of the cases are ultimately dismissed, some of the worst win large settlements from local taxpayers.  Police resort to victim and witness intimidation to cover up their bad behavior.  Police in one state even pushed a law through the legislature that makes it a crime to photograph their bad behavior.  The very people sworn to serve and protect victimize victims.   President Obama recently acknowledged the problem saying, "It makes folks who are victimized by crime and need strong policing reluctant to go to the police because they may not trust them."

Policing is a job of risk management; they are often in dangerous positions but going in with an attitude of shoot first and insure there is only one story to tell influences real bad guys to do the same.  It is probable that global law enforcement is the world's most corrupt occupation.  The majority of police are honest, hard working and dedicated except that almost all will spin the truth to protect the "Blue Wall."  Whole departments participate in cover ups until a public spotlight begins to focus on the corruption then a token is tossed to the public wolves, who once satiate lose interest until the next massive exposure.  Governments aid and abet cover-ups to protect their suppressive power, or a for fear of liability judgements or prosecutors' desire to win cases and elections.

Corruption is inherent in every closed culture.  It begins at recruitment, follows through training to the socialization within agencies where a few bad apples spoil the barrel. Once the barrel begins to smell a rookie understands, go along to get along, it is "US against them."  It is not the militarization of Law Enforcement that is the problem, rather it is the regeneration of a culture that fails to police itself and respect its oath to serve and protect.

1st add

Some September reporting:

 In Mississippi's Scott County civil liberties groups have filed a federal class-action lawsuit charging that inmates at the jail have been “indefinitely detained” and denied counsel, in violation of their constitutional rights. Legal experts say this is a widespread practice particularly in misdemeanor cases where prohibitive bail provides a way to insure punishment in weak or bogus cases.  A California Patrol Officer repeatedly punched a woman after throwing her to the ground.  Local authorities stated that the woman received no injuries but was place on a psychiatric hold for two weeks, possibly till the injuries healed.  Fortunately for the woman a passerby recorded the attack and she received a $1.5 million settlement.  A Los Angeles a man was shot and killed at a rally outside the Newton area police station.  A NYPD officer was filmed slamming a clearly pregnant woman to the ground then charged her with disorderly conduct and her husband with assault on an officer. In another recording an officer from the same precinct was shown kicking a street vendor. A California officer wearing a ski mask and gloves beat an innocent woman on the street with a baseball bat.  In Detroit an officer shot and killed a sleeping seven-year old girl after bursting through the wrong door, then attempted to cover up by charging the child's distraught grandmother. This force has been monitored by federal authorities for excessive force issues for more than a decade. A South Carolina patrol officer was caught on his own camera shooting a non-resisting man during a traffic stop. In an Ohio Wal-Mart police shot and killed a man talking on a cell phone while shopping for an obvious BB gun.  Police in Georgia shot and killed a man in handcuffs charging he had pulled a hidden gun.  Albuquerque had 26 police shootings in four years and federal authorities called many unjustified in a culture of police aggression.  A mentally ill prisoner died of thirst after 35 day in solitary confinement, NC authorities are stonewalling investigators, not the first such a case in the state's prisons.  A politically powerful New Mexico sheriff with a long record of misconduct charges was convicted of savagely beating a non-resisting driver. His office was already being investigated on bribery and corruption charges.  The police in Las Vegas arrested several people for chalking anti-police messages on a sidewalk out side a police station.  The police in one state managed to push a law through the legislature criminalizing protests or recording police actions. The only secret the Secret Service wants to protect is the secret of their bungling.  Police have been recorded repeatedly tasering children in elementary schools.  A Florida cop tasered a senior lady in the back for asking what all the police were doing in her neighborhood then arrested her.  Fortunately that incident was also caught on camera or she would now be wrestling alligators in some swamp work camp despite Florida's elder abuse protection laws.  Police militarization is almost complete as even rent-a-cops now look like Ninja commandos. 

Don't go out at night, if ever approached by a cop immediately assume a fetal position and loudly scream for a lawyer with a camera.  Everyday is a law enforcement Halloween trick, Happy thanksgiving, peace on earth, if not on your streets.

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