CelticBear’s Musings

I’ve said and I still believe, that police do a job I’m glad someone does and I could never do. (Sounds like a scene from “A Few Good Men”. I can handle the truth, let me tell you.) You can watch those cop/video shows on TV, browse YouTube, and see so many disturbing incidents of police on routine (and presumably legitimate) traffic stops getting attacked, shot at, ran into, usually because a criminal wants to escape justice but sometimes just because the guy’s a cop and a general “enemy” of the pycho punk. Police are the ones that have to respond to horrendous accidents, crimes, suicides, domestic issues. A lot of people are police (or at least begin their career) because they honestly want to protect and serve. And for all that, they deserve respect.

However… there’s a dark side to police that seems to be getting darker and more pronounced. And it’s a condition that is being fostered and promoted and nurtured first by the irrational “War on Drugs” mindset, and now by the “Protect the Homeland at all Costs” campaign. And a general attitude the last several years in which the Executive Branch of government and its law enforcement are above reproach, above the law, to be obeyed and feared. These collusions of mindsets and attitudes and cultures, I believe have led to a condition now where the police are becoming for like the SA and Gestapo. The War on Drugs campaign as helped militarize the police, making them an effective and brutal tool of the Justice Department as a form of civil military despite the Constitutional prohibition. The proliferation of “non-lethal” (which isn’t true) Tasers among the police have created a situation in which police feel allowed to electrocute first, as a way of establishing authority and gaining control, before properly assessing or dealing with a situation that does not require brutal and painful forced compliance.
Cops taser deaf man for not listening.
Shoot first; show compassion, intelligence, competency, later.

More recent events, such as Indiana SWAT team gassing and breaking into an apartment to apprehend and unresponsive fugitive–who was unresponsive because he wasn’t there. But they pretty effectively destroyed this working mother’s apartment and killed pets and made the place unlivable for the mother and her two kids. And when asked for some sort of renumeration or accounting or remedy for their actions, the mother was told by the police department, “Sorry. Go ahead and clean our mess.” Of course after being pressed on the issue by the press, the police finally broke down and told them mom…we’ll pay for your cleaning supplies you use to clean up our mess. No apologies, no attempts to help her find a place to live or pay for her having to find other living arrangements. No sense of responsibility for their actions. One Iraq war soldier who was home on leave witnessed their needless raid and said he couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t seen anything like it in Iraq. These cops looked like they were enjoying it.
Cops are such funny people. A real laugh riot.

This appearance of enjoying brutality is seen in so many stories of police violence against innocent people, often the victims of police mistakes and wrong information: “I asked if my baby was OK and the officer told me if I moved he was going to put a bullet in my head.”
The militarization of our police and raids gone wrong.
And sometimes when faced with the results of their occasionally fatal mistakes, they try to cover it up: Atlanta cops lied and Kathryn Johnston died.
Who is supervising the supervisor?

And if not for citizens and video cameras, and leaked dash-cams, so many of these incidents would never get known by the public:
An insane cop who shouldn’t be in his job.
Driver tasered for refusing to sign traffic ticket
But of course, police behaving badly don’t like this idea that the citizens who employ them can record their misdeeds:
Tasered and shot with a beanbag gun for videotaping warrantless police search
What do you think the result is going to be of this crossroads between citizen recordings and police misdeeds and brutality? When the police have the current Justice Department and the MP5′s and Tasers and riot gear, it’s hard to believe the citizens have any hope anymore.

But here’s the story that prompted me to write, again, on the subject:
When I first heard it a few days ago, I didn’t believe it. It couldn’t be true. It was too much. But, turns out, it’s factual:
♦ NY police train citizens to be bad samaritans
Basically, police have set up a “sting” in NY subway system, leaving a wallet or purse or bag in the open and waiting for someone to pick it up. Regardless of the reason. And then arresting them. And for felonies too, as they’re loaded with credit cards which elevates the “theft” from the usual misdemeanor.
Again, the point is, they’re arresting people regardless of the reason. And as you can read in the article and from the many article’s commenters, it’s the normal thing for a person who finds a purse or wallet and plans on returning it, to pick it up and take it away from the found location.

Police have changed from being public servants, to well-armed public predators. There was a time when I never thought a bad thing about police in general. Even after I was accosted for attempted shoplifting when I was 16 or 17 (and rightfully so–it was a completely dumbass and stupid thing for me to do, and for the cliched reason of trying to impress someone no less), I still had respect and appreciation for police. But the last few years of abuses and wanton disregard for law and order, the thuggery and arrogance and near sociopathic inability to show remorse or responsibility for their actions, have scarily made me distrust and dislike police out of hand. Instead of an immediate reflexive respect and appreciation whenever I think of the badge and uniform, the first thought and feeling that comes to mind now are Gestapo stormtroopers and fear and dread. That is not the kind of thoughts and feelings that a civilian (or even military) police force should foster in the citizenry.