That seems to be the way it is, now, when heavily-armed cops are raiding the homes of drug users (not "dealers") and shooting the inhabitants. Or if not that, they use SWAT teams to gun down someone whose crime was placing illegal bets. Let me emphasize that: He was not a bookie, all he was doing was placing bets on sporting events.
In the second shooting, the cop said his gun "accidentally went off", which begs the question why he was pointing a weapon at a barefooted unarmed man in the first place. (Agreeing to pay $2 million in a settlement is a pretty good admission of fault by the county.)
As far as the cops are concerned, they might as well be on patrol in Helmand Province: We are all suspected of being the enemy and they will gun us all down with little or no provocation.
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But that's how the majority of Americans like it -- they *want* to live in a police state where the police are judge, jury, and executioner. It's a lot less messy than that "law" stuff with its "due process" and courts and things, and most of the people being executed by the cops are "those" people (for some group of people *not* like their fat white Christian ass), so ...
Democracy is the notion that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. That is, alas, what we're seeing with our police forces. It won't be until the cops start executing fat white Christians that the majority of Americans decide that they no longer want a police state... and at that point, will it matter anymore what the majority want?
- Badtux the Sovok Penguin
Most cops despise bad cops more than you do, and most police shootings are justified. Unfortunately, bad cops are hard to get rid of (kind of like bad teachers) unless they do something phenomenally stupid, and get caught. Sadly, stupidity often results in tragedy. It's a very old story.
Irony:
http://cacopwife.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-thoughts.html
Yep. Call me a radical moderate.
With the increasing number of dead "suspects" for non capitol crimes, the police should just publish a weregild rate sheet for shootings so people would know what they are worth in the grand scheme of life.
Suz, and yet, it seems to me that the cops don't try very hard to get rid of their own bad apples.
The rank-an-file try, but admin sweeps it under the rug; bad PR, ya know. If it looks like they've hired morons, well-paid heads will roll. Better (for admin) to turn a blind eye and hope nobody notices. It's a numbers game. When it does come out, the guys who get thrown under the bus are usually the same guys who've been complaining about the morons all along. Yes, it's a fucked up system, but that's politics for ya.
Politics, yes, Suz. But politics because the majority of the public "supports their police". You should see the comments section on any YouTube video showing clear police brutality, for example... it's just *covered* with comments saying "good for the cop, the XYZ had it coming!".
Like I said, it's not until fat white well-off Christians start getting executed that the general public will change their mind on this. Until then... well. Enjoy your police state, comrades.
- Badtux the Sovok Penguin
City Manager in my town wanted to lay off a couple of cops because of the budget, police family's started picketing city hall, council caved and found the money to retain the cops.
Today the council fired the City Manager and appointed the Chief of Police as the city manager.
And people thought I was *joking* when I said "Welcome to your police state, comrades"?!
- Badtux the Sovok Penguin
BadTux,
I can't disagree with what you've said. However (you knew that was coming, didn't you?) A police state is the least of our worries if YouTube commenters speak for the majority. Also, if you follow police web sites, you'll find that the majority of cop commenters CRUCIFY bad cops, and are glad to see them get caught and fired/prosecuted. Most cops are good cops, and they hate the bad apples who make the profession look bad in the eyes of decent people like you.
And in case you're wondering, yes I have cops in my family. I support cops AND I hold them to a higher standard, because of the power we give them. The vast majority of them don't abuse that power, but you'd never know that watching YouTube and TV news.
Suz, all I have to say is that bullshit talks, real men walk the walk. If good cops hate bad cops, then they need to do something about it, rather than trying to cover up for bad cops. They don't, thus I conclude that they're just talking bullshit.
Go watch the YouTube videos of Oscar Grant being executed by Johannes Mehserle. Not for the actions of Mehserle or Grant, but for what happened afterwards. All the cops standing around didn't slap Mehserle into cuffs and arrest him. No. They instead looked at each other with wide eyes like, "oh shit, the kid stepped into it this time", then frantically tried to grab all the cell phones that were taking video so that they could be "lost" as part of the cover-up of the crime. Luckily the train pulled out of the station and thus the attempt was unsuccessful, or it would have turned out like the *last* BART cop killing, where the dude was shot in the back with a shotgun and the BART cop testi-lied that the dude he killed -- who witnesses said was running away as fast as feets would carry him -- made a "threatening move". Without video to disprove this, he skated free and clear.
As for YouTube commentators, commentary at other forums that cater to the general public, such as on newspaper web sites, is similarly skewed. Go read the commentary on *any* major media site after a shoot like this. It's all skewed towards "the dead dude got what he deserved." Even a good portion of the supposedly liberal San Francisco Chronicle's readership subscribes to that notion...
Finally, I checked out a couple of cop sites after Oscar Grant was killed. By and large, the majority of the cops there basically were, like, "eh, mistakes happen." The most strident critics merely said, "Mehserle is an incompetent cop and ought to be fired" (but Mehserle beat them to it and resigned instead so that he wouldn't be forced to testify against himself before a police inquiry board). *NONE* of them supported what was eventually done -- an arrest and trial that eventually ended up with Mehserle being convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sent to jail for two years...
So I say to you, if you decry "bad apples" but don't want anything done to them, what does that make you other than a hypocritical bullshit artist?
- Badtux the No-BS Penguin
Why would Mershele be afraid of testifying before an inquiry board, when he'd already admitted to what he'd done? If you're right about corruption, wasn't an inquiry board his safest bet? He quit because he knew he'd made a career-ending mistake, and he knew he would likely end up with a felony conviction. Why go through a costly fight? Merhsele was convicted appropriately, but it was not a case of brutality; it was a mistake. It was clearly shown that he thought he was grabbing his taser. No excuse; he killed a man he was attempting to restrain. He is a poor example of a "bad cop." There was a lot of sympathy and emotional support for him because cops know they could all make the same mistake. Look a little deeper, check out comments in cases of brutality. Yeah, cops understand the intense emotions that triggers bad behavior, but they tend to deplore the behavior. And of course they didn't cuff and arrest Mershele. Had he been resisting or fleeing, they would have. It's standard procedure, and it's not hypocritical; the reason for cuffing and jailing violent suspects is to remove an immediate menace, which he clearly was not. While police shootings are not immediately treated like crimes, they are usually investigated more thoroughly, and by more people than any other shootings. It's nearly impossible to hide the truth for long, as plenty of whistleblowers learn to be very sneaky.
Are you certain of the motives of every cop who was "collecting video evidence" at the BART scene. You could tell by their faces that they were all thinking,"Oh my God, we have to cover this up!," and not "Oh my God, my friend just shot an innocent man!"?
As I said previously, most cops DO want to get rid of the bad apples. When they try, they get pressure from above to STFU. Then they get demoted or reassigned, and can't do anything. The best cops are (mostly) the ones you meet on the street. The worst cops are in administration. They'd rather cover up what they can, and have bad morale, than fire a few bad cops; If they admit to having a few bad cops, the public will assume that the whole department is bad. (Gee, I wonder why.) Then they lose their cushy jobs because they look incompetent. Ironic, isn't it? Just like in any other organization: Managers who own their mistakes and fix them, get criticism, managers who hide their mistakes and let them grow, get promoted for their "clean" records.
Politics, plain and simple. The only solution is oversight by informed citizens, and transparency. Sadly, most citizens are poorly informed, and accept the views of either blind devotees or paranoid detractors. Good and bad, we get the cops we deserve.
Suz, I am siding with BadTux on this.
I know of a case (because it was handled where I once worked) of a guy who was standing on his front porch. He used his cell phone to record an incident with the Boston PD where three cops were roughing up a man they had stopped.
Two of the cops took his cell phone. the next day, he called to the local cop shop to ask about getting his phone back. They said "what cell phone?" He called IA and eventually got a letter back that, boiled down, said "what cell phone?"
I know full well it happens, but with a minority of cops. I know a lot of cops across the country, in departments of all sizes and demographics. Most of them hate the corruption, and stop it when they can, but they know they can't help anybody at all if they get fired for whistleblowing. Their jobs are a non-stop balancing act. "What can I afford it ignore vs. when do I have to risk everything?" What would happen if all the good cops quit in frustration? Believe me, many already have.
Now THIS http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jan/9/police-2-dead-including-police-officer-baltimore-c/ is a case that bears very close scrutiny...
In this area in the last few years, at least two black cops were shot and killed by white cops in incidents that were nothing more than "Black guy with gun-- open fire" incidents.
Incidents where white cops in plain clothes were shot by other cops-- zero.
Suz, none of what you have written about "the good cops are unable to do anything about the bad cops" addresses the point in the post about the militarization of the police.
Why are SWAT teams used for routine arrests? Why was a SWAT team sent out to arrest a guy whose sole crime was placing sports bets? Why are the cops now using tactics such as middle-of-the-night raids that were once viewed as the hallmark of a totalitarian nation?
Why in general? Trickledown 911 paranoia and a better armed and better informed criminal population.
Why are the tactics misused in specific cases? Bad judgement and arrogance on the part of specific individuals.
Is it a conspiracy? I doubt it.
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