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In A Cop Culture, The Bill Of Rights Doesn't Amount To Much
Submitted by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
Police officers are more likely to be struck by lightning than be held financially accountable for their actions.—Law professor Joanna C. Schwartz (paraphrased)
“In a democratic society,” observed Oakland police chief Sean Whent, “people have a say in how they are policed.”
Unfortunately, if you can be kicked, punched, tasered, shot, intimidated, harassed, stripped, searched, brutalized, terrorized, wrongfully arrested, and even killed by a police officer, and that officer is never held accountable for violating your rights and his oath of office to serve and protect, never forced to make amends, never told that what he did was wrong, and never made to change his modus operandi, then you don’t live in a constitutional republic.
You live in a police state.
It doesn’t even matter that “crime is at historic lows and most cities are safer than they have been in generations, for residents and officers alike,” as the New York Times reports.
What matters is whether you’re going to make it through a police confrontation alive and with your health and freedoms intact. For a growing number of Americans, those confrontations do not end well.
As David O. Brown, the Dallas chief of police, noted: “Sometimes it seems like our young officers want to get into an athletic event with people they want to arrest. They have a ‘don’t retreat’ mentality. They feel like they’re warriors and they can’t back down when someone is running from them, no matter how minor the underlying crime is.”
Making matters worse, in the cop culture that is America today, the Bill of Rights doesn’t amount to much. Unless, that is, it’s the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights (LEOBoR), which protects police officers from being subjected to the kinds of debilitating indignities heaped upon the average citizen.
Most Americans, oblivious about their own rights, aren’t even aware that police officers have their own Bill of Rights. Yet at the same time that our own protections against government abuses have been reduced to little more than historic window dressing, 14 states have already adopted LEOBoRs—written by police unions and being considered by many more states and Congress—which provides police officers accused of a crime with special due process rights and privileges not afforded to the average citizen.
In other words, the LEOBoR protects police officers from being treated as we are treated during criminal investigations: questioned unmercifully for hours on end, harassed, harangued, browbeaten, denied food, water and bathroom breaks, subjected to hostile interrogations, and left in the dark about our accusers and any charges and evidence against us.
Not only are officers given a 10-day “cooling-off period” during which they cannot be forced to make any statements about the incident, but when they are questioned, it must be “for a reasonable length of time, at a reasonable hour, by only one or two investigators (who must be fellow policemen), and with plenty of breaks for food and water.”
According to investigative journalist Eli Hager, the most common rights afforded police officers accused of wrongdoing are as follows:
- If a department decides to pursue a complaint against an officer, the department must notify the officer and his union.
- The officer must be informed of the complainants, and their testimony against him, before he is questioned.
- During questioning, investigators may not harass, threaten, or promise rewards to the officer, as interrogators not infrequently do to civilian suspects.
- Bathroom breaks are assured during questioning.
- In Maryland, the officer may appeal his case to a “hearing board,” whose decision is binding, before a final decision has been made by his superiors about his discipline. The hearing board consists of three of the suspected offender’s fellow officers.
- In some jurisdictions, the officer may not be disciplined if more than a certain number of days (often 100) have passed since his alleged misconduct, which limits the time for investigation.
- Even if the officer is suspended, the department must continue to pay salary and benefits, as well as the cost of the officer’s attorney.
It’s a pretty sweet deal if you can get it, I suppose: protection from the courts, immunity from wrongdoing, paid leave while you’re under investigation, and the assurance that you won’t have to spend a dime of your own money in your defense. And yet these LEOBoR epitomize everything that is wrong with America today.
Once in a while, the system appears to work on the side of justice, and police officers engaged in wrongdoing are actually charged for abusing their authority and using excessive force against American citizens.
Yet even in these instances, it’s still the American taxpayer who foots the bill.
For example, Baltimore taxpayers have paid roughly $5.7 million since 2011 over lawsuits stemming from police abuses, with an additional $5.8 million going towards legal fees. If the six Baltimore police officers charged with the death of Freddie Gray are convicted, you can rest assured it will be the Baltimore taxpayers who feel the pinch.
New York taxpayers have shelled out almost $1,130 per year per police officer (there are 34,500 officers in the NYPD) to address charges of misconduct. That translates to $38 million every year just to clean up after these so-called public servants.
Over a 10-year-period, Oakland, Calif., taxpayers were made to cough up more than $57 million (curiously enough, the same amount as the city’s deficit back in 2011) in order to settle accounts with alleged victims of police abuse.
Chicago taxpayers were asked to pay out nearly $33 million on one day alone to victims of police misconduct, with one person slated to receive $22.5 million, potentially the largest single amount settled on any one victim. The City has paid more than half a billion dollars to victims over the course of a decade. The Chicago City Council actually had to borrow $100 million just to pay off lawsuits arising over police misconduct in 2013. The city’s payout for 2014 was estimated to be in the same ballpark, especially with cases pending such as the one involving the man who was reportedly sodomized by a police officer’s gun in order to force him to “cooperate.”
Over 78% of the funds paid out by Denver taxpayers over the course of a decade arose as a result of alleged abuse or excessive use of force by the Denver police and sheriff departments. Meanwhile, taxpayers in Ferguson, Missouri, are being asked to pay $40 million in compensation—more than the city’s entire budget—for police officers treating them “‘as if they were war combatants,’ using tactics like beating, rubber bullets, pepper spray, and stun grenades, while the plaintiffs were peacefully protesting, sitting in a McDonalds, and in one case walking down the street to visit relatives.”
That’s just a small sampling of the most egregious payouts, but just about every community—large and small—feels the pinch when it comes to compensating victims who have been subjected to deadly or excessive force by police.
The ones who rarely ever feel the pinch are the officers accused or convicted of wrongdoing, “even if they are disciplined or terminated by their department, criminally prosecuted, or even imprisoned.” Indeed, a study published in the NYU Law Review reveals that 99.8% of the monies paid in settlements and judgments in police misconduct cases never come out of the officers’ own pockets, even when state laws require them to be held liable. Moreover, these officers rarely ever have to pay for their own legal defense.
For instance, law professor Joanna C. Schwartz references a case in which three Denver police officers chased and then beat a 16-year-old boy, stomping “on the boy’s back while using a fence for leverage, breaking his ribs and causing him to suffer kidney damage and a lacerated liver.” The cost to Denver taxpayers to settle the lawsuit: $885,000. The amount the officers contributed: 0.
Kathryn Johnston, 92 years old, was shot and killed during a SWAT team raid that went awry. Attempting to cover their backs, the officers falsely claimed Johnston’s home was the site of a cocaine sale and went so far as to plant marijuana in the house to support their claim. The cost to Atlanta taxpayers to settle the lawsuit: $4.9 million. The amount the officers contributed: 0.
Meanwhile, in Albuquerque, a police officer was convicted of raping a woman in his police car, in addition to sexually assaulting four other women and girls, physically abusing two additional women, and kidnapping or falsely imprisoning five men and boys. The cost to the Albuquerque taxpayers to settle the lawsuit: $1,000,000. The amount the officer contributed: 0.
Human Rights Watch notes that taxpayers actually pay three times for officers who repeatedly commit abuses: “once to cover their salaries while they commit abuses; next to pay settlements or civil jury awards against officers; and a third time through payments into police ‘defense’ funds provided by the cities.”
Still, the number of times a police officer is actually held accountable for wrongdoing while on the job is miniscule compared to the number of times cops are allowed to walk away with little more than a slap on the wrist.
A large part of the problem can be chalked up to influential police unions and laws providing for qualified immunity, not to mention these Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights laws, which allow officers to walk away without paying a dime for their wrongdoing.
Another part of the problem is rampant cronyism among government bureaucrats: those deciding whether a police officer should be immune from having to personally pay for misbehavior on the job all belong to the same system, all with a vested interest in protecting the police and their infamous code of silence: city and county attorneys, police commissioners, city councils and judges.
Most of all, what we’re dealing with is systemic corruption that protects wrongdoing and recasts it in a noble light. However, there is nothing noble about government agents who kick, punch, shoot and kill defenseless individuals. There is nothing just about police officers rendered largely immune from prosecution for wrongdoing. There is nothing democratic about the word of a government agent being given greater weight in court than that of the average citizen. And no good can come about when the average citizen has no real means of defense against a system that is weighted in favor of government bureaucrats.
So if you want a recipe for disaster, this is it: Take police cadets, train them in the ways of war, dress and equip them for battle, teach them to see the people they serve not as human beings but as suspects and enemies, and then indoctrinate them into believing that their main priority is to make it home alive at any cost. While you’re at it, spend more time drilling them on how to use a gun (58 hours) and employ defensive tactics (49 hours) than on how to calm a situation before resorting to force (8 hours).
Then, once they’re hyped up on their own authority and the power of the badge and their gun, throw in a few court rulings suggesting that security takes precedence over individual rights, set it against a backdrop of endless wars and militarized law enforcement, and then add to the mix a populace distracted by entertainment, out of touch with the workings of their government, and more inclined to let a few sorry souls suffer injustice than challenge the status quo or appear unpatriotic.
That’s not to discount the many honorable police officers working thankless jobs across the country in order to serve and protect their fellow citizens, but there can be no denying that, as journalist Michael Daly acknowledges, there is a troublesome “cop culture that tends to dehumanize or at least objectify suspected lawbreakers of whatever race. The instant you are deemed a candidate for arrest, you become not so much a person as a ‘perp.’”
Older cops are equally troubled by this shift in how police are being trained to view Americans—as things, not people. Daly had a veteran police officer join him to review the video footage of 43-year-old Eric Garner crying out and struggling to breathe as cops held him in a chokehold. (In yet another example of how the legal system and the police protect their own, no police officers were charged for Garner’s death.) Daly describes the veteran officer’s reaction to the footage, which as Daly points out, “constitutes a moral indictment not so much of what the police did but of what the police did not do”:
“I don’t see anyone in that video saying, ‘Look, we got to ease up,’” says the veteran officer. “Where’s the human side of you in that you’ve got a guy saying, ‘I can’t breathe?’” The veteran officer goes on, “Somebody needs to say, ‘Stop it!’ That’s what’s missing here was a voice of reason. The only voice we’re hearing is of Eric Garner.” The veteran officer believes Garner might have survived had anybody heeded his pleas. “He could have had a chance,” says the officer, who is black. “But you got to believe he’s a human being first. A human being saying, ‘I can’t breathe.’”
As I point out in my new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, when all is said and done, the various problems we’re facing today—militarized police, police shootings of unarmed people, the electronic concentration camp being erected around us, SWAT team raids, etc.—can be attributed to the fact that our government and its agents have ceased to see us as humans first.
Then again, perhaps we are just as much to blame for this sorry state of affairs. After all, if we want to be treated like human beings—with dignity and worth—then we need to start treating those around us in the same manner. As Martin Luther King Jr. warned in a speech given exactly one year to the day before he was killed: “We must rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘person-oriented’ society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
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Arrest Hillary Clinton......
ten more will just pop up..........maybe not as ugly......but just as malignant
black criminality is has and will always be the only problem.
THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK
- In legal terms the United States of America is currently in a State of War: Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) -- http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-107publ40/pdf/PLAW-107publ40.pdf
- During times of war and under the grounds of National Security, the Executive Branch is granted extraordinary powers to govern by decree if necessary; therefore, constitutional rights can be suspended at any given time and without notice if the government deems imperative.
martial law (mahr-sh;}l). (1933) l. The law by which during wartime the army, instead of civil authority, governs the country because of a perceived need for military security or public safety. - The military assumes control purportedly until civil authority can be restored. 2. A body of firm, strictly enforced rules that are imposed because of a perception by the country's rulers that civil government has failed, or might fail, to function. Martial law is usu. imposed when the rulers foresee an invasion, insurrection, economic collapse, or other breakdown of the rulers' desired social order. Black's Law Dictionary Ninth Edition
sedition, n. (l4c) 1. An agreement, communication, or other preliminary activity aimed at inciting treason or some lesser commotion against public authority. 2. Advocacy aimed at inciting or producing - and likely to incite or produce - imminent lawless action. Black's Law Dictionary Ninth Edition
18 U.S. Code Chapter 115 - TREASON, SEDITION, AND SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES -- https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/part-I/chapter-115
- During times of war and under the grounds of National Security, any form of dissent can be associated to Sedition and the subsequent ground(s) for Insurrection; thus individuals who advocate seditious activities will be tried under the Military Tribunal system. Read the contents of the U.S. Code: Title 50 - WAR AND NATIONAL DEFENSE, placing emphasis on CHAPTER 13—INSURRECTION (§§ 201 to 204–226) -- https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/chapter-13
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/fifth_amendment
- During times of war and under the grounds of National Security, compulsory internment of certain US Citizens and Aliens living in Continental United States and overseas possessions into designated military areas is LEGAL. Executive Order 9066 is a historical precedence for this case and these types of actions carried out by the Executive Branch are non-reviewable by the courts. -- http://www.ourdocuments.gov/print_friendly.php?page=transcript&doc=74&ti...
Read also Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944): http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=323&invol=214
18 U.S. Code § 1385 - Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatus
Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1385
posse comitatus, n. (Latin "power of the county") (16c) A group of citizens who are called together to help the sheriff keep the peace or conduct rescue operations. Black's Law Dictionary Ninth Edition
joint resolution. (17c) A legislative resolution passed by both houses. It has the force of law and is subject to executive veto. Black's Law Dictionary Ninth Edition
Actions taken under the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which is a Joint Resolution, are exempted from the Posse Comitatus Act
50 U.S. Code Chapter 33 - WAR POWERS RESOLUTION
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/chapter-33
The Global War on Terrorism is broad in scope and not restricted by jurisdictional boundaries.
Bureaucrats write themselves a lot of laws, don't they? And politicians think their job is to create endless exceptions to the rules imposed on them.
The Constitution was a plan for tyranny right from the start.
All of these blatant communists everywhere. I bet they are all good college graduates as well.
Here is a very far out etymology twist for anyone interested enough.
There is a reason why PO words all precede words that imply control or the ability to control.
POlitics
POlice
POlemic
POwer
There is a reason the PO is so close to the old Chi Roh symbol from Greece.
POLE-ICE ------They will stop you cold everytime....
The words have it.....Etymology:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTot6Wcz3-g
I guess the lesson is, when the police tell you to stop you better not run.
But most law abiding citizens would not run, why should they?
Hey as an aside, I know of a blog out in the ether. It's run by the USSA federal government but they conceal their identities. They have this agenda to undermine the trust that American citizens have in local law enforcement so that they can police the USSA from the federal level.
Sick fucks, they are.
Poaster Toaster is correct.
Good to see there are some that do not Patrio-nize their predators.
The CONstitution was written by, for, and of The People. Note the capitalization. That ain't you folks.
You are "CITIZENS."
You have PRIVILEGES.
The "Bill of Rights" is a bill of goods.
Don't believe me? Go read the CONstitution, and find the first mention of CITIZEN. That is the point the document applies to you.
The CONstitution applies to CONgress.
It was written after the traitorous d-bag George "I couldn't win a battle against a three year old" Washington decided to show that the new boss was indeed the same as the old boss, and crushed Daniel Shays' legitimate uprising.
Dan had a funny notion that 25,000 colonists had just died to throw of the yoke of unjust taxation. How ridiculous, right?
It's always been like this, just took a while for the gilding to rub off the turd.
I guess as long as you think you are free, and that you have a voice, it proves the slave-system works.
When those cops blew up that baby in Georgia the boss said "the officers followed procedure." They always say that but it never occurs to them that there shouldn't be a "blow up the baby" procedure in the manual to begin with.
Apparently some really are really MORE equal than others...
Like Hitlery?
All this and still not a GOD DAMNED FUCKING WORD about the illegal, totally unconstitutional 'John Doe warrants' served in Wisconsin. Not a fucking word from the Tylers.
I think I've been around ZH long enough that most know I'm not a total nut or even much of a conspiracy theorist, to be honest. But if you want to know what REAL state-sponsored police-state oppression looks like, this would be it. Scared the shit out of me and I don't scare easy.
What's so chilling is that it could happen anywhere (and probably is as I write this) and nobody will even talk about it. Not even fringe blogs like ZH that pretend to be interested in reporting this kind of stuff.
Please explain?
Straight out of 1937 Nazi Germany:
http://watchdog.org/156017/john-doe-fourth-amendment-warrants/
Jebus Fucking Christos!!
How many police were shot?
Yeah. Like that. See what I mean?
Welcome to Robocop world gone wild...
The Bill of Rights exits the barrel of the Second Ammendment . The libtards cannot fuck with us. Think about that.
Fuck the Police.
Ah, that feels better.
Libtards? How about Republi-tards? Or Tard-tards? Do you honestly think "the other side of the aisle" is the problem?
There is only one tard - the super human strength tard. The "don't touch my pop tart" guy who accidentally rips your arm off.
But afterwards - he says "my bad' I mistakenly thought you really, really wanted my pop tart. Here, please take your arm back.
But what would you do for a Klondike Bar?
Idiocracy was actually a documentary.
Idiocracy
2006 R 87 mins
Two average Americans -- an Army private and a prostitute -- are sent to the year 2505 after a series of freak events. But when they arrive, they find a civilization so dumbed-down that they're the smartest people around.
http://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Idiocracy/70028899
They're part of the same banking cartel. Do you hear me pitching for Jeb Bush? Just a conservative republican looking for someone not involved in a dynasty.
STOP with the CONstitution worship.
It is not for The Public. It is not for the Subjects ("Citizens").
It is for The (chosen) People.
For instance, the 2nd Amendment says "...the right of the People (capitalized) to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
Says nothing about the right of citizens to keep and bear Firearms(TM). "Firearms" is a "word of art," a product that is the property and domain of the ATF, Inc., which gives them oversight and control over anything called a "firearm."
If you "Buy" a gun from a "gun store," you just leased it from the ATF, Inc. They have perfected title to it, you have beneficial title. It's why they can "buy them back."
You are PERMITTED the PRIVILEGE to caretake (some) Firearms(TM) (unless you aren't) until your OwnerLords decide they don't like you having them. Sound like a right? Or a privilege? The "2nd Amendment," if it applied, would be binary. Either it applies, in totality, or it doesn't.
Does anyone THINK anymore?
Because if you still identify with either "party," you are, as a previous poster said, a 'tard. Especially since you simply consent to the outcome of elections, not choose the winners.
The CONstitution made the current situation possible. It was a parchment Judas Goat.
CONgress steals your natural rights, then sells them back to you in the form of privileges, and the lickspittle parti-tards lap it up and fight the "other team."
If you like it, continue cheerleading it. If you want something else, it will require a higher level of thought (NOT HARD) than what got us into this mess in the first place.
The USA has turned to shit. The 2nd amendment is the last standing .
The no monkey gun zone proves the point. Take away all guns so we can tear down our community to receive more Government Aid.
That's it Folks.
Yes, Mr John Whitehead. Lawyer. Representative of the Bar.
He sounds good but in the end may not have our best interests at heart. I remain unpersuaded. Has he renounced his membership with the provacatour class.
Pied Piper. Buyer beware.
Nope.
Neither has Barry (Attorney, Senator, Executive), Hitlery (Attorney, Senator, ex-and potential future Executive), Kerry (Attorney, Senator, Sec. State), gee, MOST of the politicians are at least two flavors...what was that about separation of powers again?
http://personalliberty.com/an-interactive-map-that-tracks-botched-police...
Older (wiser) LEOs should take responsibility for and work to destroy this new brand of inferior 'LEO Extremist' the same way average every day Muslims should take responsibility for terrorism in the name of Islam i.e. Radical Islamists. I find the similarity sadly ironic.
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=muslims+against+terrorism
Older LEOs won't turn. Their pensions mean more to them than what's right.
No, older wiser LEO's should arrest those that are perpetrating the actual genocide- the corporate council attorneys that set the policies for the departments, on up the chain.
The cops are being thrown under the bus as scapegoats (which does not excuse their behavior when they harm an innocent).
The problem is that the laws in America have laws. Most of which have no relation to our constitution. You can kind of own a home, if you pay your taxes and don't build a fence or paint it in a way that doesn't jibe with the local ordinances. The damn cops will be half way up your ass for just about everything that makes you feel free.
I don't know why any rational person would downvote this comment.
I agree. Here's what happened to a white guy in Utah who had the audacity to burn an old Christmas tree in a barrel in his backyard. Neighbors called 911, cops show up and this guy gets fucked.
3 minutes from the blue hero body cam. Note near the end when officer hero visits the criminal in the hospital and how he acts, as well as his two comrades.
If this doesn't disgust you and wake you up the fact that you have no rights when the popo are on scene, then you're (not you millivanilli --directed at your downvoters) a goddamned fucking idiot:
https://youtu.be/5Ds1Z_-pdpI
They hate us for our freedom and work tirelessly every day to take it away.
DEA to traveler: Thanks, I’ll take that cashhttp://www.abqjournal.com/580107/news/dea-agents-seize-16000-from-aspiri...
"Over a 10-year-period, Oakland, Calif., taxpayers were made to cough up more than $57 million (curiously enough, the same amount as the city’s deficit back in 2011) in order to settle accounts with alleged victims of police abuse."
From "The True Face of Occupy Wall Street" in Oakland by Rick Moran:
"The occupy movement in Oakland was originally warmly embraced by city authorities, including Mayor Jean Quan who spoke glowingly of the movement’s objectives and even gave city employees time off to attend protests that shut down the Port of Oakland last fall after the demonstrators threatened violence against port employees. But as the weeks dragged on and the encampment in front of City Hall turned into a haven for crime and rats, draining the city’s budget and tying up police, Quan attempted to edge away from the increasingly violent occupation by forcing the closing of the tent city. This resulted in another riot and harsh criticism from other officials and the local media.
More than 400 Occupy Wall Street protesters in Oakland were arrested after a wild night of violence, vandalism, and confrontations with police. “Officers were pelted with bottles, metal pipe, rocks, spray cans, improvised explosive devices and burning flares,” reports the New York Times. The rioters also broke into historic Oakland City Hall, smashing display cases, spray painting graffiti on the walls, cutting electrical wires, and with the crowd chanting “Burn it! Burn it!” set fire to an American flag. City authorities estimate that damages to city property amounts to about $5 million since the protests began last October.
The transformation of the occupy movement from protest to “direct action” — the preferred tactic of the European Communist Left for generations — is nearly complete. There can be no sniveling denials from OWS apologists any more: The driving force behind the OWS movement — the goal of those who control the streets — is a Marxist revolution."
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/rick-moran/the-true-face-of-occupy-wall...
People aren't supposed to be policed.
It is all about the "20%-ers".
True, the country is effectively controlled by the 0.001% -the one in one hundred thousand- or about 3,000 people. But these cannot control a country of more than 300 million people -and through them another 1 billion people around the world- without a strict hierarch of governors, administrators, supervisors and enforcers. Those persons make up the 20%, who are critical to maintaining the status quo.
The police are an important part of that hierarchy. They must believe that they are privileged to serve the interests of the status quo, and protected from repercussions that may arise from the performance of their duties. They must also be paid better than the people whom they are charged with repressing.
This article focuses on the police impunity and privilege. But such privileges and protections are common among our government-paid officials, employees and contractors to varying degrees. There is a similar set of hierarchies to be found in private organizations, as well.
I don't think that Thomas Jefferson was thinking much about the bloodshed and chaos that is the hallmark of every revolution, when he wrote that there should be a revolution evry 50 years or so. But he understood that a government left to itself will evolve into an oligarchy.
Short of bearing arme in the streets as part of anti-authority vigilante groups, perhaps communities could organize "police-stoppers" organizations, intead of "crime-stoppers".
Black groups frustrated by the lack of progress in the 60s tried to do just that and police their own communities. Look at how rabid and concentrated the reaction was from local law enforcement and nationally including COINTELPRO run by Hoover and the FBI.
Don't think the average American has any idea of just how difficult for a civilian to file and win a judgement against a policeman for brutality at the local level nor just how much cities are paying out annually. It gives you a really good idea that is a huge problem and it isn't just in a single city or two with high crime either.
Someone gave this comment a thumbs down? Likely one of 'niggers are the problem' folks who seem to constitute a pretty sizable minority here sadly. l
When 6% of the population (black males aged 16-49) of this country commits over half the violent crime in this country, then any rational person who isn't afraid of the truth will acknowledge there's a problem with blacks.
Racism is just a manifestation of the survival instinct in whites. Avoid the groid and you'll live a longer and happier life.
18 years on the ground in enemy territory (black majority) taught me that. As I was raised in a white area and taught that all races were equal, I had to learn it the hard way via a 3 on 1 beatdown. Subsequently I was never again caught in that trap but I saw other whites learn the same lesson many times.
I find it interesting that southerners for the most part, having lived around our special people most of their lives, understand this and it doesn't need to be said. It's the people who only see blacks on TV or they know that one black guy who acts white, that don't understand it and condemn those of us who know the score as ignorant or backward.
After they live here awhile they wake up, without exception.
So to those of you who would downvote me, I say in my best Price if Right voice "COME ON DOWN!" and get a taste of real racism for yourself. By that I mean anti-white racism which manifests itself as violence, not words or thoughts.
You have no clue.
Care to enlighten me with some of your wisdom? Dividing people by race and playing the race card is one of the easiest ways to skirt the real issue here.
Though I often find you offensive, I wasn't disagreeing with you. You have no idea.
"Diplomacy is war in slow motion." - Hitlery
Then there is war...
Due to my choices I have had to deal with a lot of lawyers. About half should be publicly skinned alive, slowly, dipped in salt and drawn and quartered, or whatever maximum death sentence is permitted in your culture. The test is simple: if 3 people can prove that a practitioner of law screwed them, kill it. The good lawyers, including non-practicing ones have no witnesses against them.
- Karl Marx - Critique of Hegel 1843
“Democracy! Bah! When I hear that I reach for my feather boa!”
- Allen Ginsberg
Did he flesh that out? Because it would seem to make no sense whatsoever. Democracy is a political construct and nothing else. It can only exist where there is a controlling elite.
When the Q99X2 take over the planet we promise to get rid of the trouble makers.
The conniving constitution is a document for a Helot people.
BASTA!!!
As we fall, if you are looking for perpetrators, those with a propensity or hard-wired to Control, you should spend less time on the lower-hanging fruit.
The true perpetrators in places of leadership (policing is not leadership) are loving every minute of your neglect.
Cops that fuck over can be fucked over
The problem arose in the pulpits of American churches.
Just wait until them Imams start sermonizing in all those mosques that are sprouting up around the country...
I once attended a service at a local Baptist church. At the beginning of the service, everyone stood and said the Pledge of Allegiance.
Having been to church at many different denominations throughout my life, including Baptist and never having seen that, it freaked me the fuck out.
1st Amendment? Most of the sheep in that building understood nothing about the Constitution.
They are the "AMERCIA FUCK YEAH!" crowd who will vote as they are told by their pastor (in the last election Romney got 85% of the vote in this county, as if he were some kind of real conservative).
Ignorant, superstitious, and dangerous is what they are. if the government collapes I have no doubt that the baptists will try to establish a Taliban-like theocracy here.
I will resist them as much as I would resist ISIS as they are not that different. Intolerant, superstitious, and ignorant to a man. But they do watch DWTS, Americans Idle, the National Feminist League, and they believe everything said by Fox news, which is inevitably on just about every TV I see in a public place.
And the worst part is that these nutjobs think they're patriotic Americans yet they have little understanding of American history or scientific fact.
No matter how ignorant of the political truth they are, when was the last time you saw a baptist kill someone for not converting or similar?
Criminal LEO Extremists hide behind the hard fought reputations of older wiser LEOs. Reputations that took decades are now being crushed by these new Thugs in Blue.
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Better than a gun. Better than knife, a club, or a 2x4 with a nail it.
GoPro Hero II!!
That's stiffens the cops up straighter and faster than a three peckered owl in a whorehouse on a Saturday night!
•?•
V-V
Make 'em sketchier than a long tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs!
This crap has been goingon forever.
Only the advent of cell phone cameras has exposed it.
It may not matter to them much, but it matters a lot to us Americans of the American country.
We don't care what they think of it, we demand that they adhere to it as well as their oaths; "It's the law."
We will be holding them accountable via this:
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court." -- Article 3, Section 3, of the Constitution
I am Witness One. Who will be Witness Two?
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
"Guillotines for treason."
The very first coercion of the police is the threat of violence under which you have to become a customer and pay their salary.
taxation is extortion
agents have ceased to see us as humans...
More to the point, those agents are predators.
That they are human predators is entirely irrelevant.
Give some average or below average plod an inch and they'll take a yard.
The reason plod behave the way they do is because they can.
They can because those scumbag banker paid up so called representatives in both houses USE plod as a first line of defense and calling plod out on their over aggressive behaviour could see that first line of defense disappear.
A small percentage of undesirables causing damage or engaged in criminal activity should not give plod licence for this overreach of brutality.
Where are the responsible plod in all of this, the commissioners and the like? Sitting having a 5 course lunch with those congress critters i bet.
Taxpayer-funded steroids for cops!
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/12/hundreds_of_nj_police_firefigh....
The City of Avon Park had a problem with police corruption and brutality. When the judgements started to bite into the city coffers, the city council fired the whole damn department. Guess what; the city did not go up in flames. Home invasions did not rip it apart. Instead the city is without police. The Sherriff’s office has a presence but the real constraint lies in the fact that the body politic is well armed and vigilant. Look at the number of concealed carry permits in Florida and you might get a clue.
Author seemed to purposefully avoid few other wider problems. Police brutality not only destroys civility of local communities all over the US but most of all has become an internal culture of mafia like family, consisting of limited number multigenerational, military or police force trained individuals, detached complete from society at large and that includes black officers.
The "family" loyalty transcends any laws or even basic morality as extended to anyone but their own. The loyalty is everything that matters, nothing else, the amount of brutality perpetrated on citizenry right or wrong, or level of corruption or exploitation and wealth stemming from these activities are badges of honor in this “secret” society of so-called law enforces, especially in true paramilitary organizations like LAPD or NYPD.
This pseudo morality often turns police officers against themselves, rampant intimidation, threats, brutality and even sometimes murder against their fellow officers, perceived as weak, considerate, gentle, caring or humane or their fellow women officers including rape and assault and battery are all too common and serve to keep anyone who objects to cruel rules of “family” silenced. Unheard of even decades ago murders within police or law enforcement families of one police officer by another starting to come to view due to civilian families efforts despite hard push to suppress them by police management and the MSM.
When a wife, police officer herself, dragged her husband, a police officer quarter mile under the victims truck and would not stop, what we could hear was not otherwise 100% sure scenarios broadcasted all over by a police lieutenant telling us who was good guy and who was bad guy two hours of the crime, in this case there was only silence and no comment, respect for “family”. Police scandals all over US such LAPD Rampart division, involving drugs, money and murder and abuse of power show just a sliver of what is going on.
The police organization as they have become now, constitute formidable force able to threaten not only poor and destitute but also civilian authorities in many cities or counties, but constitute serious threat to constitutional order and every politician knows about it.
Incidents like arrest of Indian diplomat in NYC which resulted in serious rout between US and India and cancellation of multibillion dollar arms deal are just a top of iceberg of what influence police mafia has now, armed like military brigades including even some navy and air force.
Some police department pursuit separate from the feds foreign policies and holding foreign offices collaborating in operations including “black sites” on US territory or outside without Feds authorizations often together with US listed terrorist states or organizations or their supporters and paid by often secret and/or suspicious foreign sources. Everything goes, rent-a-cop ads are running in many foreign countries.
While civil society deteriorates due to economic collapse, Washington political inaptitude and lack of any kind of political representation of interests of 90% of society in structures of power, military, prison and police organization gained undue, unconstitutional influence on the state and society in political and economical dimensions often securing right to economical benefits from their dutiful services to society in form of material forfeiture, or stake in other economical or financial activities beyond budgetary financing.
Law enforcement officers often are offered special financial deals or economic investment opportunities in attempt to keep then on “leash” and co-opt them into banksters schemes of programmatic devastation of US economy and society.
Every US citizen is obliged by law to defend constitutional order doesn’t matter from where the threat comes event if it comes from those who suppose to maintain it.
Some interesting ideas about desperately needed true regime change can be found at:
https://contrarianopinion.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/regime-change-we-can-...
Like wrestling, the courts are theater, which supports its actors. The police/prosecutor/judge industrial complex protects its own. Stupid sheeple cheer for the police and prosecutors actors wearing smiling masks and boo and convict the dragooned non-actor sheeple wearing sad masks.
A good juror trusts nothing the police/prosecutor/judge complex says and goes beyond to nullify laws which abuse. http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/23929-jury-nullification-why-every...
We had freedom of the press, because juries nullified laws. http://uscivilliberties.org/themes/4730-zenger-trial-1735.html
Once America had men.
The two NYC cops executed was business. Just based on the odds of that situation. When justice fails, as it continues to digress in this country, people have to be more and more ready to take the law into their own hands. The difference between vengeance and justice is a fine line.